Hands on with the Nokia Lumia 925 and Lumia 625

Our biggest gripe with the Lumia 920 was its size. Even though it sported a, now modest, 4.5-inch display, the handset felt ginormous in your hand due to the 5-element lens. Well, all that has been rectified with the Lumia 925. The successor is a lot slimmer and lighter to hold and the all-aluminium chassis feels wonderful. The phone also feels a lot smaller to hold and it’s a welcome change from the 5-inch and above behemoths that are become a norm in the high-end segment.

So what’s changed? Well, apart from an all-new housing, the 4.5-inch display is now AMOLED and not IPS. It’s tough to say if this is better than the 920 as it packed in a pretty mean IPS display but the black levels are quite impressive and so is the sensitivity. There are the usual array of buttons all around similar to the Lumia 920. Memory expansion is sorely missed since the Lumia 925 has half the onboard storage as the Lumia 920 (only 16GB).

The Lumia 925 will ship with the Lumia Amber software update, which will be available for the rest of the Lumia devices as well right from the 520 to the 920. This brings with it slight performance enhancements but more notably new camera features like the Nokia Smart Camera and  Nokia Pro Cam which first made its debut on the Lumia 1020. The 925 has the same 8.7MP sensor as the 920 but Nokia has added a sixth lens to the array for supposed better day and night shots. We have some sample images for you from the demo units and they seem to be pretty good given the relatively low ambient light.

The 625 is quite a confusing handset as there are two other phones with very similar functionality and features above and beyond its price bracket. At 4.7-inches, it’s the largest in the family and despite the same WVGA resolution, it’s really hard to discern between individual pixels. However, it lacks the ClearBlack technology due to which the colours aren’t very impressive and appear a bit pale when compared to the 925. It’s roughly the same depth as the Lumia 720 but weighs quite a bit more like the Lumia 820. The heft is very noticeable as soon as you hold it. Just like the Lumia 620, the 625 also features removable covers and you can choose from some vibrant primary colours. 

The Lumia 625 is also more powerful than the 720 as it sports a slightly faster CPU. Sadly, you're still stuck with 512MB of RAM which is not a big deal for the UI but certain apps (games mostly) won’t even show up on the app store without 1GB of RAM. The 625 also loses the Carl Zeiss optics of the 720 and 820 so you’ll have to settle for a simple 5MP shooter.

The Lumia 925 seems like a worthy successor to the 920 and addresses its biggest shortcoming in style. The new handset looks premium and is what the 920 should have been in the first place. However, one would expect the successor to have all the features of its predecessor and more or at least do it better but that’s not the case here. The Lumia 925 is roughly Rs 3,000 more expensive than the 920 but for that extra money you end up with half the storage capacity and no wireless charging built-in. A price cut for the Lumia 920 seems unlikely as that would make it an even better buy since it’s got better specs and will be on par software-wise after the Amber update. The only way for the Lumia 925 to succeed would be to phase out the 920.

The Lumia 625 is another tough nut to crack. The handset launched for the same price as the Lumia 820, which despite its smaller screen, manages to have better specs and is due for the Amber update as well. However, the real conundrum is whether to save Rs 3,000 and go with the Lumia 720 instead? That’s something we’ll be able to answer only after our full review.