Nokia Lumia 920 comes back to our office, promises to stay for a full review this time

A couple of weeks back, we gave you a hands on of the new Windows Phone-powered Nokia flagship, the Lumia 920 for AT&T. Back then however the phone was delivered to one of our US offices and not to our HQ, so we were unable to do a proper review complete with all our trademark tests. And since we felt that a smartphone of this stature deserved better, we decided to wait until we receive the international version. The waiting is finally over, though and we’ll now do our best to give you the review as quickly as possible.

You can be sure we’ll be doing all of our traditional tests (plus some exclusive to this review like an optical stabilization test), and comparing every aspect of the Nokia Lumia 920 to the likes of the Apple iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S III.

Starting off with its most prominent feature, the Nokia Lumia 920 features a gorgeous 4.5″ PureMotion HD+ touchscreen of 768 x 1280 pixels resolution, covered by Gorilla Glass 2. The image quality of the display is quite impressive at first sight and it might just be worth all the hype.

The display is impressive

This time around, our Nokia Lumia 920 came in a matte black paintjob, and the surface covering the back is impervious to smudges. It features a unibody design with a non-removable back panel, with slots only for a microSIM, 3.5mm headphone jack, and USB charging/connectivity.

The matte finish is highly resistant to fingerprints

While the smartphonee is pleasing to the touch thanks to the high quality polycarbonate employed, it’s also one of the heaviest smartphones around. At 185 grams, it definitely feels solid in-hand, but we’ll have to see how comfortable it is for carrying around in your pocket. The extra weight is due largely to the 8.7 MP camera lens with Carl Zeiss optics, which features the floating lens technology for optical (instead of the digital tricks most competitors do) image stabilization.

The Lumia 920 is hefty in-hand

Size-wise, the Lumia is above average, even for the high-end class. It has roughly the same dimensions as the Samsung Galaxy S III, but is thicker at 10.7mm.

The Lumia 920 next to the Samsung Galaxy S III and Nokia Lumia 800

The Windows Phone 8 OS is mostly the same as what you’ll on most devices running the newest version of Microsoft’s mobile OS, with the addition of a few Nokia exclusives. The most prominent of those being additional camera lenses (that’s WP8 for camera apps), Nokia City Lens and Mix Radio, and, of course, Nokia’s proprietary Drive and Maps apps, which replace the ones provided by Microsoft. Check out the following video for a quick overview of the OS, as well as a brief unboxing of the retail package.

Stick around for our full review! Meanwhile feel free to post any question you might have about the smartphone in the comments section below and we’ll do our best to answer it when we publish the review.