REVIEW( carried out by Tech-TG Team)
As competition heats up over which big-screen smartphone delivers the most bang for your buck, TG-Tech pits the latest Windows Phone and Android handsets, the Nokia Lumia 900 and the HTC One X, against each other.
Design and build
In terms of design, both handsets are unshamedly big, with the One X measuring in at 135x70x8.9mm and the Lumia 900 at 117x61x12.1mm.
When it comes to weight and screen size, the One X does have the edge.
Despite housing a larger 4.7in 1,280x720 pixels, 312ppi resolution display, the One X only weighs 130g. The Lumia 900 by comparison packs a 4.3in 800x480 Amoled display and weighs 160g.
Visually the two devices are about as different as you can get. The Lumia 900 has the same square edged, colourful unibody design seen on its predecessor the 800, while the One X has a more rounded, curvaceous design.
Picking which is prettier is difficult, though we found the One X to be slightly more comfortable in hand. This is largely due to the device's button placement. The One X has three physical buttons along its sides, and three capacitive buttons on its front.
The One X's power button is located at its top, while its volume control sits at the top of its right-hand side. Nokia's Lumia 900 has its physical buttons all located along its right-hand side.
The 900's volume control sits on its top right-hand side, with the power button sitting just below. At the very bottom the device also has a camera button. We aren't very fond of the 900's power button placement, with its central position making it all too easy to accidentally press when using the phone.
In terms of ports neither device is particularly generous, both only featuring micro-USB and 3.5mm headphone inputs.
Winner: The One X
The HTC One X manages to remain lighter than the Nokia 900 while packing a bigger screen.
Performance
In terms of performance it's pretty clear cut. The Lumia 900 runs on Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system, which still doesn't have multi-chip processor support. This means that the 900 runs on a 1.4GHz single-core processor backed up by 512MB RAM. This compares to the One X which runs on a muscular 1.5GHz quad-core chip backed up by 1GB of RAM.
This means the One X is insanely fast, currently being in our mind the quickest smartphone on market - though it's important to note that there isn't currently too much need for quad-core technology in smartphones. Apart from a handful of games there aren't that many apps or services that really require a quad-core processor to work.
Winner: The One X
Packing quad-core technology, the One X outperforms the Lumia 900.
Operating system
The biggest difference between the One X and the Lumia 900 are the two devices' operating sytems (OS).
The Lumia 900 runs on Windows Phone's Mango operating system (OS) while the One X runs using Google's latest Ice Cream Sandwich OS.
Mango uses Microsoft's Metro titled interface, which we believe is significantly more intuitive for new smartphone users than Android's daunting widget-heavy display.
The OS also packs some nice social features, with its People hub letting users centralise their social network accounts into one central information source, meaning you can quickly see all your contacts Facebook and Twitter activity on one screen.
That said, Windows Phone isn't without its flaws, with the OS still housing significantly fewer apps than Android and charging more for the precious few it does have.
Another major annoyance is the fact you actually need to have Zune to connect the device to a PC, a problem as Zune really isn't pleasant to use.
The One X also has its share of annoyances, thanks largely because HTC has loaded its own Sense 4.0 user interface onto it changing pretty much every element of ICS.
Sense adds a host of new animations and widgets to the ICS, which all add up to make the UI feel a little cluttered.
The custom UI is also guilty of several other small annoyances, like having to specify you want to allow access to the disk drive, after already clicking the connect button when linking the device to a PC.
Winner: Tie
Both operating systems have their strengths and weaknesses.
Battery and storage
The One X packs an 1,800 mAh battery while the Lumia 900 packs a slightly larger 1,830mAh component.
Neither device's battery life is particularly impressive, though of the two the Lumia 900 shades it. The One X's battery life is its worst feature, sometimes lasting as little as six hours with normal 3G use. The Lumia 900 by comparison regularly lasts a full day off one charge.
In terms of storage the two are fairly identical, both packing 16GB of internal storage. Neither feature a micro-SD card slot, meaning that you won't be able to expand the devices' storage.
Winner: The Lumia 900
Neither devices' batteries are particularly good, though the 900 is slightly better.
Camera
Both the One X and Lumia 900 feature an 8MP rear-facing and 1.3MP front-facing camera.
Even though the two devices have the same specifications on paper, during our tests the One X consistently outperformed the Lumia 900, with its photos having better colour balance and being far crisper.
This is mainly thanks to the One X's upgraded camera components, with the device including a new image chip, f2.0 aperture, 28mm lens and backside-illuminated sensor to improve snapping in low light, autofocus and LED flash.
HTC has also tweaked the camera's software, so that the One X can shoot in rapid bursts, taking up to 99 continuous pictures holding down the device's shutter button and allowing you to take photos while recording video - which the device can shoot at full HD 1080p.
Winner: The One X
The Lumia 900 doesn't do the basics nearly as well with the One X, with its photos regularly appearing washed out.
Overall winner: The One X
At £500(#125,00), the One X is slightly more expensive than the Lumia 900 which sells for around £450(#112,500). But this is offest by the number of perks you get for the extra £50(12,500), including a quad-core processor, lighter more user-friendly design and a significantly better camera.
For these reasons we have to say that unless you're particularly interested in trying out Microsoft's Windows Phone OS, the HTC One X is currently the best large handset on the market. Though this may change this week when Samsung releases its new Galaxy S3 handset.
Check back with TG-Tech later in the week for a full Galaxy S3 review.
