First metal Lumia gets it right

The good: Nokia's Lumia 925 has a sleek, slim, partially aluminum build. Its camera takes great shots, especially in low light conditions, and the LTE smartphone comes in at an affordable price.

The bad: The Lumia 925 is a little wide and squat, and sharp corners diminish handheld comfort. T-Mobile's version has 16GB of storage instead of 32GB.

The bottom line: Nokia's lovely Lumia 925 delivers a high-end Windows Phone experience, but camera snobs with deep pockets should hold out for AT&T's Lumia 1020.

Of the three phones in Nokia's U.S. Lumia 920 lineup -- the Nokia Lumia 925 for T-Mobile, 920 for AT&T, and 928 for Verizon -- T-Mobile's 925 has the best hardware, hands down.

Slimmer than the rest, it's also made with premium aluminum elements and has a tight fit and finish that approaches the pristine finesse of HTC's One. Nokia pumps up the buttoned-up feel by backing off the Lumia's screaming colors and muting the palette to white, black, and gray -- T-Mobile has it in white. A few design quibbles chip away at the effect, like edges that seem sharp despite the phone's curved spines.

A competent camera with terrific low-light performance backs up the rakish design of this global flagship, which has the same OS and apps as the other Lumia 920 phones. Unfortunately for it, the 925's stay at the top is short-lived and already overshadowed by AT&T's forthcoming Lumia 1020 and its 41-megapixel camera. Still, T-Mobile customers should feel smug with this great-looking Windows 8 phone, which costs $49.99 down and $529.99 all in.

The lovely Nokia Lumia 925's metal design (pictures)

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                                       Design and build

Silvery aluminum trim frames the 925 in the first Lumia to use metal, but the matte plastic backing lashes it to the Lumia family of unibody polycarbonate phones. The design looks good: slim (0.33 inch thick) and clean with very few gaps, and black bands on the spines for accent.

The deep-black glossy screen looks lush and deep; and on the right, aluminum buttons that control volume, power/lock, and the camera button pop out to meet probing fingers. When I hold the phone, its wider dimensions -- 5.1 inches tall by 2.8 inches wide stretch across -- can make the buttons stick out into the hand, even though I like that they're not flush. Unlike the HTC One, the 925's back doesn't bow enough to curve into your palm, so it doesn't feel quite as snug.

Nokia's metal Lumia 925 is a looker.

I did notice that the white version picked up smudges and discoloration on the back panel, but the schmutz usually rubbed away with a little water and a little muscle.

At 4.9 ounces, the 925 is substantially weighty, not wispy. The phone is a little wide for some pockets, but toss it into a deep pocket or a purse and it's just as portable as any superphone.

Like the other 920 series phones, the 925 has a 4.5 inch WXGA screen with a 1,280x768-pixel resolution. It has the ClearBlack filter for reducing outdoor glare, Gorilla Glass 2 for scratch resistance, and a sensitive touch screen you can navigate with long fingernails or gloves. The AMOLED screen technology means colors pop bright and blacks look rich and deep. Microsoft's graphical Windows Phone design looks great in this treatment, and so do photos, videos, games, and images on Web sites.

Nokia grouped the ports at the top to keep the left spine and bottom clear. Volume, power, and camera controls live on the right.

Below the display, Windows Phone's three capacitive buttons handle navigation and pull up extra tools, like voice search and task-switching. Above it, you'll find the front-facing camera. Nokia has been making phones for so long, it's a little disappointing that the 925 and other Lumias lack an indicator light on the front to clue you into charging status and alerts.

Keeping it classy, the 925 groups its headset, charging, and Micro-SIM card ports up top. On the back, the stylized camera module pops out slightly, topped by a dual-LED flash.

OS and features
Running Windows Phone 8, the 925's software doesn't deviate from the other Lumia phones. There's NFC support, Bluetooth 3.0 (which could soon turn into Bluetooth 4.0), and the whole host of connectivity and OS features.

One difference from the 920 and 928 is that there's no integrated wireless charging, which is part of what makes this phone slimmer around the midsection. Instead, you can purchase an aftermarket snap-on cover, which does come in screaming colors if you miss them.

On the apps front, Nokia continues to give its phones an edge with the OS, offering up a heap of Nokia-only apps and services, like Music Mix radio. Its Here maps app just recently made the jump to all Windows phones, not just Nokia's. You can find more details on Nokia's apps in theLumia 920 review.

Notable moments in Nokia camera phone history (pictures)

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Camera and video
With each new Lumia 900-series phone, Nokia has subtly changed and incrementally improved the camera's image quality. Like the rest, this one has an 8.7-megapixel lens with PureView processing algorithms.

Instead of the 928's Xenon bulb, the 925 returns to LED flash; two of them, in fact. This time around there's a sixth lens in the Carl Zeiss optical assembly, which Nokia says will take clearer daytime shots. In addition, you have a backside-illuminated image sensor, autofocus, and 4x digital zoom.

The camera app is pretty plain by default, but like all Nokia phones, it includes lenses for panorama and Nokia Smart Cam, which adds a load of effects you also see on top Android phones. You'll be able to edit photos as well.

This 8.7-megapixel shooter has a sixth lens and great lowlight capabilities.

I was happy with most of the photos I took on the Lumia 925. They were bright, sharp, colorful, and detailed. Not every image packed in every detail, and some sunlit conditions would overwhelmed all the smartphone cameras I used.

Nokia continues to dominate the field in the quality of low-light shots that it takes. Even in very dark rooms with uneven lighting, the Lumia 925 uses its focus flash and image chips to the best effect, with HTC and the iPhone 5 a close second, and Samsung trailing behind, even when set to night mode.

The Lumia's 1080p HD video recorder also produces high-quality video that's smooth, colorful, and an adept tool to tell a visual story. For its part, the 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera adopts a wide angle, and shoots in 720p HD video. The latter is great news for video chatters like me, and the wide angle should help with those selfies.

Exposure on the self-portraits can be a little off at times, with your face looking one color and the rest cast in another. Overall, though, the images were usable. CNET's image gallery offers up some comparisons of our studio shot.

The Lumia 925 pumped out plenty of bright color on this tram, but missed some details of the moving vehicle. Click to enlarge.

A typical San Francisco scene. Click to enlarge.

There's some detail missing from this resized image of the Ferry Building.

Here's a full resolution crop of the Ferry Building's famous spire.

The Lumia 925 beautifully captured these shaded blooms. Click to enlarge.

Nokia knows its way around low-light shots. Here's how it did on automatic mode, no flash. Click to enlarge.

Call quality
Nokia phones typically offer up high quality call quality and clarity, and the 925 (CDMA 850/900/1800/1900MHz) mostly stays the course, despite a few bobbles in my San Francisco tests.

Volume was strong on level 5 of 10, but voices weren't entirely clear on my end. For example, my main calling partner was intelligible, but didn't sound quite as sharp or as natural as usual. In addition to that, his voice sounded somewhat lispy and muted, almost gauzy. Still, we were able to carry on a long conversation and the line was completely clear of white noise, blips, and beeps.

On the other end of the line, volume was loud and strong. My audio came over a little distorted and mushy, my caller said, and sounded a bit flat and a tinge unnatural, maybe raspy, but not unpleasant. Again, background noise was kept at bay. He rated the phone a B+ for audio, not the top of the line, but a strong experience overall.

Nokia Lumia 925 call quality sample Listen now:

Spreakerphone was also strong when I held the phone at hip level. Volume dropped immediately and I had to increase it all the way to 10/10. Voices sounded really tight and clean, without a lot of echo or fuzziness. There wasn't even a hint of background noise. Voices did acquire a strange robotic quality, and a little of the phone's formerly lispiness remained. Still and all, a great speakerphone.

My test partner agreed that volume dropped, but said he liked the quality. I still sounded a little mushy, and the phone did nothing to suppress echoes, but he didn't hear any distortion and felt comfortable speaking for some time.

Performance: Speed, processor, battery life
The Lumia 925's 4G LTE performance is only as good as T-Mobile's network in your area. Here in downtown San Francisco, it's a reliable double-digit Mbps experience down and slightly less up.

Nokia Lumia 925 (T-Mobile)
Download Endomondo (3MB)	22 seconds
Load up Endomondo mobile app	4.6 seconds
CNET mobile site load	3.3 seconds
CNET desktop site load	15.2 seconds
Boot time to lock screen	27.8 seconds
Camera boot time	2.6 seconds
Camera, shot-to-shot time	2.5 seconds with flash and focusing

The Lumia 925 uses the same processor as its siblings, Qualcomm's 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 chipset. It's plenty snappy, although certain things do take a few beats to open. Pretty much every Windows Phone handset I've used takes a few seconds to load the camera app, for instance, and the method of capturing a photo on the native camera app stalls shot-to-shot times, which means you could miss what you're looking for.

Overall, I can't complain about the phone's navigation or data speeds.

Battery life on the Lumia 925's 2,000 mAh battery seems fairly standard, especially since it's the same ticker behind the 920 and 928. It has a rated talk time of 12.8 hours and a rated standby time of 18 days. We'll do some internal battery drain testing ourselves as well.

Note that a phone's battery degrades over time, so these numbers represent the best you can expect in the phone's lifetime. In general, batteries generally carry you a full work day before requiring a complete charge.

Storage space is a bit of a sore point for some with this device. Globally, it sells at 16GB or 32GB capacities, but T-Mobile's model caps off at 16GB internal storage with 7GB of free online storage with Microsoft SkyDrive. That's generally enough space for average users, but since theres's no expansion slot on this device, people who typically download tons of videos and games may run into problems. The 925 has 1GB of RAM.

The 925 has a digital SAR of 1.4 watts per kilogram.

Who should buy it?
Physically, Nokia's Lumia 925 is a sleek, good-looking, tailored device that proves Nokia is adept at making phones with understated elegance, not just statement pieces. Indeed, Nokia has had a long history with design, and its chops show.

The fact that the 925 also backs up its hardware with Nokia's software apps and services goes a long way toward making this the top Windows Phone...this week. With theLumia 1020 and its 41-megapixel camera looming (an AT&T exclusive in the U.S.), the 925 will look weaker in comparison, especially with only 16GB of storage for photos and videos.

There's also the question of Windows Phone as a platform. It's weaker in terms of capability than Android and iOS, it doesn't have quite the same amount of top-tier apps (though Microsoft has advanced on this tremendously), and it isn't as graphical to behold. Not everyone wants or needs the full-throttle smartphone powerhouse experience where everything is customizable, and Windows Phone has a few more tucked-away features than some folks realize.

I'd say, T-Mobile customers on the lookout for a Windows Phone device in particular or a straightforward smartphone in general should absolutely make the Lumia 925 their top choice. Those seeking a blow-you-away camera experience on Nokia's most advanced phone yet, hold out for the Lumia 1020

Affordable, unlocked, but not the best deal

The good: Blu Products' Life Play is very affordable for an unlocked smartphone. It also features an attractively thin design, a big screen, Android Jelly Bean, and a powerful camera.

The bad: The Life Play runs a slow processor and has just 4GB of internal storage. It isn’t compatible with some wired phone headsets and lacks 4G LTE support.

The bottom line: The unlocked $229 Blu Life Play offers Android Jelly Bean on the cheap, but getting the more expensive $299 LG Nexus 4 would be a wiser decision.

It's hard to zero in on an affordable yet satisfying unlocked Android smartphone. Other than the $299 LG Nexus 4 or pricey $569.99 Sony Xperia Z, there aren't a lot of viable options, at least in the U.S. market.

Enter the $229 Life Play from Miami-based handset maker Blu Products. Not only does it flaunt a sexy ultrathin design, it boasts Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and takes snappy pictures. It's a valiant attempt but unfortunately its faults, namely a sluggish CPU and a cramped allotment of internal storage, make it tough to recommend. Sure, the Life Play is surprisingly capable for its low price of entry, but you'd be better off coughing up an extra $70 for the LG's smoother Nexus experience.

Design
When I first laid my hands on the Life Play I was surprised and impressed. Frankly, I didn't expect an unlocked phone with such a low sticker price to be so thin and feel quite so modern. For example, the handset's gently rounded edges and almost nonexistent bezel help give it a premium profile

The slim, affordable, and unlocked Blu Life Play (pictures)

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Measuring 5.3 inches tall by 2.7 inches wide and a mere 0.31 inch thick, the Life Play is trim and relatively compact despite sporting a big 4.7-inch display. It's thinner in fact than the HTC One(5.4 inches by 2.7 inches by 0.37 inch, 5 ounces) and a hair thicker than the Samsung Galaxy S4 (5.4 inches by 2.8 inches by 0.3 inch, 4.6 ounces). Tipping the scales at just 5 ounces, the Life Play won't weigh you down unduly either.

I liked the electric-blue color of my test device, too, which is a refreshing departure from the typical black or silver phones you'll find on store shelves. The Life Play is available in pink, grey, white, and yellow as well.

The Blu Life Play is almost as thin as the Samsung Galaxy S4

Above the display sits a 2MP front-facing camera, while running along the bottom edge of the screen are three capacitive buttons for Menu, Home, and Back. Physical buttons on the phone are few, with just keys for volume and power lining the device's right side.

Up top you'll find the Life Play's 3.5mm headphone jack and, oddly enough, a Micro-USB port. Phone makers usually place USB connections on the bottom or sides of their handsets, and it's been a while since I've seen one in this location.

On back of the Blu Life Play is its main 8-megapixel camera with LED flash, in addition to a tiny speaker grille. This colorful back panel features a soft-touch coating that resists fingerprints and smudges, and pops off to uncover a 1,800mAh removable battery. Also here is an SD card slot for adding more storage which is something both the HTC One and LG Nexus 4 lack, not to mention two SIM card slots (one standard-size and one mini).

Screen
Equipped with a big, bright, 4.7-inch HD screen (1,280x720p) with an IPS LCD panel, the Blu Life Play does an admirable job of displaying photos, text, and video. I also was pleased by the phone's adequately wide viewing angles.

Of course, the HTC One's screen retained image quality better than the Life Play when I viewed it off angle. The One's higher Full HD (1,920x1,080) resolution also renders sharper details, particularly noticeable when zooming into pictures and Web sites tightly. That said, the Galaxy S4's massive 5-inch Amoled (1,920x1,080) screen delivers lusciously deep blacks and ultrawide viewing angles the other two phones can't touch.

Software and interface
One of the Life Play's big draws, other than its low unlocked price, is its software. Essentially this handset runs an almost stock version of Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean. Blu did take the liberty of making its own tweaks, but they are made with a light touch, not a heavy hand.

The lock screen is practically the same as vanilla Android, featuring the standard ring you slide right to unlock or left to jump straight to the camera app. There are the usual amount of home screen panels to choose from, too, five to be exact, ready for you to populate with app shortcuts and widgets.

The Life Play offers a very basic typing experience.

Like the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Life Play has a capacitive Menu button under its screen, something the HTC One lacks. To me though it seems a bit of a throwback to the days before Android Gingerbread when you had to use a separate Menu key to access software settings.

Features
As I said before, the Life Play's core strength is that it comes preloaded with a very modern version of Android Jelly Bean. This software lets it tap directly into Google's deep roster of free services such as Gmail, Google Plus social networking, Drive for cloud data storage, Maps, and GPS navigation.

The device also connects to Google's Play storefronts to purchase movies, TV shows, music, and books, not to mention a wide variety of Android apps from third-party vendors. Thankfully, since the Life Play is an unlocked handset, you won't find any carrier bloatware clogging up its application tray. Blu has installed a few utilities, though, such as a digital compass, the Torch flashlight app, and Sound Recorder for capturing vocal reminders.

I appreciate the Life Play's support for the Google Now advanced search and virtual assistant. Activated either through the Google search toolbar (heading up each home screen) or via its own widget, Now obeys voice commands to set reminders and launch Google queries. Additionally Now will automatically serve up virtual "cards" highlighting weather data, estimated commute time, and how well (or poorly) your favorite sports team is playing.

You'll find two SIM card slots, one microSD card slot, and a removable battery under the back cover.

Choose a SIM
Another interesting capability of the Life Play is its support for multiple SIM cards. As it has both a mini and standard-size SIM card slot, you can slide two compatible SIMs in the handset. You'll then have the choice of making voice calls, sending text messages, and using data connections over the account linked to either SIM.

I admit it's a niche feature, especially in the U.S., but having dual SIM slots will appeal to people who rely on multiple prepaid cellular services and to folks who connect to foreign GSM networks often.

Performance
Powering the Blu Life Play is an unconventional 1.2GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6589 chip paired with 1GB of RAM. If you're expecting blazing-fast performance, however, don't get your hopes up. When I subjected the phone to the usual battery of benchmarks, it quickly became clear processing power is not the Life Play's forte.

The Blu Life Play's Quandrant performance was most unimpressive.

The device notched a disappointing Quadrant score of 3,976, which is the lowest result I've seen from any handset claiming to be a quad-core smartphone. It's lower than the LG Nexus 4's 4,861 and light years behind the HTC One's 12,194 and the Samsung Galaxy S4's 11,381.

More troubling though is the Life Play's paltry amount of internal storage memory. At just 4GB, a hefty chunk of which is taken up by Android Jelly Bean, I began triggering insufficient memory warnings simply by installing updates to apps already loaded on the phone. The only way around the issue was to use a microSD card in the Life Play's free slot. I then had to command all apps to push their data to the card instead of to internal storage.

In anecdotal operation, though, the Life Play handled well enough and I didn't notice any lags or hiccups whether navigating through home screens and settings menus or launching apps. One annoying issue I ran into was that when I connected a few different pairs of wired headphones (all with in-line mics) to the handset and fired up the music player, my ears were assaulted by garbled audio fraught with reverb and other distortions. In a nutshell it sounded like I was listening to tracks underwater, which rendered music enjoyment impossible.

Performance	Blu Life Play
Average LTE download speed (T-Mobile)	1.8Mbps
Average LTE upload speed (T-Mobile)	0.4Mbps
App download (CNET)	3.72MB in 12.2 seconds
CNET mobile site load	10.3 seconds
CNET desktop site load	16.7 seconds
Boot time	25.5 seconds
Camera boot time	2.2 seconds

Call quality
I tested the Blu Life Play on T-Mobile's GSM network in New York and experienced mixed call quality. Callers described my voice as loud, clear, and easy to understand. That said, they also thought my spoken words sounded hollow and flat and they could easily detect that I was calling from a cell phone.

On my end, people sounded clear as well, but not terribly loud. Using the speakerphone wasn't ideal: the Life Play's main speaker sits on the back of the handset and placing the phone down on a desk severely muffled voices piped through it. Worse, when I flipped the phone over on its face, callers complained that my voice was muffled. Apparently the only effective way to use the Life Play's speakerphone is to hold it in your hand.

Blu Life Play call quality sample Listen now:

Data speeds
I connected the Blu Life Play to T-Mobile's HSPA+ 3.5G network in New York to get a feel for its data speed performance. Sadly the phone does not support true 4G LTE data, but is rated for a maximum throughput of 42Mbps (downloads).

I clocked average downloads at a much lower 1.8Mbps, which is far slower than the typical 10-to-15Mbps results I've pulled down over LTE-equipped devices. Average uploads were also solidly within the 3G camp, at a disappointing 0.4Mbps.

On T-Mobile, the Life Play was stuck on 3G.

Battery life
Longevity though was one area where the Blu Life Play delivered surprisingly satisfying results. Perhaps because its lower-octane MediaTek processor sips less power, the Life Play churned through the CNET Labs video playback benchmark for a full 8 hours and 23 minutes. That's a lot longer than Sony's latest superphone, the Xperia Z, which conked out after 5 hours and 41 minutes performing the same task. The considerably more expensive (unlocked) HTC Onelasted for 9 hours and 37 minutes while the Samsung Galaxy S4 persevered for 10 hours and 30 minutes during this trial.

Camera
Sporting an 8MP camera with LED flash, the Blu Life Play impressed me with its image quality and agility. With available resolutions ranging from VGA to 6MP wide-screen to 8MP, the phone's camera snapped clear images quickly. Time between shots was practically nonexistent, unless of course a processor-heavy mode such as HDR was engaged.

Indoor images were clear.

Indoors, the Life Play captured clear images that were correctly exposed. Details were sharp, and colors were accurate. Under low light I was also able to capture tricky subjects such as fidgety children.

The Life Play was fast enough to capture kids at, well, play.

Taken outdoors in bright summer sun, images looked better still. Colors of flowers and leaves were vibrant and the camera app's HDR mode successfully brightened shadows to add extra detail.

Colors in flowers looked particularly bright.

The Life Play's camera software also features a wide range of color effects, shooting modes, and even a few gimmicks such as "Phone booth," which sticks loopy cartoon frames around pictures.

Conclusion
When I first learned about Blu Products' $229 Life Play, understandably I was intrigued. Here was a premium, unlocked, ultrathin smartphone running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and powered by a quad-core processor, plus it had an 8MP camera.

Unfortunately, though, as I began to delve into the Life Play's features my experience soured. With just 4GB of internal storage it's easy to bring the device to a standstill if you're not careful. The processing power is also way behind today's chips from Samsung and Qualcomm. For instance, the Galaxy S4 and HTC One, both running cutting-edge quad-core components, offer twice the CPU muscle yet longer battery life.

Now factor in the audio snafus I ran into using wired headsets and the Life Play suddenly becomes less of a deal. Honestly, you're better off splurging the extra $70 for the smoother-performing (and also unlocked) $299 LG Nexus 4 and calling it a day.