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WP7 vs. WP8 Round 2: T-Mobile Lumia 810 against the Lumia 900

posted on Nov 15th 2012 by

Last week Joe recorded a video showing you how much faster Windows Phone 8 is on his HTC 8X compared to his old phone, the HTC Trophy. A lot of our subscribers on YouTube said it was an unfair test because the HTC Trophy is a first generation Windows Phone 7 handset, making it leagues behind Windows Phone 8. Most commenters agreed that to be fair, Windows Phone 8 should go up against the flagship Lumia 900. Well, you’ve got it. I’m reviewing the T-Mobile Lumia 810 and I put it through its paces against my Lumia 900 and the results are rather.. expected.


  • I think it’s also worth noting how much nicer the screen is on the 810; the difference in brightness is apparent even on video, though obviously that’s got nothing to do with a speed test.

  • SEE GUYS!? lol

  • Wyn6

    Yep. I noticed that too. I think I’m gonna mosey on down to the local Tmo store and rustle me up an 810. Yippee ki-yay!

  • You really must love that smallest livetile setting! I think about half of your screen was just tiny little squares lol.

  • Tumultus

    Ashley,
    If you repeat the same test after turning off mobile data (SETTINGS -> CELLULAR - MOBILE DATA = OFF) on the NL900, you’ll actually get some surprisingly different results. I have both devices in front of me, so, I could try it myself. The reason might be that WP8 prefers Wi-Fi over data whereas the NL900 seems to always use mobile data if available.

  • Tumultus

    I did that yesterday, will be returning mine tomorrow! Had a Samsung Omnia W before (European version of the Focus Flash).

    Don’t get me wrong! I do love the phone’s screen, design and WP8. My problems may not be too much of a deal for others, however, I travel a lot and after loading only US maps onto my device, it refused to also get me Canada (which was only about 250MB or so), telling me that I don’t have enough memory available. Keep in mind: I didn’t install any other apps nor did I load any data on the device prior to this! It seems like WP8 needs much more space than WP7.

    Still, I would have been ok with the above and load maps only onto device when I need them but after trying out the camera, there is no way I am going to keep that thing regardless how nice it performs otherwise!

    BTW: The SD card only lets you store music and pictures, so, adding one is of no help!

  • Interesting! I’ll have to try this out. Thanks.

  • This is good to know. The review version I have doesn’t have an SD slot, so I’m not able to test that functionality of the phone. Thanks for letting us know.

  • Dave

    Where do you get that from? That makes no sense, since it would effectively never use wifi then.

    WP7 will always use wifi if it is available, I use it all day every day for music streaming. It always uses wifi (wait for it connect first when you unlock the device), and keeps using wifi even when the lock screen comes on.

  • Tumultus

    Either way, when I turn off mobile data, the NL900 simply opens apps much faster, especially online apps such as FB. Since you seem to have one, try it yourself.

    I am not saying that WP8 isn’t faster than WP7 but when I performed the same above test with mobile data turned off on the NL900, it just opened it faster. Since many of that apps also use location services, it may be that the phone uses 3G / 4G do “faster” pinpoint the current position - I don’t know.

    When I read the article, I performed the test twice in a row since I had the exact same devices. The increase of performance on the NL900 was noticable without a timer when mobile data was turned off.