Is the Lumia 900 a perfect phone? Of course not. One of my biggest gripes has to do with the confusing button layout on the right side of the phone. Two silver buttons near the top control volume up and volume down; below them, there's the power/sleep button; and then at the bottom there's a button you press for taking photos. It's far too easy to accidentally press the power/sleep button when you mean to change the volume controls and vice versa.
Also, 16GB of storage may not be enough for most people, and the lack of an SD card slot means that this amount of storage is all you'll ever get on the phone. It's true that Windows Phone integrates well with Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud-based storage service for additional cloud storage, but if you want to store music, video or media on the phone itself, you may find yourself hamstrung.
The phone also lacks Near Field Communications (NFC), which will eventually be used for mobile financial transactions and data transfer, especially for working with mobile social networking apps for exchanging photos, files and data. It would have been nice for the phone to include NFC capabilities, because even though it's not particularly useful today, at some point the standard may take off. If it does, this phone won't be able to take advantage of it.
And, of course, there's always the Windows Phone app issue -- the Windows Phone's 70,000 apps lags far behind the 400,000-plus you'll find for Android phones and the 500,000-plus for the iPhone. And it's not just oddball outliers that aren't available for Windows Phone 7; major apps such as Pandora can't be downloaded either.
At a Glance
NokiaPrice: $99.99 with two-year AT&& contractPros: Clear, bright display; good performance; stylish; broadband networkCons: Confusing button layout on side; only 16GB storage; no SD card
The bottom line
The Lumia 900 is clearly the best Windows Phone you can buy today, with a sleek design and top performance that rivals the best Android phones and the iPhone. Combine all that with an attractive $99 price, and you have a winner.
