Nokia Lumia 800 named What Mobile phone of the year

By Tom Warren, on 17th Nov 11 5:22 pm with 20 Comments

Nokia Lumia 800

Nokia’s Lumia 800 Windows Phone has been named as the What Mobile phone of the year.

The praise for Nokia’s first Windows Phone continued this week, following the release of the Lumia 800 on Wednesday. Nokia picked up the What Mobile award for phone of the year on Thursday at an awards ceremony in London. Thousands of readers voted for their favourite new phones, apps and networks during October on the What Mobile website. Editor Richard Melville said: “It’s no secret that Nokia make great phones but with a new Windows Phone Mango operating system, great design and a competitive price, the Lumia 800 feels like real innovation for smartphones and, importantly, one that’s cool enough to attract everyone from gadget geeks to casual, fashion conscious phone users.”

Nokia revealed the award on the Nokia conversations blog on Thursday. “We’d like to say a big thank-you to What Mobile readers for their support,” said a Nokia spokesperson. The Nokia Lumia 800 went on sale across the UK and some European markets. A number of stores in the UK opened early on Wednesday for potential customers. Nokia representatives handed out free chocolate and coffee to potential customers on London’s Oxford Street on Wednesday. British operator Orange revealed this week that the Lumia 800 is the most popular Nokia preorder device to date for the firm. Orange is currently running a promotion for existing customers who opt for the Lumia 800. The operator is giving away a free Xbox to existing customers eligible for the promotion. Orange also plans to make the free Xbox 360 offer available to new customers soon too.

  • Anonymous

    The What?

  • Anonymous

    The beginning of the WP era…

  • Joe_HTH

    “Thousands of readers voted for their favourite new phones, apps and networks during October”  
    So it was a vote by people who did not even own the phone… As much as I want to say great there is something very fish about this “award”.

    I am thinking Nokia and Microsoft PR team is working overtime…FINALLY. 

    • Larry

      Visit the site and view the history of the awards before you draw conclusions. You may feel the same way after you do the research but at least you will have some facts to base your “fishy feelings” off of. Ihttp://www.whathifi.com/awards/2011

    • Tuxplorer

      There’s no surprise that Lumia 800 has been named the phone of the year. Becasue iPhone is a fugly, shitty, crappy, stinky, pathetic and completely unusable device. On the other hand Windows Phone is beautiful, elegant, gorgeous, fast, fluid and the greatest smartphone OS of all time. crApple stinks donkey balls.

    • http://profiles.google.com/kylebshr Kyle Bashour

      from experience? I’ve used Android WP7 and iOS for at least 3 months each, and iOS is my favorite. For one thing, it has all the apps I need, and they are excellent quality. It’s also smooth, and just works. Yes there are some features that are lacking, but over all, it was my favorite day to day. 

    • Anonymous

      I am a 2nd year Windows Phone fan and let me tell you, I agree with you, iPhone is a great phone, and all the attributes you said about it well deserves. If it wasn’t for iPhone then all of today’s phones would be still very boring and button based, I give my props to Apple when it’s due. Now it’s been almost 5 years and in majority iOS didn’t change whole lot, the hardware sure did though, but what’s my gripe is its still a same ‘ol 4×4 grid of rounded fancy icons. That’s why I picked Windows Phone because it’s something very, fresh, lively, smooth and unique. I can’t stand Android OS as it makes me feel like an absolute nerd, though I am computer science major anyway and used to be modder of custom Roms for old Windows Mobile so I’ve seen it all and no Android fan can give me crap as I know more bout customizations they could have dreamed of. So I just wanted something fresh, elegant, modern, and info world centric and that’s why I chose WP7 and don’t regret a bit.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2WNLCWLJUCZ3WEHQUXJOVWISBA Wizard

    Wow that’s something for a phone which is in its infancy!! Cool!! Good Work, Congratulations Nokia!!
    Cheers!!

  • blackletter

    I’m excited about Nokia’s pledge to release in January its flagship phone on AT&T in the United States. Nokia, please design a 4.5″ Super AMOLED ClearBlack display with 1 GB RAM, 32 GB Memory, and a 1.5 GHz processor. Nokia, I’m holding out for you in January!!!

    • Anonymous

      I think the 1GB RAM wish is unlikely since I believe the underlying engine for WP doesn’t support it until Apollo probably, but otherwise possible.

    • Anonymous

      I don’t think it will be 4.5″, but I’m hopeful for a 4.0″+ display on the US version.

  • http://twitter.com/hammeredpizza Louis Sandiford

    Does anyone else know any ‘phone of the year’ style surveys we can vote on? Could be seen as slightly fraudulant manipulation, but if we get enough people behind WP7 then the average Joe may get the message.

    If you have any useful links, feel free to post them below.

    • Sirruss

      Marketing is Microsoft’s job, not the consumer/fanboy who is already doing more than his/her fair share trying to sell every neighbor, coworker, or friend on Windows Phone. MS sucks big time at marketing, but if they continue to refuse to market their own OS, instead depending on manufacturer’s and on folks like us, then Win Phone will fail and rightly so.

  • Anonymous

    oh man i realy want 2 replace my old iphone3gs with a wp7 device but somehow i have the feeling that i have 2 w8 for w8 and wp8 ^^

    • Anonymous

      Bro get a Titan, or a Focus S. With Titan you’d be an ultimate G and get some major props while Focus is a classy thin device with screen to beat.

    • Anonymous

      Titan is already a very smooth and well built phone. Lumia is the sexy phone. Why wait for WP8?

    • Anonymous

      maybe then microsoft will offer zune pass in germany or grooveshark will release an app 4 windows phone =/ im gonna w8 for nokia lumia 900 and see ^^
      a retina like display would be awesome =) but not sooo important

    • Anonymous

      The lumia has Nokia music for free and Spotify is available as music services. Zune pass would be great though, same problem here in Netherlands.

      AMOLED > Retina imo.

  • http://techin5.com Jubbin Grewal @Techin5.com

    That contest was a scam.. they had to hold it so people could believe the other phones had a chance to beat the Lumia 800.

  • Dalgarven

    Got my Lumia yesterday, still waiting on vodaphone to connect my sim card, but the phone is so classy, very fast and everybody who has seen it thinks its beautiful. Well worth the wait. I loaded quite a few apps last night on my wi-fi. Makes Android look very fussy.