The smartphone market is highly competitive with two operating systems currently taking a large share. With the Lumia project, Nokia set out to establish the Windows Phone operating system as the third ecosystem, building awareness of its superior capabilities and simplicity and to establish Nokia as the leader of this ecosystem. Designed to be singularly beautiful, and as the lead product in Nokia’s brand renewal, the Lumia line also expresses the company’s strategy to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

The Lumia 900 is a 4G LTE smartphone that runs on the Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) OS. The 900 was design specifically to meet the needs of the US market. It delivers a big and bright 4.3-inch AMOLED display, LTE data speeds, a 1830 mAH battery and a front-facing camera with superior optics. From the working design principles to the actual visual expression, the design team strove to ensure that the physical form and digital user interface perfectly complement each other.

Everything about the Lumia 900 begins and ends with the user. The design team followed a key principle: what is left out is just as important as what is included. This focus on the essentials resulted in a balanced product that is elegantly simple and deceptively easy to use.

The Lumia 900 was designed to feel human and to fit beautifully in the hand. At first glance, it looks advanced and feels progressive. The sleek form of the polycarbonate unibody flows seamlessly into the curved Gorilla glass display. This blurs the boundary between physical and digital, and accentuates the tactile experience of the swiping gesture that is core to the user interface. Laminating the display module directly to the 3D glass gives the appearance that the content is swimming on the surface. It brings simplicity and a quiet intrigue that is beautiful to the eye, but complex to achieve.

The designers scrutinized every detail to ensure visual purity and functional superiority. Examples of this attention include CNC milling of all part interfaces and speaker holes, printing of product details on the SIM card drawer to reduce unnecessary noise from the body, and the custom-designed audio jack that allows positioning concentrically to the main radius of the device.

Designed from the inside out, the shell is made from a single piece of injection molded polycarbonate. The body is molded using a pigment that provides inherent color through and through. This solid color substrate serves to hide any scratches and dings. This process also allows the Lumia 900 to inject color into a dominantly monochrome market.

Credits: Nokia Design, Rachael Bell, Ram Chaturabul, Aki Laine, Ed Mitchell and Jim Holtorf
Contact: Jim Holtorf  [email protected]