T-Mobile Nokia Lumia 925 Delivers LTE, WiFi Calling in Slim Frame

by Wayne Rash

Not quite identical twins, the Lumia 925 (right) is slightly more than a millimeter shorter and less than a millimeter narrower than the 1020. The screens are the same size. Both phones in this photo are white, but the Lumia 925 has a silver accent around the edges. You can see that the Lumia 1020 has its USB port on the bottom.

The rear of the two phones shows the most significant difference. The Lumia 1020 (left) has a 41-megapixel camera, a relatively large flash unit and a bulge to accommodate those features. The 8.7-megapixel camera on the Nokia Lumia 925 also protrudes slightly, but overall the Lumia 925 is about 2mm thinner.

The only thing that’s unusual about the Windows Phone 8 screen on the Nokia Lumia 925 is the announcement of WiFi Calling, a feature unique to T-Mobile in the U.S. WiFi Calling lets you make phone calls when there’s no cell signal or when you don’t want to use a cell signal, such as when you’re traveling outside the U.S., where WiFi Calling can save you a ton of money.

You’ll find more than just a camera on the back of the Nokia Lumia 925. Also on the rear of the Lumia 925 is the perforated speaker port and an LED flash. The white plastic surface of the Lumia 925 has a matte finish that tended to collect dirt during testing. I cleaned it before the photo session.

Another difference for the Nokia Lumia 925 is that the ports are on top. Here you see from left to right the microphone, the headset connector, the USB port and the SIM tray. The Lumia 925 uses a micro-SIM as is the case with most smartphones. You can open it with a paper clip.

The controls for the Lumia 925 are on the right side of the phone, as is the case with most Nokia phones. The controls as seen in this photo are the camera button, the power/sleep switch and the volume/video controller. The standard touch-sensitive Windows buttons are on the lower edge of the screen.

T-Mobile has featured WiFi calling on a number of phones over the years, but this is the first one from Nokia. This feature is controlled by this screen, which lets you set the phone for how you’d like it to handle WiFi connections. Data connections to WiFi are handled on another screen.