Nokia Lumia 920: hottest features and coolest accessories

Nokia’s upcoming Lumia 920 smartphone packs a punch with a full slate of innovative features and accessories, including an 8.7-megapixel camera, a supersensitive display, and wireless charging, as well as Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 8 operating system.

Although Nokia has yet to announce a price or a release date for the Lumia 920, the company says that consumers can expect to find it in stores later this year. Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting aspects of this new smartphone.

Caitlin McGarry contributed to this slideshow.

The Lumia 920’s 8.7-megapixel camera captures five to ten times more light than your average smartphone camera, which means fewer dark or blurry photos on Facebook. The camera’s floating-lens technology stabilizes images, preventing shakiness when you’re shooting video with the phone’s 1.2-megapixel HD camera.

The Lumia 920’s supersensitive display will respond to the slightest touch, even when you’re wearing gloves (regular ones, not those designed for smartphone use). The screen also reacts to sunlight to minimize glare.

The Lumia 920’s Smart Shoot software feature scans your photos for unwanted people passing through the frame, and can remove them from the image if you desire. So much for photo bombing!

Cinemagraphs, or photos with moving elements, are popular with photo-bloggers. The Lumia 920 processes photos to add motion without requiring any technical know-how on the part of the user.

Augmented reality comes to the Lumia 920 in the form of City Lens, a feature in the phone’s Maps app. Nokia says City Lens instantly reveals what you’re looking for on your phone’s camera display—whether it’s down the street or just around the corner.

You simply tap your chosen destination on the screen to access walking directions, make a reservation, or see detailed information about the locale.

Nokia teamed up with JBL to produce this stylish, matching Bluetooth speaker for its new line of Lumia phones. The coolest part: The JBL PowerUp speaker will charge your Lumia wirelessly.

The PowerUp automatically connects to Nokia’s phones using near-field communication, though the speaker will work with any Bluetooth-equipped phone. Perhaps most important, Nokia is demonstrating that big-name accessory makers believe in the viability of not just Windows Phone 8 but also Nokia’s offerings specifically.

We’ve heard about the promise of wireless charging for some time. Palm tried to pull it off in 2009 with the Palm Pre. But Nokia might be able to do it in a big way, as the company is building the Qi wireless charging standard into its wireless charging-plate accessory.

Third parties such as Fatboy and JBL will offer their own wireless charging accessories, while Virgin Atlantic and the retailer Coffee Bean will offer wireless charging at lounges and stores in Europe.

What good are smartphone maps if they don’t work in the places you’re most likely to get lost? With the Lumia 920, Nokia introduces true offline maps that store information locally. This approach is much more useful than that of other smartphones, which force you to download a map to use it.

Included with every Lumia phone is Nokia Music, a free music-streaming app that requires no sign-up or subscription. Nokia Music is similar to Pandora in that it allows you to listen to radio stations based on artists and styles, but the best part is that it has no obnoxious ads.

Although it’s something of an afterthought next to its flashier Lumia 920 sibling, the midrange 820 also packs a punch. It features a 4.3-inch display with supersensitive touch. The smartphone carries a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and has 8GB of built-in storage.

The Lumia 820 supports Qi wireless charging, too. And with its replaceable color shells (shown here), it represents a throwback to Nokia’s heyday of colorful, interchangeable faceplates and buttons, as well as LED-enhanced antennas.