Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket Dwarfs Nokia Lumia 800

Nokia's best high-end smartphone - the Lumia 800 - which is the fruit of its partnership with Microsoft is rumored to hit the U.S. market in January 2012. It will, however, face heavy competition from Samsung's Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, which has more specifications when compared to Lumia 800.

The Lumia 800 has been cleared for sale in the U.S. by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). While the organization's documents are less than forthcoming about the carrier for the Lumia 800, its little brother, the Lumia 710, is headed to T-Mobile. The 800 lacks a 1700 MHz AWS radio, meaning it will not join the 710's Jan. 11 launch on T-Mobile, according to the FierceWireless.

Meanwhile, Nokia released its first software update for the Lumia 800 on Dec. 8. The phones are powered by the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango operating system.

The phone features a 3.7 inch AMOLED display that blends seamlessly into the reduced body design and has a 1.4 GHz processor. The Nokia Lumia 800 contains an instant-share camera experience, based on leading Carl Zeiss optics, HD video playback, 16GB of internal user memory and 25GB of free SkyDrive storage for storing images and music.

On the other hand, the Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket is a Long Term Evolution (LTE) version of the Galaxy S2 and debuted on Nov. 6. The Skyrocket runs on Google Inc.'s Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread OS.

The Skyrocket has a Scorpion dual-core processor, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm APQ8060 Snapdragon chipset, 4.5-inch Super AMOLED (active-matrix organic LED) Plus display, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal memory, 4G LTE support, an 8 megapixel rear-facing LED flash camera with 1080p video capture and a 2 megapixel front-facing camera for video calls.

Let's look at the specifications of the Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket vis-à-vis the Nokia Lumia 800...

Display: The Skyrocket touts a 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus Gorilla Glass display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and about 207 ppi pixel density. On the other hand, the Lumia 800 sports a 3.7 inch AMOLED ClearBlack curved display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels at 252 pixels per inch (ppi) density.

Size: The Skyrocket comes with 129.8 x 68.8 x 9.5 mm dimensions and weighs 130.5 grams, while the Lumia 800 has 116.5 x 61.2 x 12.1 mm dimensions and weighs 142 grams.

Processor: The Skyrocket features a 1.5 GHz Scorpion dual-core processor, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm APQ8060 Snapdragon chipset with 1GB RAM. The Lumia 800 packs a 1.4GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon chipset with 512MB RAM.

Camera: Both smartphones sport rear-facing 8 megapixel cameras. The Skyrocket's has 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash in the rear camera with 1080p video capture capability; the Lumia 800's has 3264x2448 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, dual-LED flash with 720p video capture. The former has an additional 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video calling while the Lumia doesn't have one.

3G/4G: The Skyrocket has HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps and supports 4G LTE, while the Lumia 800 has HSDPA 14.4 Mbps and HSUPA 5.76 Mbps.

Operating System: The Lumia 800 runs on Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.5 Mango operating system. On the other hand, Skyrocket has Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system with both promised Google Inc.'s latest smartphone OS, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Ice Cream Sandwich is a combination of Gingerbread and Honeycomb in one unit. Android's Head of Engineering, Mike Claren, announced the new OS as Google's most ambitious release to date. The newest features include widgets in a new tab, a customizable launcher, Gmail with offline search with a two-line preview and new action bar at the bottom, better voice integration, improved copy and paste and a new tabbed Web browser that allows up to 16 tabs.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: The Skyrocket has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 3.0 version+HS, Optional NFC, microUSB 2.0 version (MHL), and USB On-the-go. On the other hand, the Lumia 800 has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 version with A2DP, EDR and microUSB 2.0 version.

Storage: The Skyrocket has fixed 16GB of internal storage, expandable, via a microSD card slot, to 32GB. On the other hand, the Lumia 800 comes with 16GB internal memory and lacks an external memory slot.

Battery: The Skyrocket comes with a standard Li-ion 1850 mAh battery that gives up to 7 hours talk time and up to 256 hours of standby. The Lumia 800, on the other hand, has a 1450 mAh BV-5JW Battery that is expected to give talk time of up to 13 hours on 2G network and 9.5 hours on 3G and standby of up to 335 hours on 2G and 265 hours on 3G.

Pricing: The estimated retail price for the Lumia 800 will be about $595 excluding taxes and subsidies, while the Skyrocket is priced at $149.99 with a two-year AT&T contract in selected areas.