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The difference between 4:3 and 16:9 photos
The camera UI is pretty simple - you have your viewfinder and some controls on the right. From top to bottom they are the still/video camera toggle, front/back camera toggle, flash mode setting and the Lens button. On the left you have an arrow that takes you to the images taken with the camera, alternatively you can do a swipe gesture too.

The camera app on Windows Phone offers extensive settings, ranging from scenes and effects to white balance, contrast, saturation, sharpness and ISO among others. You have a dedicated Macro focus mode but no face detection. The flash can be set to auto, forced or off.

The shutter key will wake the phone up with a single press and launch the camera app. The Lumia 928 is not the fastest shooter around and it takes it a couple of seconds before a photo is taken. This is more delay than we're used to from modern phones.

Lenses is an interesting feature, enhancing the camera functionality without making a mess of third party apps each with its own UI. Lenses are accessible directly from the native camera app (they show up in the list of installed apps too if you want to pin a Lens to the start screen).

Nokia has preloaded the Smart Shoot lens, the Panorama and Cinemagraph lenses.

Smart Shoot uses Scalado technology (Nokia owns the company) - it shoots multiple photos and lets you pick which one to save (a sort of burst mode). You can also pick the best face and cycle through each facial expression a person made while the camera was snapping photos. The third option is Erase, which will remove moving objects (e.g. someone walking in front of the landmark you're trying to shoot just as you press the shutter).

Image quality

The Nokia Lumia 928 photos come out with some nice, pleasantly saturated colors.

In high contrast scenes we noticed the Lumia 928 has a tendency to give priority to exposing correctly the shadows, rather than the highlights (quite the contrary to the Lumia 928, by the way). Depending on the uses, this may be either a positive or a negative thing. In our time spent with it, we liked this decision better.

Thanks to the wide F2.0 aperture, the Lumia 928 photos have an impressively shallow depth of field (for a phone!) You can get a blurred background easier than on competing devices, especially on closer shots.

In terms of sharpness, there is two ways to look at it. When you look at your photos in a fit-to-screen mode, they look highly detailed, which is what we guess the manufacturer has intended and optimized.

Video camera

The camcorder interface is identical to the still camera's and has plenty of features too. You can change the white balance, sharpness and the video resolution among other things. The LED flash can be made to work as a video light, too.

The Nokia Lumia 928 shoots 1080p and 720p videos (720p is the default mode). The OIS comes into play here if you're holding the phone in your hand (we doubt many people carry tripods around).

The Nokia Lumia 928 videos turn out really nice. They are highly detailed, with nice colors and good sharpness. Digital noise is not an issue at all.

Store for apps, games and music

The Windows Store (formerly Phone Marketplace) is still playing catch up with the Apple App Store and the Android Market. The number of apps available is well above 100,000 and, while that doesn't quite compare to Android and iOS, Microsoft says that most of the top apps are already available for its platform.

Apps written specifically for Windows Phone 8 won't work on the older versions but all of the older apps will be compatible with the new WP8.

The Store is divided in three main sections - applications, games and music. A fourth section called Updates shows up when one of your installed apps has received an update - there's an Update all button, which will save you the hassle of updating each app individually.

Anyway, each app will be listed with a short description, a rating and user reviews, a few screenshots and permissions. While the list of permissions isn't as prominent as it is on Android, the Store will explicitly ask you about the important stuff (e.g. location info).

Big downloads (anything north of 40MB) need a Wi-Fi connection to work. Alternatively, you can download those jumbo apps using the desktop Zune software.

Nokia App Recommendations will help you get the best apps right off the bat, including a number of Nokia Lumia-exclusives (things like Nokia Weather Channel, which you might have missed) and categories like Starter pack or Shop til you drop.

The Music section is actually the Xbox (previously known as Zune) Marketplace. Its structure is similar to the Application section. First, a featured artist of the week, three more featured artists, then a list of new releases, top albums and genres.

Genres themselves are separated into sections too - new releases and top artists/albums/songs/playlists. For each song, you get a 30 second preview (same as iTunes). If you have a Zune pass, you can stream the entire song (or download it DRM-protected), just like you would on a Zune player (it's 10 US dollars a month).

The Games section is divided into Xbox Live, New, Featured and Genres, which is the categories version. A great thing about games in the Windows Phone Marketplace is the trial option, which is available to many games and apps. You can try before you buy.

The new and featured sections act as what's new/hot reference.

Xbox LIVE tile

Xbox Live is at the heart of the Games hub. It carries over many features from the Xbox - from your avatar to your scores and achievements. The Spotlight feature is available too (it shows info on new stuff) and also Requests - which shows you game invites from your friends.

Anyway, the games themselves are housed in the Collection section. Nothing much to see here, the installed games are arranged in a square grid and there's a Get more games shortcut, which launches the Windows Store.

Not all games support Xbox Live - the ones that do are in the corresponding section in the Store.

Here you can also see your friends and their profiles, achievements and avatars. There are a few shortcuts to other Xbox Live-related apps - such as remote Xbox control (like the Store) or the avatar changing app. If you don't have them installed, you'll be redirected to the Marketplace, otherwise you'll get directly to the app in question.

Great Office experience on mobile

Office is one of the key selling points of Windows Phone. Document viewing and editing is absolutely free and integrated into the OS. SkyDrive integration is available as well. Docs are automatically synced between the phone and your computer through SkyDrive.

The Places tab lets you browse Office docs stored on the phone, in SkyDrive, email or in Office 365 (a paid service that includes Office web apps).

The Office hub breaks down into three sections - Documents, Places and Notes.

Final words

The Nokia Lumia 928 really is a memorable character. Thanks to its top-end spec sheet (by Windows Phone 8 standards), headed by the hugely capable camera with xenon flash, the handset outshines every competitor, which runs Microsoft's mobile OS.

The camera's lowlight performance is expectedly impressive. Thanks to the optical image stabilization on board, the snapper can pull off impressively low shutter speeds and therefore great low-light photos without using a flash. The xenon flash itself on the other hand, adds further to the photography credentials of the Nokia Lumia 928 in dark places.

The presence of an AMOLED display on board of the Lumia 928 is a welcome sight. It has helped the smartphone shave some weight, compared to the Lumia 920, while improving to UI experience.

The smartphone is far from being the perfect WP8 offering though. We can't help but feel that the design and the ergonomics of the handset have been seriously overlooked, especially considering Nokia's track record in this particular field. The Nokia Lumia 928 neither looks, nor feels as desirable as the rest of the high-end Lumia range.

There's also the question of the device's internals. Camera unit aside, the Nokia Lumia 928 is no different than the Windows Phone 8 flagships which broke cover in September of 2012. With a fresh batch set to be released any moment now, the Lumia 928 is bound to soon feel even longer in the tooth than it does already.

The Nokia Lumia 928 is priced at $99.99 with a two-year commitment to Verizon, after a mail-in rebate. To sweeten the deal even further, Microsoft offers a $25 gift card for its app store to users who purchase the device.

If you are a Verizon customer, looking for top-end Windows Phone 8 hardware, or a mobile photographer who absolutely must have a xenon flash and decent smartphone functionality in one package, then the Nokia Lumia 928 is the device for you. Otherwise, here are some other options available at the moment.

If xenon flash does not sit high on your list of desired features, then the Nokia Lumia 925 is clearly a better choice than the Lumia 928. The Lumia 925 looks better by our not-so-modest opinion, and has superb ergonomics, while keeping the same functionality as the 928. The Nokia Lumia 925 will hit the shelves of T-Mobile US any moment now.