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As I mentioned early on, the 928’s hardware has to stand on its own — there’s nothing new in the Windows Phone platform right now that Nokia can use to sell it. Bundled apps include ESPN, My Verizon Mobile, NFL Mobile, VZ Navigator, and Weather; as usual, they can all be uninstalled. Verizon’s relatively light commitment to Windows Phone (compared to Android) continues to be an asset here: Crapware is kept to a bare minimum. I had no issues with performance — Windows Phone seems to make smart use of the processing power it has available, just as it has since version 7. The 1.5GHz dual-core processor suits Windows Phone 8 just fine, unlike Android, which seems to be in perpetual need of more cores and gigahertz to overcome stutter and lag. For the phone shopper, that can be an asset: the purchasing decision becomes less about the spec sheet and more about how the phone looks, feels, and operates. (Though as I’ve said before, the 928 doesn’t look or feel particularly great.)

The camera performs admirably in low light, as you might expect — the 928 uses the same PureView-branded 8.7-megapixel camera borrowed from the 920, which was hailed as a low-light champ. There’s nothing particularly magical going on with the sensor: In general, the camera appears to select a really slow shutter speed and apply copious noise reduction to get good photos in poor lighting, which means you need to have a steady hand to avoid motion blur.

The same image captured with an iPhone 5 (left) and the Lumia 928, flash off (center) and flash on (right).

But low-light performance aside, Nokia decided to beef up anyway by throwing in a xenon flash, a legitimate camera flash tube that can produce a very bright burst of light to help fill out a scene. It's a Nokia trademark — its highest-end camera phones have had xenon flashes for years, giving you considerably more power than you can with a single or dual LED. I found that I didn’t use it much, though. The 928 already puts an emphasis on low light performance, and the flash has a tendency to do strange things to white balance. If you’re taking an action shot at night, xenon is your best option, but otherwise you’re best off leaving it disabled and letting the sensor do its thing. Xenon can only flash — it can’t stay lit — so the 928 also keeps a white LED hanging around for additional illumination during video.

Battery life is totally reasonable on this phone. I managed about 27 hours from charge to charge, including nearly four hours of phone calls (most of them with the screen turned on), about an hour and a half of Nokia Drive+ navigation, and a brief outdoor photography excursion. As I’ve said before, I believe that wireless charging makes a phone’s perceived battery life far more livable once you have the charging accessories in place, and the 928 is no exception: I found myself dropping it on an old LG Qi pad I had lying around at every opportunity. It’s a big advantage (which, unfortunately, I suspect many buyers won’t even know is there).