Three Nokia Lumia Icon videos you need to hear to believe

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The Nokia Lumia Icon features Rich Recording with four directional stereo microphones. Nokia has been really pushing the Lumia Icon’s audio and recording capabilities. Its marketing tagline is “See and hear what you’ve been missing.” How do they actually sound? We’ve shot a few videos with the Nokia Lumia Icon around New York City. Head past the break to see and hear for yourself.

The first clip below is a performance by Andy Suzuki & The Method at a New York City subway station. It’s a very noisy environment where many recording devices would struggle. Listen closely.

The second clip is from a tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Jen from Museum Hack is telling the story of the $45 million painting. It’s the most expensive item at the museum. Does the Lumia Icon pick up her voice properly? Check it out.

The third clip is recorded at a busy intersection in New York City. A lot of noises are coming from cars and people in every direction.  You can also check out the video quality in low light.

The Lumia Icon features Nokia Rich Recoding with four microphones. Rich Recording was first unveiled on the Nokia 808 PureView, a cameraphone running Symbian OS. That technology can now be found on Lumia devices. The main key in Rich Recording is the ability to record loud sounds without distortion.

In addition to Rich Recording, the Nokia Lumia Icon also features directional recording. It rejects the sounds that are not in front of the camera. Nokia is the first company to introduce four-microphone directional stereo recording in a camera phone. This audio technology has been introduced in the Nokia Lumia 1520 and carried on to the Lumia Icon.

What do you think of these clips from the Nokia Lumia Icon? Let us know in the comments and make sure to check out our full Nokia Lumia Icon review if you haven’t read it yet.

Mark Guim
Mark Guim

Mark Guim is Video Editor at Windows Central. He switched to Windows because the MacBook Pro isn't Pro enough. You can follow him on Twitter at @markguim.
60 Comments
  • Does the 920 have this too?
  • Yes, but only 3 mics, IIRC. Lumia Icon (and Lumia 1520) each have four.
  • My 920 has three microphones? Where are they, i only knew it has two
  • I wonder this too.
  • The third one is in the earpiece.
  • It's got the same high quality mics but does not have directional sound recording option(like boom mic) as it only has three mics while the Lumia Icon has four.
  • What about L925?
  • I also thought that the 920/925 had two and the 928 had 3
  • I'm impressed.
  • Great!
  • impressive... also: GOD I LOVE NYC!!
  • i know man..i know..NYC..love you too
  • The phone did a great job and so did the band, I am impressed by both. I have so many videos of concerts I have record with cell phones over the years and they are all crap compared to this. Nice work Nokia.  
  • Wonder if it will have the same poor low light video recording like the L1520.
  • Think the video looks a bit better than the 1520.....my god did they get that wrong...test it 1st in all light source before you sell it lol
  • Yeah, but the videos shown for the L1520 before it came out looked better also and look how that ended up.
  • tomorrow is the day, FINALLY.......GOODBYE ANDROID!!!!!!
  • Welcome to Windows Phone!
  • My condolences. Sent from my kick ass moto x. Phone of the year by all. I like windows as well don't get your panties in a bunch.
  • Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night. No phone can touch a high end Lumia.
  • Selective popularity contest, you crack me up.
  • "moto x. Phone of the year by all" By all, don't think so, not on planet earth anyway.
  • "Moto-x, Phone of the Year" Brought to you by their sponsors: Fragmentation Random Battery drain Zero privacy & your their highest achievement from Mr Malware Lets hear it for Spazdroid. Hip Hip?
  • I got my friend to reconsider his phone purchase of the Droid Maxx to the Nokia Lumia Icon! I was so excited I was bouncing off the walls!!!!!
  • The Lumia iCon can't touch my 808 PureView in audio recording!!! Just kididng. I haven't used the camera on my wife's 1520 much since I have the 1020 and I haven't used my 808 much since I have the 1020 but I do prefer the audio capture of the 808 over the 1020. I am glad to see Nokia using Rich Recording in more phones but I wish they would market features like this more. Maybe they need a logo for Rich Recording so that people can identify it, similar to HTC's us of the beats B in the past.
  • These HD mics really will help with voice activated actions. Glad Nokia is still pushing the limits of experience on mobile devices.
  • I want this phone badly
  • and andorid fans say wp phones are out dated technology....haha
  • Please available globally ! D:
  • I think people just have very low standards now that a lot of what they watch is shot on crappy phones. This may be better than a lot of other phone captures but it still isn't usable for anything (except maybe videos of Bigfoot or UFOs).
  • Not usable for anything? That's hilarious. Its usable for everything you would shoot with a phone camera, and usable for anything shot with a normal camera minus professional videos. And even then if you know how to use the phone correctly you can still get professional quality. Your comment is the same as saying phones shouldn't have cameras because they aren't the best, and while we are at it lets get rid of all disposable cameras. Actually any camera that doesn't natively record in 4k at 120fps lets just trash them.
  • You aren't usable for anything. BOOM! ROASTED!
  • Maybe its just me... but I want to punch that bitch from the museum video in the face.
  • ^THIS!
  • So tell us why would you want to do that? And how would that make you feel? There is certainly a free couch for you somewhere and someone to listen and analyze your problems and help you with that disorder of yours.
  • ^This!
  • I thought I was the only one that felt that way.
  • You want to hit a woman? Gees I bet you feel very manly. In fact you should no longer refer to yourself as men, all 3 of you who posted that horrible remark. Pathetic.
  • That's because she's absolutely clueless about Russian iconographic art and yet decides to talk about it and really exposes her stupidity.
  • Sounds good....but Nokia needs to make one phone for all carriers with all the features..
  • Audio is superb but Video seems blurred though.
  • Video seems okay. But I have mixed feelings on the audio quality. I think the engadet video is the best demo of what the omniaudio can do, but the audio of the three embedded videos in this article don't come out well. I need to see more samples to get a sense of the audio quality. Till now I'm not impressed, or at least apparently not hearing quality. The main issue I'm noticing is that the audio is soft. I do not have surround speakers. Perhaps that's the issue. I do have stero speakers, but even then I'm not impressed at what I'm hearing. There is perhaps a little too much bass. That makes the voices and perhaps other audio details difficult to hear. The audio of the band doesnt sound sharp and I cant hear the voices clearly. Maybe it's the acoustic of where it was filmed. Anyway, I need to see more examples.
  • The camera settings for the Icon has Audio bass filter (off, default: 100Hz, or strong: 200Hz) and Directional stereo (Default: on, or off). 
  • I kind of agree. It doesn't have the kind of crisp treble you'd hope for. It does sound pretty dang impressive either way, though.
  • How about a phone with the eyes of a 1020 (camera), ears of the icon (audio), energy of a teenager (wireless charging), the face of 1520 (screen) and the body of a 925.  I am in love.
  • LIKE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Now THAT is what I'm talking about! But make it a 5" screen, please.
  • I am being tempted.
  • Bring on the native 8.1 Gen of phones!! :)
  • Really? That's a horrible example of concert recording capabilities. My Lumia 925 video of Public Enemy in the 2nd row is amazing. The phones ability to accurately record low frequencies without distorting the highs is phenomenal. The iPhone is HORRIBLE at recording low frequencies.
  • I'm impressed. If people are going to record videos at a concert (a bit of a douche thing to do), they should be using this phone. So many videos of concerts on youtube are okay video quality wise, but are terrible as far as the audio goes.
  • I personally own a 1520 and id have to say it preforms the same
  • Let me tell you that I got almost nothing from that ad comparing different smartphones with a girl talking between... drag racers or racing cars, can't remember. But I can vouch for the difference in audio capture since the 808 and now with the 1020. It was among the things that caught my attention to the phone in the first place. Audio capturing has often been one of those ignored things on video cameras and video capturing devices. For smartphones and cellphones, you don't need a very advanced microphone for your usual phone call, and that's what they use mostly for audio recording too. Video capturing in the low end with point 'n shoot cameras and low priced action cams it's always assumed that you won't use the audio for much. Take the audio from GoPros for instance, it's more often than not crap, which is why you'll mostly watch videos coming from it with a soundtrack on top and either no sound from the original capture, or very low and muted stuff. Finally, when you reach dSLRs and some other cameras which have high quality video capture, it's very common to find very subpar internal mic capturing because it's assumed you'll either get a good external microphone to attach to it, or even a separate audio recorder to sync everything in post. It really is often the case simply because you can't have one tiny internal mic acting as all sorts of different microphones needed for different types of videos. Doesn't mean they should forget about it altogether though. So, when the very first ad for Lumia 808 shooting a garage band playing live came out, I was both impressed and skeptical. Unthinkable to capture video from a smartphone and not end up with useless audio on a live gig, with the audio all blown out and crap leveling. Later on, after purchasing it I was taken by surprise on how good it is. Not perfect, not as incredible as ads might make you think, but better than any embeded audio recording system for video I've seen before. You get reasonably good audio out of situations that you'd previously assume it was going to be crap, period. The fact that it doesn't sound as if it was recorded inside a tin can, bathroom, inside a thick plastic bag or something alone is pretty remarkable. My guess is that there's some well thought automatic leveling system that does a pretty good job in equalizing stuff, not allowing live band recordings get totally blown out, while also being able to get pretty good voice capturing in other situations. It's a very good thing to have with you depending on what kinda videos you take and such. Example: let's say you only have a dSLR (naked, no extras) like my Canon T2i to record a video of something in which the audio part is very important, and then you have a Lumia 1020. Even sacrificing image quality, in a specific case like that, I'd go for the Lumia - because quite frankly, the internal Canon T2i mic is unusable. Even more if you don't have a custom firmware installed.
  • I can assure you this: no one read that...
  • I can assure you this; you're wrong, and assumption is the mother of all f*** ups. Try reading something with more than one sentence and you might have realised that yourself.
  • Why so serious? I was joking due to the size of the text, which is huge. But if you have read it, then good for you!
  • Thats pretty neat. I really love the quality of the audio and video in my 920's captures but I just cant get myself to not be annoyed by the continuous autofocus that keeps happening. The video keeps bumping in and out. I thought this was supposed to be fixed in the Amber software update, but it still lingers on. I can see that in the first video as well. Hope they fix it.
  • There is a video on YouTube comparing the audio quality of both Lumia icon and S4. Watch it to know the difference...
  • If only it had an SD card...I cannot rely on SkyDrive anymore because I hate when photo albums show a grey tile instead of a thumbnail. I also know it's easier and faster to transfer media to the SD card when it's connected directly to the PC and not via the pbone\USB cable.
  • I would have found this videos more informing if they were comparing the audio outputs from different phones.