Nokia Lumia 800 stars in our hands-on pictures

Nokia proudly unveiled its new flagship device -- the Lumia 800, running Windows Phone -- to a packed auditorium full of press and Nokia fans. Not ones to be easily impressed, we dove in to the crowds to get a proper hands-on.

At first glance, the 800 looks identical to the Nokia N9 that was released in select parts of the globe earlier this year. It's made from a single piece of polycarbonate plastic, rather than being bolted together from lots of pieces, which makes it feel particularly sturdy. We wouldn't want to use it as a Jai Alai ball, but it will certainly put up with a few knocks.

There's no physical buttons on the front of the phone which allows the screen to take up all the space it wants -- 3.7 inches, to be specific. It's an AMOLED screen that looked incredibly bright, with beautiful contrast levels that will make photos and videos shine.

The 800 is the first of Nokia's phones to be running the Windows Phone operating system rather than MeeGo, which we saw on the N9. Windows Phone has an attractive and intuitive interface full of bright, colourful tiles that show live information for things such as the weather or news. You can also group your friends into a tile that will update with live statuses and posts, pulled in from various social networks.

On the back of the phone is an 8-megapixel Carl Zeiss camera that uses an f2.2 aperture that should allow for great low-light photos. We haven't been able to give it a proper test yet, but first impressions were good. Nokia has a history of making good camera phones, with the N8 rivalling the pictures you'd get from a dedicated compact camera.

The 800 is a very promising bit of kit serving up a tasty slice of Windows Phone Mango and we're very excited to give it a full review. In the meantime, click through the photo gallery above for a selection of our hands-on photos.