Nokia pits Lumia 928 against Galaxy S III and iPhone 5 in video shootout

How many memorable video ads about phones have you seen so far? Off the top of my head I can only think of just two recent ones, both released by Microsoft. The first one is from late-October, last year, and features Steve Ballmer discussing his HTC Windows Phone 8X and the second, unveiled little over a week ago, stars the Lumia 920 in an Android vs iOS fanboy war at a wedding.

Both videos are memorable in the sense that they allow us, the viewers, to actually relate to the folks presented in the two scenarios. We are users of different social networks, send and receive emails and messages each day, have friends who are Android or iOS fanboys and so on. Now, by contrast, Nokia's new Lumia 928 video ad is one of the weakest attempts at wooing viewers. It lacks any sort of panache or wit.

The video ad pits the Lumia 928 against Apple's iPhone 5 and Samsung's Galaxy S III in a low-light video shoot during a carousel ride at Adventureland, in Farmingdale, New York. The first thing that crossed my mind is: "Why is Nokia trying so hard to beat last year's flagships?"

Yes, they are both very popular today but the Galaxy S4 is already here touting better features than its predecessor and the iPhone 5 is nearly eight months old. Is Nokia trying to tell us that it can release a smartphone with a better camera when the competition is close to oblivion? If so then job well done, Nokia.

Upon further and closer inspection, the ad presents a different problem -- when displaying the side-by-side comparisons, the videos shot with the three smartphones are not even synced. This would be fine had this been an amateurish comparison, but it bears Nokia's logo.

The results are obvious -- the Lumia 928 takes the crown.

I tend to take any shootouts coming from the Finnish manufacturer with a grain of salt. Nokia has already screwed things up once by faking a video. Allegedly shot with the Lumia 920, in the ad a professional-grade camera was used instead. Considering how easy it is to manipulate the outcome of any shootout, it sure looks like Nokia could detail the testing procedures a bit.