It’s big news from Nokia today, their new Lumia 900 is now available in South Africa.

I maintain what I’ve been saying since my first play ever with Windows Phone 7 OS: it’s like crack, you’ve got to try it at least once before you make a call.

The new Lumia 900 is a very similar phone to the 800 we saw launched a few months back, ironically one of the main differences is that this one is only available from MTN and Vodacom…not yet.

The specs are big and not surprising.

It’s got a very decent 4.3” WVGA AMOLED capacitive touch screen for you to enjoy the WP7 OS. In terms of responsiveness, this phone shouldn’t be nearly as good as it is considering it has a relatively teeny 1.4GHz single core Snapdragon processor. Many other Smartphones on the market are as good as the Lumia 900 and they have a Quad processor. Obviously the wiring is all different behind the scenes, but still…impressive.

Memory onboard comes in the form of 512MB RAM and 16GB of internal storage. Nokia has always gone long on the media angle, and the experience on WP7 OS is refreshingly different. Just a new place to be.

You’ll find a front facing camera for video chatting and a decent 8MP rear camera with auto-focus and an LED flash.

The Lumia’s appearance isn’t much to write about. It’s a very smooth and pretty thin (11.5mm) device with a couple of buttons running down the side. Most of the appeal is going to have to come from the OS then, so if you’re a fan of the WP7 live tiles and the neat, contained boxes, you’re in luck. If you’re not, just give it a try. It’s just nice to be playing on something that isn’t an Apple or an Android.

Battery-life I can’t really comment on until I’ve had a proper review, but they promise it’s decent. 7 hours they say. We’ll see.

The special features of the phone may not be as integral to your life as those for example on the Samsung Galaxy III, but that just means you’ve actually got to interact with the phone a little bit.

Some of my best:
Monster audio in the speakers
Nokia Drive with turn by turn voice navigation
Nokia Music and Mix Radio. 14 million tracks and 100 great radio channels to choose from. More on this later. It’s big.
Xbox Live hub. Get updates on who is beating your score while you sit in a production meeting at work.
There’s also some business app stuff…but…

A couple of years ago Nokia was in some trouble. We all know that. And since then we’ve all been waiting to see if their gamble on WP7 is going to pay off. It’s been a few months since their first WP7 device came out, and the Lumia 900 shows that they aren’t slowing down. Nokia’s still paying its employees and delivering its devices. Does this mean the gamble worked? Comments!