The Lumina 900 is an impressive Windows phone which competes with the iPhone 4S and The Galaxy Nexus. Don’t believe it? Hit the jump to see why.

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We’ve been debating for months: at what point will there be a gdgt recommended Windows Phone? Well, today we finally have an answer to that question: the Lumia 900 is a worthy competitor to our other gdgt recommended smartphones (the iPhone 4S and Galaxy Nexus), the first Windows Phone device to receive our recommendation — an designation we give to less than half of 1% of the products on gdgt. Here’s the deal.

By our measure, Windows Phone has been held back (at least in the US) by lacking a great flagship device with a few key features, namely: original, thoughtful industrial design to match Windows Phone’s surprising level of polish; some meaningful technological edge that could help differentiate it from other mid-range smartphones (like the iPhone 4, which is still a serious contender); and perhaps most importantly, an affordable (carrier-subsidized) price.

Although it’s not perfect, the Lumia brings all the key ingredients necessary to compete to be your next smartphone, from a refined look and feel, to true 4G that won’t run out of juice by noon despite the hefty battery requirements of LTE networks, to a $99 price point. We’ve had a Lumia 900 in the lab for a couple of weeks and done the research on other critics’ findings, and there was no question that this is a phone that we’d recommend to first-time smartphone owners and first-adopters alike.

The Galaxy Nexus, with its big, beautiful display, Verizon 4G, and Ice Cream Sandwich, remains a fantastic device and for the moment still holds 2nd place in gdgt recommended cellphones. In fact, a recent price drop to $80 (on Amazon and Wirefly, with two year contract) gave us occasion to give the Galaxy Nexus’s gdgt score a bump from 90 to 92. There’s no doubt, a sub $100 Galaxy Nexus is a great deal.

The iPhone 4S remains our top recommended cellphone for just about everyone. By most metrics, from basic user experience, to the greatest quantity of really high quality apps, to available accessories, neither Android nor Windows Phone can be our first pick — but we also know that tastes and needs vary. Still, at the $199 and $99 price points, the 4S and 4, respectively, simply can’t be ignored.

GDGT