Been waiting for the ideal low end/mid range Windows phone to be released and have been eyeing up the HTC 8X for a while but I'm glad I waited as I recieved my Lumia 620 yesterday and thought I'd share some thoughts on it.
All the pictures were taken on my iPad mini so excuse the quality!
Hardware:
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I opted for the black model as garishly shiny coloured plastic just isn't my thing (but options are nice for those that want it!) and it feels rather nice in the hand.
The screen is really good for such a low priced handset with the Clearblack stuff doing exactly what it's designed to. My only niggle with the screen is the low resolution but, when I see what these things cost, I can more than live with the thing.
Here it is on full brightness next to me Nexus 4 - click for full size:
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The low PPI does destroy zoomed out text but with a little pinch to zoom, it soon clears up.
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The big surprise for me was how much brighter the whites are and how cooler looking the Nexus 4 is when on max brightness.
Camera is adequate for such a low end device but nothing special (not that you'd expect anything groundbreaking at the sub £150 to £200 price range these sell for). My egg Macro shot below did surprise me. With the right light and a steady hand, it isn't too bad at all!
Click for full size:
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The SD card slot on the thing enabled me to add an instant boost of 16GB from an old card I had in my old ZTE Blade which is great. It's only a shame you can't load apps onto expandable storage as one or two large apps will soon fill up the internal memory of the Lumia.
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Software:
First the Nokia extras that come with the phone. In a word, brlliant! Nokia Music and Nokia Here Drive+ Beta are superb.
I had a quick test of Here Drive on the way home and not only was the navigation great, the speed limits and warnings when I crept over them (only by one or two mph!
) were extremely handy. Add to that offline maps from many, many countries are on offer and it's a very potent mapping solution. I have the whole UK maps on mine which was around a 250 megabyte download.
Likewise, Nokia Music provides a decent service to stream a musical genre of your choosing over the air for free.
Not bad at all Nokia on these two apps alone.
Windows Phone 8
Windows Phone 8 on glides on the thing. It's great to see that the smoothness I experienced using WP7.5 on my HTC Titan and WP7 on my Omnia 7 remains, even on this low end gear. I don't think I've seen a low to mid range Android device perform as this one does.
I do struggle typing in portrait on the smaller screen and wish that MS would have at least spread the keyboard across the width of the screen in landscape as it is still a little squished when in that orientation.
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My only big issues is the app selection on WP8 still lags behind Android and iOS. This is exacerbated further for me due to the complete lack of support from Google for the platform. As I extensively use Google services across Android and iOS its crappy to see that Google haven't given WP the same love. I do hope this changes with as the platform matures and grows.
Other than that, it's refreshing to use something completely different again. I think that the hardware that Nokia are putting out coupled with WP8 is a great combo and am pleased to once again own a Nokia phone. It's already made me want to give a higher end Lumia a try.
This isn't an extensive review and there is a lot more I'd need to cover for some a definitive conclusion on it but I do like what Nokia have managed to do for the prospective budget conscious smartphone buyer. Worth checking out as a secondary device to see what WP8 is all about!
All the pictures were taken on my iPad mini so excuse the quality!
Hardware:
I opted for the black model as garishly shiny coloured plastic just isn't my thing (but options are nice for those that want it!) and it feels rather nice in the hand.
The screen is really good for such a low priced handset with the Clearblack stuff doing exactly what it's designed to. My only niggle with the screen is the low resolution but, when I see what these things cost, I can more than live with the thing.
Here it is on full brightness next to me Nexus 4 - click for full size:
The low PPI does destroy zoomed out text but with a little pinch to zoom, it soon clears up.
The big surprise for me was how much brighter the whites are and how cooler looking the Nexus 4 is when on max brightness.
Camera is adequate for such a low end device but nothing special (not that you'd expect anything groundbreaking at the sub £150 to £200 price range these sell for). My egg Macro shot below did surprise me. With the right light and a steady hand, it isn't too bad at all!
Click for full size:
The SD card slot on the thing enabled me to add an instant boost of 16GB from an old card I had in my old ZTE Blade which is great. It's only a shame you can't load apps onto expandable storage as one or two large apps will soon fill up the internal memory of the Lumia.
Software:
First the Nokia extras that come with the phone. In a word, brlliant! Nokia Music and Nokia Here Drive+ Beta are superb.
I had a quick test of Here Drive on the way home and not only was the navigation great, the speed limits and warnings when I crept over them (only by one or two mph!
) were extremely handy. Add to that offline maps from many, many countries are on offer and it's a very potent mapping solution. I have the whole UK maps on mine which was around a 250 megabyte download.Likewise, Nokia Music provides a decent service to stream a musical genre of your choosing over the air for free.
Not bad at all Nokia on these two apps alone.
Windows Phone 8
Windows Phone 8 on glides on the thing. It's great to see that the smoothness I experienced using WP7.5 on my HTC Titan and WP7 on my Omnia 7 remains, even on this low end gear. I don't think I've seen a low to mid range Android device perform as this one does.
I do struggle typing in portrait on the smaller screen and wish that MS would have at least spread the keyboard across the width of the screen in landscape as it is still a little squished when in that orientation.
My only big issues is the app selection on WP8 still lags behind Android and iOS. This is exacerbated further for me due to the complete lack of support from Google for the platform. As I extensively use Google services across Android and iOS its crappy to see that Google haven't given WP the same love. I do hope this changes with as the platform matures and grows.
Other than that, it's refreshing to use something completely different again. I think that the hardware that Nokia are putting out coupled with WP8 is a great combo and am pleased to once again own a Nokia phone. It's already made me want to give a higher end Lumia a try.
This isn't an extensive review and there is a lot more I'd need to cover for some a definitive conclusion on it but I do like what Nokia have managed to do for the prospective budget conscious smartphone buyer. Worth checking out as a secondary device to see what WP8 is all about!
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