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68%
3.16 

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Rs. 6,594 (Launch price)

Nokia

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Imphal, Chandigarh, Bangalore India
Safe Sensible First Smartphone. Not Perfect Though
Mar 04, 2014 04:12 PM 17686 Views
(Updated Mar 04, 2014 04:26 PM)

Sound Reception:

User friendly:

Style & Design:

Other Features:

Look & Feel:

Value for Money:

Nokia. The one name that was synonymous with Mobile Phones in India at the turn of the century. 3310, 1100, 2100, E71, N95. are just some of the names that became a byword for solidity, amazing battery life, good sound quality and ease of use.


Sadly, Nokia lost their way in the past few years. Samsung is now the dominant player in the mobile phone market. Where there was symbian, there is now android. But Nokia decided to fight back, with Windows Phone.


Their original offerings Lumia 510, 610, 710 etc were good, with the traditional Nokia attributes, but the Operating System was woeful in terms of features. No Copy-Paste, No Expandable Memory etc. were just some of the huge limitations which kept people away from Windows Phones.


But now, with Windows Phone 8, Nokia is back, and the Lumia 520 is one of the most popular phones in India. With a price of Rs. 10, 000 last year, now reduced to Rs. 7, 800 at many retailers, does this phone deserve it's vast success? Well, let us find out:


1. Looks:


With a 4" Screen Size and sharp square edges, the Lumua 520 borrows the look from it's elder brother, the 720 and looks effortlessly cool. It is refreshingly different compared to all the round edged Samsung and Micromax phones which are available these days.


The phone has a more curved edges on the back panel, allowing it to be held very easily in the hand. The front in black in colour, while the back panel comes in an array of colours, namely, Black, White, Red, Blue and Yellow.


The volume button, camera button and power button are located on the right edge of the phone and are easy to press.


2. Build Quality:


Weighing 124gm, the Lumia 520 is medium in weight, which is good, as it feels nice and solid in the hand, like any good Nokia. The phone is predominantly made of plastic, but it does not feel cheap. The covers have a matte finish which resists dust and dirt reasonably well, and does not show up fingerprints.


3. Screen:


With a 4" screen and 800 x 480 resolution, the screen is above average. No, the resolution is not high definition, but for Rs. 8, 000 it is definitely one of the best screens you will get. Colours are nice and sharp, and sunlight legibility is ok, which can be improved with a matte screen guard.


A nice feature is that there is automatic brightness setting, so at night the display becomes dim and does not hurt your eyes, while in sunlight brightness cranks up to the max setting, allowing you to read the screen more easily.


4. User Interface:


Windows Phone is very different compared to the icon based approach of Android and iOS. It has a tile based approach, as seen in Windows 8 for PC. The tiles work as both icons and also widgets, i.e. they can display either the basic info of the app or show the status updates. The tiles have three sizes, small, medium and big.


In the latter two sizes, they display updates, for e.g. your latest facebook updates, email, messages, whatsapp etc.


Initially, coming from and Android phone I was skeptical as to whether I will adjust to Windows.


And for the first 3-4 days I absolutely hated it. But as I customised my start screen, I realized that it was very easy to use Windows Phone. The Tile interface is especially useful for the elderly who require big sizes to read on the screen. Also, the tiles being on one single swipe down screen are much easier to use as compared to Android's horizontal swiping many home screens.


In addition, there is a nice voice activation features which lets you call people or open programs by voice. It recognizes my Indian accent quite well, better than Google's voice assistant. However, choices are limited to which programs you can activate with voice commands.


5. Contacts, Phone, Messaging and Email:


As with any smartphone, you can store unlimited contacts. What makes the Windows Phone Lumia 520 good is that you can integrate your contacts in one place from Facebook, Twitter, different email accounts, Outlook, Linkedin etc. It took me a few tries to get them integrated but once together, it really streamlines them very well.


For e.g. if there is Mr. ABC in both my linkedin and facebook, the phone is smart enough to integrate them together into one contact.


Messaging and Email are handled very smoothly in Windows Phone. You can integrate your SMS, and email into one inbox or keep them separate. Emails look very nice and elegant on the interface. The big problem here though is the limit to attachments you can send, not more than 10MB.


Telephony is where like any Nokia, the Lumia 520 is excellent. The sound quality of the earpiece if very loud and very clear. You can hear it clearly even in a crowded marketplace with vehicles around you. However, the vibration power is a bit low and I ended up missing a few calls because of it.


6. Photos, Music and Video:


The photo viewer in the Lumia 520 is elegant and very well organized, with the ability to share photos with one click.


The music player is fairly basic and does not have equalizer, but in my view an equalizer is just a waste of time given the type of earphones most people use.


The Lumia 520 can play videos upto 720p resolution, but it is restricted in terms of formats it can play. MKV files will not play and some MP4 files also require conversion before they can play. The good part is that the phone will convert the video for you when you copy it into the phone. The speaker on the phone is loud when playing music or videos.


7. Camera and Video Recording:


The Lumia 520 has a 5MP camera which is above average. In daylight, the pictures are excellent quality and can be printed as well. However, in low light or indoors the photo quality starts to suffer, and it becomes too easy to click blurry photos unless you hold the phone really steady. The fact that the phone does not have a flash also limits its ability to take good low light / indoor shots.


Video recording is upto 720p or high definition. Clarity is good during the day, but suffers at night, and the quality becomes grainy. Sound recording is also ok, but not the best. It catches a lot of ambient noise like car horns and wind.


The good thing is that the you can add camera lenses apps like Panorama, Scanner App, Glam App and Smart Cam, among others, which allows you to tweak and customise your photos.


8. Internet and Search:


The default Internet Explorer browser in the Lumia 520 is ok, but consumes too much data. Given that there are a lack of options, there is only one other browser, OC browser which is good in terms of speed and usability. By default the phone will search via the Bing search app, so if you want Google, you will need to download a third party Google App.


9. Navigation:


The good part is that the Lumia 520 comes with free offline maps and navigation in the form of Nokia HERE Maps and Nokia DRIVE. The license you get is for one country, i.e. India. With offline navigation, you do not need data connection to navigate. You do however, need to first download maps for different states where you want to go. Maps for state are on an average, around 90 - 150 MB.


The navigation is not perfect though. In Bangalore, more than once, the app got me lost and it got confused. Also, you cannot select an alternate route like you do in Google Maps. In my estimate, while HERE maps is excellent for offline use, it is not as powerful as Google Maps. Luckily Google Maps app is available also.


10. Apps:


This is currently the biggest problem of the Lumia Windows Phones. While most popular apps are available for Windows Phone. e.g. Whatsapp, Google Maps, IRCTC, TOI News App


Weather Apps, Facebook, Bookmyshow, Zomato, Viber etc, a lot still aren't. And the quality of the apps is not as good as those available on Android. Whatspp for instance, hangs a lot on Windows Phone.


However, you do get free Microsoft Office for Windows Phone, which allows you to view and edit all office documents(Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote).


Games are also bad. The range available is much much less. Popular games like Stick Cricket are not available and some of the popular games are paid games. For instance, Angry birds and Fruit Ninja cost Rs. 55 each in Windows Phone.


11. Battery Life:


With a 1, 420 mAh Battery, the Lumia 520 does not have the largest battery in the business. However, it still manages to eke out a pretty respectable battery life, on par with other smartphones. With a day of light usage, i.e. 1.5 hours of talking, checking whatsapp and emails every hour, listening to 30 mins of music and using the GPS for 30 mins, the battery was around 40% at the end of 24 hours. With more usage, I suspect the battery would need charging every night.


12. The Bad points:


Most of the Negatives of the Lumia 520 center around the limitations of Windows Phone. However, Nokia continuously releases updates, and with Windows Phone 8.1 coming in Mid-April, a lof of these problems should disappear. Still, there are a couple of large annoyances:


a. No Notification Panel: Unlike Android, there is no notification panel which gives you quick access yo tour call records, emails or any shortcuts to bluetooth, silent mode etc. Yes, it is possible to add shortcuts to the home screen, but I would prefer a one click solution.


b. Single Volume Control: In android, you can set different volumes for Calls, Ringing, Media and Alarms. In Windows Phone, you can set one alarm for call(earpiece) volume, and another for everything else. This means that for instance, if you lower the volume for your music, your ringing and alarm volume will also become low unless you manually increase if again later.


Conclusion:


The problems with the Lumia 520 are mostly software related, and with Windows Phone 8.1 coming soon, should mostly be rectified. The amount of apps is less thought, but should not be a problem for most users.


One should remember than for around Rs. 7, 500 - 8, 000 you are getting a phone with Excellent Build Quality, Very Good Call Quality and an easy to use interface. The Lumia 520 therefore makes an excellent first smartphone or even a backup phone for those who need more than one. No, it is not perfect, but it is excellent value for money.


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