At the beginning of 2011 Nokia drew back from the fading Symbian operating system and chose Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform for its newborn – the Lumia series. Now, two years later a big variety of 15 Lumia devices of different class categories can be found on the market. In this video review Digital Magnet draws your attention to Nokia Lumia 520.
The True Color technology enhances the screen’s work at 800×480 pixel resolution
Nokia got inspired by the beauty of the Finnnish language and named their smartphones after the Finnish word Lumi, which means snow. On the contrary, this handset is neither white nor cold. The typical rainbow of colors available for all Lumia devices is also the case for this model. It is made to suit any style as you may chose among white, back, bright yellow, light blue and red colors.
Despite its low cost there are few things we could possibly complain about this device. What’s more, it was actually a very pleasant surprise to see a pocket-friendly device like this performing so well.
Even full web pages load almost instantly, there are no annoying lags
The dual-core 1GHz Snapdragon S4 processor along with the 512MB of RAM is just enough to deliver easy and smooth browsing. Even full web pages load almost instantly, there are no annoying lags. The average display size of 4 inches is big enough for browsing and at the same time compact enough to keep in the pocket. The True Color technology enhances the screen’s work at 800×480 pixel resolution at 235 ppi density. The super Sensitive Touch screen responds instantly to your touch commands even during wintertime when you can use the phone with your gloves on. The IPS technology Nokia has used here is something we don’t see very often on budget models. However, here it is one of the main advantages.
The IPS technology Nokia has used here is something we don’t see very often on budget models
The backside of the device is made of a whole single piece of plastic which goes all over the periphery as well. Its rubberized surface is made to provide a comfortable grip of the device. The handset has a quite massive profile of 1cm thickness. The back lid is removable so that you can access the battery piece inside. It has a 1430 mAh capacity which is pretty enough to get you through a whole day of browsing and playing music and videos or that is 9 and a half hours of talk time on 3G.
The onboard storing capacity is 8GB and there is a micro SD card slot for boosting it with 64GB more. You can also add 7GB of free storage on Microsoft SkyDrive.
You can also add 7GB of free storage on Microsoft SkyDrive
There are three keys on the right side: a power/lock key, a volume rocker and a dedicated camera key. It launches and controls the main camera unit. It has 5MP quality and performs very well in low light thanks to the low aperture number of f/2.4. The camera on the Nokia Lumia 520 has auto-focus and 4x digital zoom. To keep its price down Nokia has left the base camera without a flash but the low f number is supposed to make up for that. There is no front camera.
In conclusion we could say that for about $260 the Nokia Lumia 520 packs optimal performance.