Nokia Lumia 710

The little brother of the more famous and popular Lumia 800, finally came to our labs, looking coy and modest, knowing how the elder sibling broke our hearts, with the crazy pricing and drawbacks that it had. But, this one? Well, it wants to step out of the shadows of the 800 and wants to be noticed, mainly because it’s almost a full ten grand cheaper than the 800. Does the Lumia 710 rekindle our relationship with Nokia’s Windows Phones? Read on to find out. 

Design and Build Quality

The Lumia 710 we got for review came dressed up in a demure black outfit, but if you’re the more flashy type, there are a range of back covers that you can choose from at the time of buying the device. The back is covered in a matte finish whilst the front is all glass and is more prone to fingerprints. At a thickness of 12.5 mm, it’s not the thinnest phone in the market currently but it’s got a contoured and curved back which gives it an overall ‘slim’ feeling.

The front consists of the 3.7-inch ClearBlack capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels and Corning Gorilla Glass protection. The speaker is located at the back alongwith a five megapixel shooter, an LED flash and the first of the two noise cancellation microphones. We couldn’t really locate the second one, but we’re assuming it’s underneath the chassis or is clubbed next to one of the holes for the speakers. The 710 comes with an ambient light sensor, proximity sensor and magnetometer sensor (for GPS assistance).

The top of the phone consists of the microUSB slot, the power button and the headphone jack, while the microSIM slot is located beneath the 1300mAh battery. The volume rocker and camera shutter buttons are located on the right. Did we miss something? Yes, with 8GB of internal memory, Nokia has offered to do away with a microSD card slot, so that may be a downer for some.

A combination of a 1.4 GHz single core Scorpion processor, a Qualcomm MSM8255 chipset and Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, seems to work fantastically well for the Lumia 710. It’s fast, zippy and shows no signs of lagging down and if you’re new to the Windows Phone world, we’ll describe it in one word for you, its eye candy. In terms of looks alone, Android’s grid UI or even Apple’s UI stick out like a sore thumb in front of the brilliant, almost magical, use of colours in the phone’s user interface.

The Lumia 710 captures detail pretty well, but when you start the camera, it takes a while for the colours to stabilize. Also, there’s a slight hint of noise in indoor photographs. Outdoor snaps and macros are handled pretty well. Plus, the camera, like the applications is quick and can be accessed via the shutter button even when the phone is locked. Video recording is present at 720p resolution and like seen on most phones, you can’t zoom in during recording.

The only problem some people might have with this phone is that there is no expandable memory (if you’re not satisfied with 8 gigs of memory) or front camera. Besides that, the build, interface, camera and battery life is quite brilliant. For us, the real thing actually holding the phone back is the limited collection of apps in the market (which, to be fair to Microsoft, is getting better over time). If that isn’t a problem for you, then look no further than the Lumia 710. With Windows Phone 7.5 Mango and this new beauty, Nokia is finally back in business.

Source : http://www.gadgetsguru.in