Nokia Lumia 710 Sim Free Windows Phone - Black

People have given very in depth reviews elsewhere, so this is short and sweet based on my experience of 2 weeks with my new Lumia 710. I wanted an update from my old Nokia 5800 and the slow Symbian operating system. I tried every Android but realised I would need to spend £400+ to get one I really liked, and even then Samsung Galaxy S2 etc had negative points. iPhones aren't for me, as I've tried them before, and they are out of my budget.

I'm glad I chose the Lumia 710. There are two reasons why:

1. Nokia have made an excellent piece of hardware. To me, it is well sized, with a great screen. It might not be the highest definition or the largest, but in the sub £250 price range it's a winner. It seems well built, and everything so far works well. The battery life is great for me, easily lasting 1 day to 2 days, and that's with wifi and data, push emails, browsing, playing games, a little bit of navigation, plus texts and a few calls a day etc. I have a bit of brand loyalty to Nokia I guess, but it seems an excellent piece of hardware, and the performance for running the software is so fast and smooth, and better than iPhone/iPad in my experience...

2. The software is fantastic. I thought I would hate Windows Phone, joking about blue screen of death and other problems. You have to give it a go to really see what a well designed operating system it is. It makes the whole experience of using the phone very easy for calls and messaging, setting up and managing email accounts, syncing and fully integrating with Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. The tile effect is great, as everything is available at a touch, with dynamic and updating splashes of colour. A "people" hub for example is a contacts list combined with facebook updates, messaging and pictures, and this has a constant stream of new images from the home screen. It is also really quite mature, in the sense that the software makes these social networking things link in very smartly and subtley without feeling gimmicky - it is genuinely fun to use and useful. The email support is top notch, and works like a dream. The touch typing is very easy to use, with a sensible predictive auto-correct. The Marketplace is not as well stocked as the Apple Store for example, but knowing how much rubbish is available on these stores, the total number of apps isn't a useful guideline of quality. I have found apps to do everything I want, apart from the BBC iPlayer, but that doesn't bother me. A final note about the software is that the Windows Phone navigation is great. Not only do you get quick, useful Bing maps for local things and walking directions, but Nokia's "Maps" and "Drive" are brilliant, as the data is stored on the phone, so you can use them offline. That saves £150 on a sat-nav, and map updates are free.

A couple of negatives:
- The storage is limited. My old Nokia 5800 had a 8Gb microSD card, but I had to remember that the 8Gb here is shared with the operating system, so you only have 6.5-7Gb free, with no room for expansion.
- Windows Phone 7 is great, but it does take a little getting used to if you are a little slow to adapt like me. It is not quite as fully customisable as my old symbian Nokia or Androids (so I'm led to believe) but it just works, and works well.
- The camera isn't the best in the world, its not as good as my old Nokia 5800 for example, but for the same price point several years on, the Lumia 710 has other advantages that cover this limitation.
- People are fascinated by it as they had never realised it would be such an easy or fun phone to use, so keep wanting a go!
- Syncing to the computer uses Zune, which is beautiful (yes, really). But I just use it to sync and update the phone, and for now await an improvement in its speed at handling massive music libraries to be able to replace my old trusty and speedy Winamp.

Try it out in a phone shop first to see if you could like the operating system. The price is very very low for what you are getting, in my opinion. Carphone Warehouse are selling this as a PAYG upgrade, unlocked for £119 with no top-up.

This mobile phone is an outstanding mix, Nokia and Microsoft have the recipe, they just have to continue development, but I think they hit the correct approach. I currently have iPhone4, Samsung Galaxy S2 and this Nokia Lumia 710. I have had many phones, many platforms and got in depth in all of them up to what you would say a geek (ROMs programs and that stuff). However I try to never miss the practical point of view of what a mobile phone should be for the user (in this case, me)...

What should a phone have good?

-call quality/volume

Great

-Tactile experecience/responsiveness:

Simply outstanding. It's even better than iPhone; I don't know how they do it, but it's great. In my opinion this is very important to everyday use; no lag, fluid moves, and so on... Android's Galaxy S2 is a much higher spec phone, and the software has had hundreds of revisions more than windows phone, but it doesn't get close in terms of fluid. iPhone is very fluid also.

-Design/Robust:

The design is nice, plastic, but it feels good; also like the combination colors. only had it for 2 months and didn't drop it yet, but it feels that it will last; of course speaking in "material" and build terms, the iphone seems to step in front. The physical quality of the materials of a phone is important, it's what we see everyday, and what suffers drops, scratches, dirt, dust... I think that the three are well designed, however I feel the iphone more fragile than the other two (I have also some friends with iphone broken because of drops, and none with a broken galaxy).

-Screen:

I don't care about resolution, brand, type..., I prefer to judge what I see. I don't like AMOLED display in Samsung; the colors feel unreal, too much contrast, and too much saturation all over the place. I do like the display on the iphone, the colors feel nice and balanced. Nokia Lumia 710 is also balanced, the pictures feel real and the colors are what should be. Nothing to say about resolution, the three feel the same depth.

-Operating System:

Windows Phone has really impressed me. The approach is very simple, it works like a charm, and you will finally love the tiles. App Markets on ios and android are way ahead... but I'm sure that it's only a matter of time, just as it was when we only had ios/android (now it's the same thing).
The iOS was great when it came out, it was a revolution for the moment; but it hasn't evolved, it feels the same that we had on an iphone 2G. Also the pain is that it's not flexible at all! Forced to itunes! I feel it's outdated.
Android is great, but I think it is too flexible and too messy.
Windows Phone has found correct mixture of both, needs to keep up the good work but I feel it more balanced that ios and android, and with more possibilities.

-Contacts:

What do you most care about a phone? It's contacts (imagine losing them)! the contact managing should be excellent, and the approach of windows phone to contacts is simply the best. Try it and I'm sure you will think the same.

-Mail/Messaging/Calendar/tasks:

Nowadays, it's very important the management of mail/messaging that we all receive instantly in our mobiles. The feel, look and performance of the mail client in windows phone I feel it to be superior than any other, easy to read, grouping, etc... for me, the best. I'm a person that needs to be perfectly organized at work and at home, and feel my best tool to be Outlook; I haven't found yet anything as good. Calendar and tasks are also perfectly integrated with operating system. It works like a charm.

Also I find Onenote to be very valuable, I use it in my PC and think that it's the best note taking program; if you add the sync with your mobile-PC it's a killer combination to stay organized.

-Internet (explorer)

a new useful feature on our mobiles is to look up anything on the internet, just quick searches, not spending hours looking at a tiny screen. Internet explorer in windows phone works incredibly well, completely fluid, zoom in out, pan... you will not get any lag even if you try; pages load perfectly and veeery quick. It outperforms iphone and samsung, although they also behave very well. It was a very good surprise that internet explorer mobile works so good.

-Camera

5mpix+flash, but what I care most is that the pictures in auto mode, have a "real" look, colors are what should be and the picture is balanced. People in this world I don't know why but they care too much about resolution, mpix... etc... Why don't we judge what we really see?

-Cloud
Skydrive is great, 25gb for free to store what you like, and access from anywhere. A great step forward!

-Battery

Same as others; lasts just over one complete day with push on for everything, in HDSPA with moderate use. If you don't push or switch to 2G you get some more battery. Someone has to design/implement something on batteries, it cannot be that we charge our mobiles everyday.

-GPS/Maps

It comes with nokia drive/maps (you can download maps of any part of the world you may need), just like installing tomtom or copilot; this is very valuable, it works very good, it is an extra feature that you will not have to pay for... great move nokia!

-Music

The managing of music is interesting... a new approach, need to use it more to get a more decent opinion. Currently using zune, spotify, tunein radio, nokia music... it looks very good... seriously.

-Price

Half the price of the iphone and Galaxy S2, a killer.

Nokia and Microsoft have hit an outstanding product, balanced, full of features and possibilites; now it's only up to them. I think this can stand competition and even beat to iphone and android as they are now.

Maybe I missed something, but I don't care about games, windows, ios, android, millions of applications (just need a few, but good), resolution, mpix, hardware specs, ghz mb... I just try to judge what I use and what I see.

Buy this phone, a very good option, I can guarantee you will not be dissapointed.

This is my first WP7 Smartphone. In the past five years I've used the T-mobile G1 (the first Android phone, much too heavy at 160g and rapidly left behind by the evolving Android platform), a Nokia E63 (Symbian, chronically old fashioned OS, but a nice physical keyboard) and, most recently, the HTC Wildfire S (nice design, but too small for me, under powered & hampered by a tiny amount of phone memory).

I was looking for a 3.7 or 4 inch screen, but under £200. I was tempted by recent sleek and poweful Android phones (HTC One S, Sony xperia S), but these are generally significantly more expensive at about £400.

Pros:
* Best onscreen keyboard I have ever used. No need here for replacement keyboards.
* 3.7 inch screen and 800x480 resolution is a good combination, text is readable over a wide variety of type sizes and it's still comfortable to use one handed.
* 1.4Ghz chip provides stellar performance for the price. In regular usage (particularly for browsing) it wipes the floor with the comparably priced but under-powered 600MHz Wildfire S.
* Voice support is embedded in the OS and is excellent, not as comprehensive as Apple's Siri, but remarkably accurate and useful for straightforward use cases of sending and dictating a text message or email.
* Nokia applications are useful, particularly the free worldwide satnav.
* integration of social networking features is better than installing separate apps
* WP7 connector software for OS X works well and provides integration with iTunes and Aperture/iPhoto. This is also used for Firmware upgrades, which was seamless the first time I used it.
* The metro design has been widely & rightly praised in the press. Microsoft managed to come up with a mobile OS that is fresh and approachable without losing functionality. My only criticism is that the information density can be a bit low on some screens, depending on the app. It makes iOS look dated & many Android implementations a mess.
* Having MS as an app store gatekeeper is in line with the Apple approach and probably better than the Android free for all.

Cons:
* 1300 mAh battery is really inadequate for the "day and a bit on a full charge" you would hope to get as a working minimum for a device like this. The battery is a BP-3L. It's possible to replace this supplied battery with the BP-4L / 1500 mAh, which is the same width and height and fractionally greater in depth in comparison with the BP-3L. I found the removable backplate fits back on without any problems, but elsewhere on the web people report that the foam in the backplate should be removed, so YMMV. This is a 15% hike in battery power.
* No SD card slot support. 8GB is adequate provided you make use of cloud / streaming services like SkyDrive, Spotify etc. No issues with moving apps from small amounts of internal storage to SD cards as in Android (that was a particular problem on the Wildfire S).
* Limiited app support in comparison with iOS and Android. There are 80K apps on the WP7 marketplace, with 300 being added a day, so in time this might be less of an issue.
* Unclear what the upgrade path is. It's possible this device might not be upgraded to WP8 when this ships later in 2012.
* Industrial design is nothing to write home about, but there is something to be said for a cheaper workaday device that feels good in the hand and doesn't absolutely demand to be used with a case.