Hands-on: Nokia Lumia 710 and 800
The Nokia Lumia 800 – together with its cheaper cousin Lumia 710 – made their first official appearance in Singapore on Thursday. Reams have already been written on Nokia’s first Windows Phone attempt, but how does the Finnish company’s first wave of Windows Phones actually feel, as Internet parlance goes, in real life?
Lumia 800
Let’s start with Nokia’s new flagship device: the Lumia 800. MeeGo might be dead, but the hardware design lessons learnt from that phone sure isn’t. In fact, save for the three Windows Phone buttons added on the front, the addition of a physical camera shutter button, and a re-positioning of the camera flash, the Lumia 800 looks just like the old N9.
This means that the phone is, of course, a beautiful piece of work. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the phone is crafted from a single piece of polycarbonate which is coloured all the way through so scratches won’t show, and has a smooth piece of Gorilla glass on top to prevent scratches.
The minimalist design complements Windows Phone’s stark 2D aesthetic perfectly, and put on top of Nokia’s AMOLED ClearBlack display, the screen was one of the most stunning ones we’ve seen.
Unfortunately, a lot of the N9’s unique differentiating features have been omitted from the Lumia 800, including an NFC chip and a front-facing camera. The lack of NFC support is particularly inexplicable, in light of Nokia’s efforts to push that technology in recent times.
Plus, instead of 1GB of RAM, the Lumia 800 only has 512MB and on board storage is limited to 16GB.
Most disappointingly, the phone doesn’t do internet tethering. This is a very strange omission, especially since the feature is rolling out via software update to many of the first-generation Windows Phone handsets.
Lumia 710
The Lumia 710 is the cheaper cousin of the 800, targeted at those with a tighter budget. Surprisingly, the phone feels decidedly un-cheap. There’s none of that cheap flimsy plastic manufacturers like Samsung are so fond of, and the phone actually feels quite solid in our hands.
The 710 also brings with it a flash of nostalgia back to the days of the Nokia 8250, as the back covers are swappable and you can choose different colours to go with your mood or live tile colours.
Not much is different from the 800 on the inside: you’ll find the same 1.4GHz processor and 512MB of RAM. However, the camera is bumped down to just 5-megapixels, and storage only comes in 8GB.
The screen measures the same 3.7-inch, but of the plain variety. Nokia claims that the same ClearBlack display technology is present, but when placed even next to a plain ol’ LCD, the 710's screen looks pale and washed out. There’s no AMOLED there for sure.
Nokia apps
To sweeten the Lumia phones, Nokia is offering several key apps. First up is Nokia Drive, an app which turns your phone into an excellent satellite navigation system. It gives directions in more than 100 countries, can work offline, and is completely free.
Complementing Drive is Nokia Maps, an international mapping tool which puts the inbuilt Bing maps to shame. Nokia is making this app available to all Windows Phone users regardless of brand, which is nice.
Nokia's long-standing music store will also make an appearance on Windows Phone. Unlike Apple’s iTunes, Nokia Music allows international users to buy and download songs from the Internet. You can sample songs before purchasing, and Asian songs such as the latest Korean hits are also available.
Several upcoming apps are also in the pipelines. These include Nokia Public Transport, which tracks public transport systems in more than 430 cities worldwide, and Nokia Pulse, the company’s attempt to jump into mobile social networking, a little like Apple’s Find My Friends app.
Bottom-line
For currently Windows Phone users, there’s no clear reason for an upgrade. Unless you’re hankering after that 0.4GHz bump in processor speed, that Carl Zeiss camera, and Nokia’s exclusive apps, the Lumia phones just don’t offer a lot of reasons to jump.
For people looking for their first Windows Phones, the Lumia phones are solid choices to consider, depending on your budget. Nevertheless, other new Windows Phones like the HTC Radar and Samsung Omnia W offer more compelling features in many areas.
