Nokia Lumia 520

Overview

Wonder Phone

Nokia Lumia 520 is a wonder phone by the mobile giant Nokia. It is one of the first few phones to come out with Windows 8 OS.

Nokia Lumia 520 Design and Build Quality

Nokia Lumia 520 is a budget phone by Nokia however; the company has not compromised on the quality of the phone. The built and design is very impressive. The phone is very sturdily built and can easily withstand rough handling. The sides are slightly raised above the screen to prevent it from scratching. The weight of the phone is only 124 grams. The phone is very comfortable to hold in hand. The battery of the phone will last you comfortably for 10 hours with 2G and 3G use. The phone is available in attractive colours yellow, blue, red, white, and black.

User Interface and Comfort to Use Nokia Lumia 520

The phone runs on Windows 8, which is one of the most use friendly software. Windows 8 works across all platforms with ease. The phone’s screen is 4 inch and the resolution is 800x480 pixels. The screen display is crisp and clear and the icons are large. The RAM is 512 MB; internal memory is 8GB and the processor is 1 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4. This may not sound much but the phone is fast and responds well in multitasking. You can easily use the touchscreen when wearing gloves also and this means that cold weather usage is very easy. The screen picks up smudges easily, which makes the screen a little difficult to use. The tiles are all live tiles and are easy to access and modify.

Telephony and Phonebook

Handling contacts is very easy on this phone and this is the one feature, which we loved. Adding contacts is very easy and a single tap on the contact will give you all the details of the contact. History can be easily viewed by a left swipe. The Phone app is very easy to use and calling your contacts is a breeze. Call quality is very good. Loudspeaker is average but works well on a distance.

Messaging and Emails

All messaging options are available on the phone. You can easily attach files to messages. The on screen keyboard is very good and easy to use.

Gallery, Photo Viewer and Video Player

The gallery of the phone has from both SD card and phone memory. The photo viewer gives you a number of options to edit the photos. The video player is good and plays all the formats including MP4, H.264, H.263 and WMV. However if you are going to use the loudspeaker then the battery will run out very fast therefore earphones is a wiser option.

Nokia Lumia 520 Music Player and FM Radio

Music player of the phone is also very good. You can see all your songs in one place and there is an option to sort out the music to your liking. You can easily download songs from the store with the music player. Transferring music from the computer is also easy. You can also use the Xbox live app to get some of your favourite music.

Nokia Lumia 520 Camera and Image Quality

The phone has one 5MP camera in the rear. There is no front-facing camera, which takes away the possibility of Skype and 3G video calling. The camera has many features including Cinemagraph, Smart Shoot, Panorama, Auto Focus, Touch Focus, Landscape Orientation, Auto and Manual Exposure, Auto and Manual White Balance, Active Toolbar, Full Screen View Finder, Geo-tagging, Automatic Photo Upload to Web Services, Digital Camera Add-ons: Cinemagraph Lens, Bing Vision, Smart Shoot Lens, Panorama Lens, Capture Modes, Scene Modes, White Balance Modes, Light Sensitivity, and Image Editor. The photo quality is quite good but not very sharp. We missed the flash on the camera because its absence makes indoor shots looks substandard.

Video Camera and Video Quality

The video camera can record up to 720p videos with 30fps. The video recording is very basic. If you move too fast then the video camera takes some time to get back in focus.

Nokia Lumia 520 Connectivity Options

Connectivity options include Micro USB, Wi-Fi, GPRS, 3G, and Bluetooth. The connectivity is decent at all times

Organiser and other Utility Tools

Apart from the standard tools other options available for you are Micro SIM, Wi-Fi Security, Calculator, Clock, Alarm, Calendar, Games, Lync (Corporate IM), Lost Device Tracking, Browser Integrated Anti-phishing, Device Lock, Device Passcode, Online Back Up and Restore, Audio Streaming, Audio Recording (Mono), Internet Radio, Video Streaming, Voice Recognition, Free Cloud Storage: 7 GB, Text-to-speech Message Reader, and, Remote Security Policy Enforcement, Data Encryption

Nokia Lumia 520 Web Browser and Applications

Internet explorer is the default browser on the phone. The lack of ability to download and back button pulls down the browser performance a little. Applications include Mac Companion App, Windows 8 Companion App, Hot Mail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Outlook Mobile, Nokia Mail, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Windows Live Messenger, Skype, Instant Messaging, and Voice Mail. You can download more apps from the Nokia store.

Here Maps and GPS

The map app on the phone is known as the HERE Maps. Sadly, the map app lacks a lot features that are available on other map apps on there in the market. The GPS latching is very poor and the signal kept getting lost when we here using in 3G mode.

Value for Money

The phone is priced at around INR 10000 (approx., may vary) in the Indian market. The price of the phone is very competitive.

Verdict

We would rate the phone a 4.4 stars out of 5.