Nokia Lumia 820

Overview

Feature-rich and Stylish Windows 8 Phone

The Nokia Lumia 820 is the second Windows Phone 8 handset to be released by Nokia. Earlier Windows Phone devices from Nokia set the bar high, offering excellent performance for the earlier incarnations of the Windows OS – so can the 820 bring something new to the table?

Design and Build Quality of Nokia Lumia 820

The phone’s design represents a significant departure from that of its predecessor, the Lumia 800, which was widely considered to be quite striking and ground breaking in a market that tends to produce very similar-looking handsets. The phone’s outer shell has done away with a uni-body form, and instead the phone comes with a selection of covers – colored, iProve-protected or wireless charging. The phone’s many docks on its side edges demonstrate its strong functionality, and unlike previous Windows phone users can remove the battery. However, the phone’s design looks slightly cheap, and its glossy covers feel overly lightweight and fragile, and are awkward to fit and remove, while the phone itself is slender but heavy at 160 grams. The phone’s 4.3” AMOLED ClearBlack display, with 480x800 resolution is reasonably sized and offers clean, crisp visuals with bold colors and good performance in low and bright-lit environments.

User Interface and Comfort to Use Nokia Lumia 820

The phone fits comfortably in the hand like its sibling handset the Lumia 920, the Lumia 820 features a dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait processor, promising slick operation that is better suited to the demands of the Windows 8 operating system. These specs put it on even footing with close competitors the HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy SIII. On top of this, Nokia has outfitted the phone with the nice-looking “Live Tiles” interface, which is definitely easy on the eye and delightful to use. Overall, performance is good, although the 820 does show slightly more lag as you flick between apps than the Lumia 920.

Telephony and Phonebook

The Lumia 820 features the typical all-in-one phonebook that we’ve come to expect from Nokia handsets, so you can sign into your social media accounts and quickly import all of your friend information, then merge to create a single database of all your contacts. Call quality is good, with no dropped calls, and the phone does a good job of filtering out background sound, so that voices can be heard loudly and clearly even in noisy environments. The phone also features the useful Proximity sensor found on previous Nokia devices, which disables the hardware keys when the phone is held to the ear during calls. The front-facing camera for video calling offers 640x480 resolution and the quality is good.

Messaging and Emails

With the integrated contacts feature, it’s easy to flick between the Phone and Messaging apps. The Lumia 820 offers all of the usual options: SMS, MMS and IM, plus Facebook Chat and messages, and Twitter integration, and the interface is slick and responsive.

Gallery, Photo Viewer and Video Player

If media viewing is a top priority for you as a phone user, you could do much worse than the Lumia 820. Its 4.3” screen performs well when displaying images and video, although users familiar with the mid to high end of the market will note that the screen is smaller than its close competitors, the HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy S3. It comes with 8GB storage out of the box, with a micro-SD slot enabling a further 32GB maximum. The Gallery app is easy to use, with good social media integration. Video playback is also good, with decent visuals on the phone’s screen and some nice editing options.

Nokia Lumia 820 Music Player and FM Radio

Offering support for a wide range of file formats, the Lumia 820’s music player is capable and well designed, and the album artwork looks particularly good on its high-quality display. It also comes equipped with an FM Radio, featuring a useful station auto-finder. Sound quality is good, although the bass is occasionally distorted.

Nokia Lumia 820 Still Camera and Image Quality

Nokia phones are well known for their excellent camera hardware and software, and the Nokia Lumia 820 is no exception. Equipped with a Carl Zeiss Tassar lens, the rear-facing camera built into the 820 has a capable but unremarkable 8-megapixel sensor, while the front-mounted camera is a modest 1.3 megapixel sensor. The phone is equipped with Nokia’s Smart Shoot technology, which takes a series of photos with a single press of the shutter, then merges the captures into a single still. It’s a nice addition, and produces some pleasing results. Taking photos with the 820 is quick and effortless, with great image quality, and there are plenty of editing and after-effects options to enhance and filter your images before you upload them to social networking sites or email them to friends.

Video Camera and Video Quality

The phone’s camera captures in 1080p resolution, with a LED flash and a frame rate of 30 fps. It’s a capable camera, and the video quality produced is excellent, with crisp colors and good light sensitivity, although at times it struggles in low light. There are a number of editing options to enhance the display, but the lack of digital zoom or face recognition is disappointing.

Connectivity Options in Nokia Lumia 820

Nokia Lumia 820 comes equipped with the usual options: Wi-Fi, 3G and Bluetooth, and can operate as a Wi-Fi Hotspot for up to 5 devices – useful on the go. Notably, the phone features wireless charging, using the special charging shell – it’s one of the first handsets on the market to offer this capability, and it’s clear that many manufacturers will be jumping on the bandwagon because it’s a useful addition. The phone also comes equipped with NFC capability, an exciting future prospect as it becomes more widespread.

Organiser and Other Utility Tools

The Lumia 820 is fitted out with a full suite of organizational and document management tools, including the complete Office suite (Excel, PowerPoint, Word and One Note), plus synchronization with SkyDrive so that you can access your documents wherever you go.

Nokia Lumia 820 Web Browser and Applications

The Internet Explorer 10 web browser is clean, quick and easy to use, with plenty of extra functionality such as smart tabbing, so users of other browsers will find little lacking here. The lack of Flash support does mean that certain media elements are missing. The phone comes equipped with a range of native apps out of the box, and users can download additional apps from the Windows.

Google Maps and GPS

While Google Maps performs well on the handset’s internet browser, users are pushed to make use of the native Nokia Maps app, which looks fantastic on the phone’s capable screen. The GPS capability is strong, with fast location pinpointing, and the Nokia City Lens is a handy addition that provides lots of local information and live updates.

Value for money and Verdict

With a price point very close to the HTC One X, and much of the same capability on-board, the Lumia 820 represents decent value for money, although its smaller screen size is noticeable. Smart, slick and capable, with excellent support for media capture and playback, the Lumia 820 deserves to be a strong competitor in this crowded market.