Nokia Lumia 520 initial impressions – Review

Nokia Lumia 520 initial impressions   Review

The Nokia Lumia 520 is the latest in Nokia’s Windows Phone 8 range. It’s the budget baby of the range with most UK retailers knocking it out at around £150 on pay as you go. However, at the time of writing the Carphone Warehouse has it for £99.95 on O2 (plus a £10 top-up). This, I thought, has got to be worth a punt!

First Impressions

Good

  • Price
  • Dedicated camera button
  • Responsive screen
  • Speedy, considering specs

Bad

  • No camera flash
  • No notification LED
  • Dull screen
  • Small battery
  • Would have liked some more RAM

Specs

  • Screen: 4 inches, IPS LCD, 800 x 600
  • Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, dual core, 1GHz
  • RAM: 512 MB
  • Storage: 8GB onboard, microSD card up to 64GB
  • Camera: 5 megapixels, no flash
  • Video recording: 720p, 30fps
  • Wi-fi: 802.11n/g/b
  • GPS: Yes
  • Bluetooth: Yes
  • Battery: 1430 mAh, removable

Out of the box

The Lumia 520 comes with a charger, a set of earphones/hands free kit and an extremely short micro USB cable.

Initial setup seemed to take ages, and at one point I thought the phone had hung, but once complete I was soon enjoying myself, playing around with the live tiles and installing software.

On the outside

The first thing I noticed about the Nokia Lumia 520 is that it’s angular. Seeing as I am used to the rather rounded corners of my Nexus 4 I thought it may be uncomfortable in the hand. The back is nicely sculpted though and I am very impressed at how nice it is to hold.

I bought myself a white phone (mainly because my local Carphone Warehouse only had white in stock) but there is a choice of black, yellow and cyan as well. It’s only the back shell that is coloured, and just like the rest of the Lumia range extras can be bought separately so you can colour code your phone to your outfit, if that’s your thing.

Performance

Considering this has been my first exposure to Windows Phone 8 I have been very impressed with the operating system. I know from the comments of others that it’s a very efficient OS, even so, I have been amazed at how well the 520’s 1GHz S4 processor has coped. When doing system tasks it is speedy and I haven’t had any of the frustrating lag that a similar spec’ed Android handset would exhibit. When running apps, however, I do feel the lack of RAM may be inhibiting it rather.

Reception has also been exceptional. I visited my parents yesterday, who live in what seems to be a bubble of dead air for mobiles on any network. The Nokia picked up signal where no other phone I tried could manage. Something well worth considering if you’re out in the sticks.

Overall my first 36 hours with the Lumia 520 has been very positive. I am looking forward to seeing how our relationship develops; I will, of course, keep you informed of all our intimate details. In the mean time, if you have any questions about it then feel free to ask them in the comments section below.

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