Let’s face it; Samsung rules the mobile world today – at least that’s what the sales volumes say.
Should a smartphone buyer go with the crowd and buy a Samsung Smartphone with an Android OS or should other options in the market be explored? Those who chose option 1 are surely missing a nicety in this Android / Samsung dominated smartphone market; that is the Lumia 720.
I chose Nokia Lumia over a Samsung smartphone for one simple reason – every other person around me had a Samsung smartphone and I didn’t want to fall in the bandwagon. I wanted something “fresh”, “different” and “unique” in my hands. And the Lumia 720 seemed to fit the bill precisely.
Note: If you do not have the patience to read through the detailed review below, just skip to the “pros and cons” section at the bottom.
Build Quality and Design:
The Lumia 720 is definitely a head turner with its sleek body, bold color shells and tiles in the home screen. I love the attention that this phone draws in the crowd. With a 4.3 inch touchscreen, it is neither uncomfortably big nor too small for a smartphone.
It has a solid unibody construction with Gorilla Glass 2 which provides resistance to minor scratches.Lumia 720 is a really solid sturdy phone. My 3 year old daughter has dropped it and also tossed it a few times and it hasn’t done any damage to the phone and it runs just fine.
Phone configuration, performance and Battery:
Google “Lumia 720 specifications” and you will get thousands of sites with this information; It is basically a 1 GHZ Dual core processor at work supported by a 512 MB RAM; It does an amazingly good job in the “speed” department with the “not so great” specs on paper.
We need to understand that the Apple iOS and Windows OS are not as power hungry as the Android OS. Remember that the Apple iPhone 4S has a similar hardware configuration too and you know how well it performs! People get swayed by high specs like quad core processors, 2GB RAMS and it is something that is JUST NOT REQUIRED for Windows and iOS phones. I have never felt that this phone is under specc’ed as its performance has been excellent in my last 1 year of ownership
Battery life – One word – Excellent! Easily lasts 1 full day with 1 hour of phone calls, messages, WhatsApp, Facebook usage and 30 minutes of Skype which I do every day. With moderate usage the battery can go on upto 2 days(with Wifi, Bluetooth, Cellular data switched off).
Good battery life is such an important factor that people normally forget during their hunt for a smartphone. What’s the point in having a heavy spec’ed phone with lots of features which we can’t get to use if the battery doesn’t last even for a day? We wouldn’t want to run around with a charger all the time, would we?
Screen, touch and Camera quality:
These are some of Lumia 720’s real strong points. The screen is an IPS capacitive touch screen which means there is no problem with the viewing angles. The 4.3 inch screen has 217 ppi and also ClearBlack display and it has great screen clarity.
The touch interface is extremely smooth and responsive and I would say that it is at par with the iPhone. In very rare occasions I have seen that the screen doesn’t respond to the touch; A quick lock and unlock of the screen gets it back to business though.
One thing I love about this phone is the Camera quality – It has a 6.7 MP Autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss lens which does an impressive job with photos even in low lighting condition. The only grouse is the shutter lag in this camera. It takes its sweet time to auto focus and shoot the image; As long as you are not shooting sports activities or wildlife, this is probably the best camera phone that you can get in the market today at this price point.
The 1.3MP front camera has great clarity too and does a pretty good job in Skype video calls.
Apps:
Ahh! This has become a very important factor today in the buying decision process for smartphones. Agreed that the android and iOS markets have nearly 1million apps ie. almost 5 times the number of apps that the windows market has. But I would take a step back and not get lost in this number game. Honestly how many apps do we actually need / use? We download so many apps from the stores in excitement only to be left untouched for months and unnecessarily occupying system resources.
To keep it simple, all of the major apps and games(most used / required) are available in all these 3 platforms. I have never felt deprived of apps in Windows store.
A quick list of Pros and Cons in this mobile:
Cons:
1.The phone automatically shuts itself down and restarts at times for no specific reason(very rarely though)
2.The touch becomes unresponsive and you need to do a “lock and unlock screen” procedure to get it working again(very rare occurrence)
3.The lock mode - wall paper screen blows up in size suddenly – like you will be able to see only a portion of the wall paper filling up the whole screen at times; The phone has to be restarted to get it working again
4.In the rare event of a complete freeze of the phone where you are not even able to use the power off button, you won’t be able to remove the battery and put it back to turn it on as there is no back cover that you can open – unibody design. Fortunately I have NEVER faced this situation though
5.Completely “Not so user friendly” process to download ringtones / get it in blue tooth and assign it as a ring tone; You need to connect to a PC to have a ring tone that is not part of the standard ringtones that the phone offers – CRAZY!
Luckily, there are some apps though where you can download ringtones and keep it as a ringtone in your phone but it is restricted only to the tones available within that app.
6.There is no File Manager – Nokia Symbian OS, I MISS YOU! The files that you get transferred through Bluetooth become very difficult to trace within your phone at times
Pros:
1.Extremely sturdy construction and scratch resistant Gorilla Glass2 – puts up with rough use
2.Excellent screen clarity without any problem with viewing angles and extremely responsive touch screen
3.Amazing camera clarity(primary) especially in lowlight; probably the best camera phone in the market at this price point; Front camera does a good job during Skype video calls
4.Ability to view Microsoft word, power point and excel files which comes in handy if you want to check your official emails during travel without opening your laptop
5.Amazing battery life! Guaranteed 1 full day of battery backup and it lasts upto 2 days with moderate usage of the phone
6.Clarity and loudness of the speaker phone is very good
Finally, this is not a technical review or a shootout review with rival phones and is purely based on my experience with the Lumia 720 which has been a very pleasant one so far.
I trust that I have covered most of the important aspects that an average buyer would look for in a smart phone today and I shall be glad to answer any specific questions that you may have on this phone that I may have missed to cover in my review.
Good luck in your hunt for the elusive best smartphone in the market today!