Is the 640 a dailydriver phone?

[RavenSword]

Basically do you guys think this phone couldne a daily driver for someone? What are the shortcoming preventing it from becoming one? Honestly I'm very impressed with this device. In fact in some ways it's smoother than my g4 which astounds me. So I'm wondering if I'm looking to try windows phone as a daily driver if this is a good option. What do you think?

 

[Zachary Boddy]

The Lumia 640 could easily be a daily driver device. It's a very good device for what you're paying for it. A slim, colorful design, with a vibrant, natural looking 5 inch HD display, a decent 8MP camera, and slick performance. It'll run Windows Phone just as well as most any other phone, and altogether is a great package.

 

[dakranii]

Why wouldn't it be? What do you require of a daily driver? If you want a phone that makes calls, browses the web, gives directions, has an excellent personal assistant, takes great pictures and videos, has access to over a hundred thousand apps, is easy to use, puts info front and center on live tiles, can stream music, tv, movies, check weather, check sports scores and on and on and on, all while looking good, then yes... This phone (and I just about described every Windows phone) would make a great day driver.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

The guy above me gave a good reason.

 

[Jack Neill]

Solid phone for 80$.

 

[mewcatchew]

It's my daily driver. The biggest drawback for me is no iMessage (my family all have iPhones). The store doesnt have all the apps as say itunes or google play, but it has all the apps I personally use and theres almost always an alternate app you can use. Besides, It's catching up fast . It's almost comparable to iphone 5 or 5c (because its plastic) in terms of performance, but $350 cheaper. It's smooth. To put it in perspective, I also have an iPhone 5s and galaxy s5, but I prefer using windows mobile because it has such an attractive and highly customizable UI/OS. This would've been a flagship 2 or 3 years ago. Hard to believe it's under $100!

 

[libra89]

It's also my daily driver. I haven't felt like I was compromising at all. I don't have issues with anything that I want to do on my phone. If I do have an issue, it's usually because of the app itself. The cameras are sufficient and it meets all of my needs. Coming from a 4" to a 5" phone was an adjustment though, but I find myself having little issue using it with one hand.

I ditto everything that has been said in this thread.

 

[xandros9]

Most any phone can be a daily driver, save for specific requirements like needing Android OS or a phone being too old to use.

The 640 is fine, just know what you're getting, as with any phone.

 

[Orangeblood77]

I have always had androids, currently a Nexus 4. I wanted to try a Windows phone and couldn't resist when I saw the price of this phone on the Walmart website.
I have had it about a month and so far I am very impressed, particularly with the battery life and call quality both on wifi and the network.
The only thing my Nexus 4 has that this one doesn't is wireless charging but at the same time this one has wifi calling and the Nexus 4 does not.
This phone does everything I require from a cell phone and makes a great daily driver for me.

 

[Witness]

Buy it. Drive it.

If you hate it, return it.

You won't be returning it.



(no restock fees via microsoftstore.com)

 

[jdballard]

It is my daily driver. I'd still like a better camera, but for the price? You can't beat it.

Before you switch, consider the apps you use and make sure they're available and realize that the WP version may not be as good. It more than meets my needs, though.

 

[anon(6078578)]

It's my daily driver. I mean what else do you need a phone to do? Of course, if you're a heavy app user then it might be a problem, but it you're like me and can live without apps for the most part then you'll do fine

This is such a nice phone, that even though it's a windows phone and a lot of people I know have high end devices, I don't feel as out of place with this device as I did with my low end Android. The camera is good enough to use in place of my Canon ELPH point and shoot for most purposes.

Let's be honest, it's $99 or less, so if the Windows Phone train does end up derailing in the future, you won't feel as though you invested your life savings in a dead end.

 

[realwarder]

It's my daily driver. The biggest drawback for me is no iMessage (my family all have iPhones). The store doesnt have all the apps as say itunes or google play, but it has all the apps I personally use and theres almost always an alternate app you can use. Besides, It's catching up fast . It's almost comparable to iphone 5 or 5c (because its plastic) in terms of performance, but $350 cheaper. It's smooth. To put it in perspective, I also have an iPhone 5s and galaxy s5, but I prefer using windows mobile because it has such an attractive and highly customizable UI/OS. This would've been a flagship 2 or 3 years ago. Hard to believe it's under $100!

What has iMessage got to do with anything? You can group text from a windows phone to a set of iPhone or any other phone users in the same way as iMessage. As most plans have unlimited texting these days the early benefit of iMessage appears to have gone. If in a country like India chances are you'd be using WhatsApp instead of iMessage anyway...

 

[jhildy73]

I have used it as a daily driver for almost a month now and im coming from a lg g2 and g3. I have to say this Is a very nice phone for 30 bucks for what I paid.... The screen Is nice and the phone Is pretty fast....i was skeptical about windows but its a very STABLE OS...the GPS works when I need it to,I had NUMEROUS. Issues with the g2 and g3 not locking on a GPS signal which is EXTREMELY frustrating when u really need it to work..i get great LTE and AMAZING battery life all into one...oh did I say I only paid 30 bucks for it?

The only 2 apps I miss are show-box which was awesome and bank of America...oh and clash of clans.

 

[rollindice]

this phone is indeed daily driver,i showed one of my workmate the phone and it's features,he soon purchased, I then went on annual vacation leave, returned and found out 5 other persons at work took advantage of Amazon selling them cheap now Amazon.com: Buying Choices: Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE Black 8GB 5" (RM-1072) Unlocked International GSM Version No Warranty along with 64gb micro sd,screen protector and case, everyone all smiles, find an affordable, easy to use phone without all stress and lag of Android phones at same price point

 

[AllanQuatermain]

I use a 640 daily and it does everything I need, the few apps I require are in the app store, the battery life is excellent and I still have my 820 as backup and for the price unlocked the 640 is excellent value,

 

[msirapian]

I've won a 640 in a Lumia France Challenge, waiting for it, but I guess it will be my daily driver instead of my 1020 :
a) don't need the 41MP everyday
b) dual SIM LTE
c) it has a magnetometer (my 535 lacks it, and it's useful for geocaching ; as you never know when you'll look for a geocache, I include the magnetometer in the daily driver requirements as for me)
d) lighter than 1020 (and because screen is bigger, *feels* even lighter, I know that feeling with the 535 which is about the same weight and size)

And I'm sold to 5" screens, with my 535. So as soon as I get that 640, I'll install W10M on it, and will *try* to use it as a daily driver.

I say try because of W10M, not the device ^_^

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

I highly recommend it personally but at the same time, for me it is not the best driver due to its screen size and I want a higher resolution camera. But for the price it is definitely well worth it and outperforms other phones that are a bit more expensive, imo.

 

[perpleSlerp]

I own both the 640 and 640XL and the 640 is what you would call my "daily driver", for no other reason but that for me the 640 XL is too big to carry around on your person all day.

Lumia 640

Pros:
Cheap as dirt. Well built and nice looking (to me) and simple design, decent screen, good rear camera (for such a cheap phone), uncluttered interface, overall fairly smooth operation, ability to easily uninstall third party bloatware, live tiles.

Cons:
Too many unnecessary steps (taps and swipes etc) to accomplish some simple tasks (compared to Android).

Text pop-up notification on lock screen for some inexplicit reason only appears for about 2-3 seconds giving almost no time to tap it and go directly to the message thread. I cannot fathom why Microsoft has it set up this way.

Slightly laggy when scrolling on most websites.

Using the stock I.E. browser can be frustrating (for a variety of reasons).

Can't change stock search engine from Bing to Google (or anything else for that matter).

No microphone on standard keyboard when browsing the web, yet you can use the mic with text messaging and Bing search but not in I.E. This makes no sense whatsoever.

Speech To Text not nearly as well implemented as Android.

Phone dialer (see first con listed). To initiate speakerphone while on a call AND get back to the number pad to follow prompts on the other end of the line takes too many taps.

Still for $80 bucks it's a nice phone.

 

[Jack Neill]

It's my DD, I went from a focus flash to a 520 to a 920 to a 1020 then a 640, its been my favorite of all of them.