Hello everyone!
This is only my second post on Windows Phone, but I've been a reader for a while now, gathering information about Windows phones. So I decided to give back and post a review of my brand new Lumia 650 for anyone who's considering this purchase.
Intro:
I got the Microsoft Lumia 650 exactly 3 days ago. It's a single (nano) SIM device with an MicroSD expansion slot. I've installed a few apps, played a few games, put the phone through its paces. I'm coming from an almost-3-years-old Sony Xperia SP with an old version of Android and this is my first experience with Windows 10 Mobile. So let's see how the budget/business Lumia did.
Design:
From the moment I first held the phone in my hand, I fell in love. There's no other way to say it, Microsoft hit the jackpot here. The 5'' form factor is perfect (for me personally), it's easy to hold and work with (even one handed, although the phone does offer special one-handed mode, more on that later). The phone is incredibly thin and even if it's not THAT much thinner than my Xperia SP, it somehow feels half the girth. The weight might have something to do with that feeling as well, since it's incredibly light. The matte black back cover feels very good in hand - it's a tad more slippery than I'd like, but unless you're extremely clumsy, the phone will not slide out of your palm easily.
Visually, the phone is gorgeous. Again, only owning an Xperia Mini and Xperia SP in my life previously (and thus being untouched by all other phones), I love the phone's looks so much I can't stop looking at it. I probably would've preferred if the metallic elements on the sides, top and bottom were all around the phone (as it is, there are cutouts for the MicroUSB and Headphone jacks), but that's a small gripe, definitely not enough to make me stop looking at the phone.
The AMOLED screen is really good, the viewing angles are more than you could ever need and colors are very very good. The 650 also offers you the ability to adjust the colors' warmth and vibrancy in the settings, in case you're not happy with the way your photos look. The screen is "only" 720p. Which gives you 297 ppi and that's very good still. I personally did not notice jagged edges nor was I hunting for them. Even in games, the graphics look good.
While beautiful and slick, the phone still is fairly low-key. It looks sleek, smooth, ready to help you get your business done. I'd say since Microsoft markets it as a business phone, I'd say that's a job well done for their design department.
The OS
As a first time Windows Mobile user, I was surprised by some of the quirks. For instance, the phone refused to download any apps out of the box and also seemed to be unable to update the OS. Turns out I had to leave it alone for a few hours. The 650 updated itself and the apps overnight and was ready to go in the morning. This is not a bad thing, but as a complete WM beginner, I would've appreciated a heads-up.
That said, Windows Mobile 10 is a gorgeous piece of software. The live tiles look great and offer you a lot of information at a glance. Speaking of glance, Lumia 650 features the Glance Screen and you can also have it turn off after a few seconds and bring it back by waving your hand over the proximity sensor next to the front camera. All these features give you lots of information without you having to waste your time clicking things and pushing buttons. That's good.
The OS is fast, responsive, handles multitasking without missing a beat (unless you're switching between games, more on that later). The phone came packed with Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook) and offers decent features in all of these. They are also quite workable on the 5'' screen. Cortana is a big help again, very much as on the PCs. You do need to be connected to the Internet for her to work, but she's been very helpful.
Microsoft Edge is the default browser and Bing is the default search engine. I use both on my PC as well and I'm happy with their performance. Edge especially is quick to load up websites and works as expected. I asked a YouTuber who owns both 650 and 640 about the browsing performance and he told me he didn't notice any big differences. As everything in this review, take it with a grain of salt - my previous phone was REALLY old, so the fact that I like the browsing speed on the 650 might not mean it's as lightning quick as on WM flagships, or even Android flagships. On the other hand, the waits for webpages to load are short enough and they don't frustrate me at all, so it's all good IMO.
I've heard horror stories about the Windows Mobile 10 and I'm happy to report I haven't had any big problems yet - no random reboots, no big crashes. Apps have crashed on me a handful of times, but they are very quick to start back up, so you won't be cursing the phone too much. It is a tad inconvenient, I'm not gonna lie.
Software
Another thing I can never stop hearing about is the "app-gap". I should probably say that I'm not a big app hoarder nor am I a gamer, so I don't feel the app-gap at all. I only downloaded a handful of apps (like Facebook Messenger, banking app, etc.) which work just like on Android. It's sad that the YouTube app is basically just a shortcut to Edge. Other than that, third party apps are numerous enough for me and work as expected.
One of the nice things about WM10 is that you have the ability to completely uninstall pre-loaded apps. Which I did right away. That's not to say bloatware is a problem, there were maybe 4-5 apps (Amazon, Audible and a few local shopping apps)
Games
As I mentioned, I'm not a gamer, but I did want to see how my new Lumia handles videogames. I downloaded classics like Angry Birds, Cut The Rope (2), Where's My Water as well as Final Fantasy III, Monument Valley and Asphalt 8. I'm pleased to say they all ran very well (even if Asphalt 8 had to run on low graphical settings and still stuttered from time to time). The "big" issue here would be the loading times. This is bothersome when the game loads the level selection menu between two levels (Monument Valley and Cut The Rope 2 both do this and it's lame). That said, after all the loading, the games run smoothly.
As someone who's not up to date on mobile gaming, I have no idea whether WM10 misses on any great new games available on Android or iOS. Since this phone (or OS) is not aimed at gaming enthusiasts though, I doubt it'll bother potential purchasers of this piece of tech.
Battery life
Well, it's hard for me to judge the battery. I've been using the phone much more than I usually use a phone, because I just can't put it down. Still, the phone lasts a full day with 10-15% to spare, so I definitely wouldn't say the battery is bad or weak. Obviously, the more you game or watch YouTube, the more you'll drain the battery, but the phone itself seems to be very easy on the battery, the OS drains very little life out of the phone.
The one thing I'm EXTREMELY disappointed by is the default charger packed into the box. It's only 550mA and it takes its sweet time to charge the phone. It might be okay overnight, but if you need to charge your phone quickly or often, you might want to invest in something stronger. I used my Nexus 7 tablet charger (2000 mA) and I got 60% charge in about 40 minutes. I'm not sure what that does to the health of the battery though, so it's probably not a great solution. But in emergencies, the Microsoft charger will disappoint.
Camera
Lumia 650 offers an 8MP shooter and a 5MP front-facing camera. The funny thing is that while my old Xperia SP also featured an 8MP camera as well, the difference between it and the L650 is night and day. The flash is much brighter and the photos look much sharper. Plus the new phone offers much better manual controls (and more of them). Lumia 650 also gives you the option to pick your preferred amount of flash light after the photo is taken (also known as Rich Capture, if I'm not mistaken). The pictures look quite good to my amateur eye, I don't take a lot of pictures anyway, but when I need it, the L650 camera is ready to go in a very short time. I can post a few pics, if you guys want me to, but I assume there will be plenty of sample photos around the net soon enough.
Same could be said about the video-taking experience. It's quick, it's painless, the auto-focus jumps around a bit (tap to focus works here as well) and the absence of any optical image stabilization is a drag, but once again, taking videos is not a priority for me and even if the video is a bit shaky, the quality is good enough for my personal needs. Lumia 650 only captures 720p video at 30 FPS, so, as with the gaming performance, if you're an avid photographer or take lots of videos, you might want to look elsewhere. For anyone else, Lumia 650 offers decent performance in a good package for a great price.
Conclusion
And that's the thing - this phone costs 225? in my country - and I got it for just 9? from my carrier. That is a steal no matter how you slice it! The phone looks a class or two better than it should, it takes beautiful photos, it performs well unless you expect it to run latest games at high graphical settings and offers very good integration with the Windows PC ecosystem. The browsing is good, the OS doesn't stutter or slow down. The audio performance is very good, especially when feeding headphones and Lumia 650 gives you a pretty good equalizer function. And for anyone who needs to read or edit Word or Excel files on the go, this is the most important feature anyway. And since I'm one of those people, I'm more than happy to live with Microsoft Lumia 650 for a year or three.
Disclaimer
I only have had the phone for 3 days. I'm comparing the experience to a 2 and a half year old phone and 1,5 year old Android OS experience. I'm a light user and don't game on my phone a lot. Or at all, usually. I will update the review is something comes up or if any of you guys have a question about it!
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