Need a phone for my daughter - Lumia 640 LTE or Lumia 550?

[Christian Holzer]

My wife and I have Lumia 930's, my son has a Lumia 720, and now I want to buy a Lumia for my daughter to replace her poor Samsung Galaxy S3.

I don't want to buy a >200,- phone, so I am thinking to buy either and Lumia 640 LTE or the Lumia 550.
I can get both phones for ~150,- without contract - but which one is the better phone?

On paper they seem pretty similar.

Anyone has a suggestion?

 

[Rugish Dapeca]

I absolutely love my 640 LTE, but I truly believe you can't go wrong with either purchase.

The 640 has a slightly larger screen, 5 inch compared to a 4.7 inch for the 550.
The 640 has 8MP main and 0.9MP front camera, while the 550 has 5MP main and 2MP front camera.
The 640 uses a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor, and the 550 uses a 1.1GHz Snapdragon 210 processor.

The main difference I see is the 640 comes with Windows 8.1, so you will need to use the Insider program or wait for the official release of Windows 10 to upgrade the OS, but you can roll back to 8.1 if there are any issues. The 550 comes with Windows 10 preloaded.

All the rest of the stats are pretty comparable, so I think it is a win-win either way.

 

[libra89]

I have had both, and I agree with the post above mine. However, if she cares about the cameras on a phone a lot, and she's into selfies, I would recommend the 640 over the 550.

They run similarly, there's not a huge difference between the two devices in day to day tasks. For me, the only thing that was a true turn off was how the 550's cameras perform in low light. Otherwise, I liked the 550 a lot. The 640 is slightly better but the 550 is still solid.

 

[Christian Holzer]

Thanks guys! Bought the 640LTE, slapped on W10 mobile and she loves it.

 

[Kimmo Toivanen]

My wife and I have Lumia 930's, my son has a Lumia 720, and now I want to buy a Lumia for my daughter to replace her poor Samsung Galaxy S3.

If the old phone is in good condition, CyanogenMod supports popular Samsung models and costs nothing - just a bit of time
And S3 is pretty comparable to 550 and 640 in hardware (I thought S3 would be better, past flagship vs lower-midrangers, but 2-3 years have done grazy things to technology).

I grabbed two 640s when they were 90€ each. Didn't want to wait for 550, knowing it was not going to be better than 640.

 

[Christian Holzer]

If the old phone is in good condition, CyanogenMod supports popular Samsung models and costs nothing - just a bit of time

It is running CM12.1 at the moment - and it's veeeeeery slow on that S3. All previous CM's also had that odd camera bug where it cant connect to the camera. The only "fix" that made it functional was the workaround that restarts some services when you press the camera button - which means that you need to wait for 5 seconds until you can use it.

It's just a pain to use. Which is why I replaced it now with a Lumia 640 that "just works". Daughter is happy - so I am happy as well.

I had several Android and iOS phones (work and private) during the last 8 years and I was not happy with any of them.
Android is just a silly mess where no company cares about updating the devices (also applies to the custom roms because people stop to support devices, or just never support some devices - or never fully support all of their features.), and iOS is an overpriced "High Security Prison" where the user is not allowed to do anything - all hail iTunes the sync app from hell. :-/

I still have to use an iPhone 5s at work and I despise that thing - but I might have my boss at a point where he will allow us to use Windows Phones later this year as I began to show him the benefits - he began to see the light when I showed him my Surface 3 Pro last year and now we replaced all of those dreaded iPads that no one here liked to work with.

Ever since I bought my first Windows Phone (Lumia 820) I can't see myself go back to android or iOS again. Yes the lack of apps sucks, but the platform provides me with what I want and expect from a daily driver smartphone.

What worries me is that Microsoft appears to loose the interest. They push back the W10mobile release date, they fire even more people now from their mobile division, and they don't fix blocker issues like the audio on the Lumia 930

 

[WellingtonW]

For me the bloat and poor memory management on Android, not to mention the fragmentation of the OS makes its a pain to maintain on a kids device.