Just tried out the Lumia 1520. I stopped wanting it after one glance.
A black Lumia 1520 was available at my local AT&T. I was a bit suprised it would be there. It also reaffirmed the continuing trend of how Nokia has lost its mind yet again with another strange product.
Usually when I try gadgets at stores, they are a lot smaller looking and feeling, but grow in size once I take it home and start using it on a daily basis. iPads, HTC phones, Kindles, Samsung Note, etc. This was not true for the Lumia 1520. It was imposingly large and black when I first saw it. just massive. The Note 3 a few phones down was downright petite compared to it. I'm not even going to attempt to put it in my pocket. It barely fits in my hand. At least the build quality is typical Nokia tankish with no flex or give.
It is easy to hold if you treat it like a tablet and hold it with your fingertips at an edge, but if you try to grasp around the body like a normal phone, it is far two wide and there is a giant amount of space behind the phone because it never touches your palm. My hands are pretty big and I find the 5.7" Note 3 at the upper range of my comfort size. This far exceeds it. The biggest problem is the way Nokia curved the sides. It's wide at the front and curves back sharply to the back. For a phone most people can't palm and will rely on the sides to hold, it feels sharp and uncomfortable. It has the same problem the HTC 8X does. Stabby sides. They curved it too much and don't have much vertical surface area. The Note 3 and its perpendicular and vertically straight and flat sides doesn't have this problem. Nor do the other Lumia phones like the 920/1020 that are rounded in the front and back, not just heavily tapered to the back like the 1520 is. It's an attempt to lessen the already humongous width, but it actually makes holding it much worse.
The screen and colors look great, and doesn't have the pokiness of the AMOLED panels. Much smoother looking, without the excessive and unnecessary contrast. Blacks are black enough to not be noticeable and to blend with the surrounding bezel. However, the Windows Phone UI leaves a lot to be desired. There might be an extra row of tiles, and you see a few more apps in the app list, but from a usability standpoint, there seems to be almost no improvement or drastic change from a smaller phone. Doubly so for apps, which I don't know of any that are tailor made to utilize a bigger screen. A bigger screen is good for pulling back and watching movies, but for everything else, as long as you can comfortably tap and type on a smaller phone, there's no real benefit to the bigger size. You can't do more, and the size is unwieldy and cumbersome. The thing about smartphones is, they are portable and you can move them closer or further away at will, so that little 4.5" screen can turn into a 6" if you move it close enough. There's a limit to how close, as focusing at very close distances can give you a headache, but otherwise, the Lumia 1520 can't compete with other phablets in the usability department since it literally has no software to utilize the 6" screen effectively. A bigger screen allows for a larger drawing area. Too bad the 1520 doesn't have a stylus or digitizer. It allows for more buttons and menus as you can fit more and still be able to tap them. Too bad there are no phablet versions of WP apps yet.
Realistically, this will end up being a very niche phone, along the lines of the Galaxy Mega 6.3 and NOT a Note 3 or Optimus G Pro competitor. Why Nokia didn't aim for the far larger Note demographic and instead jumped to some weird niche small tablet segment, we will never know. China is the biggest market for these phones, but they are also price sensitive, with 6" phones as low as $150. That's what the 1320 is for. The 1520 is just super niche. They shouldn't have released it in the US, or put any marketing muscle for it. Time and resources were wasted on a very niche device instead of making a real Note competitor in the same size category with similar functionality.
Which also begs the question about why such a niche device was announced and released first, yet the true 920 successor is still MIA. Not a single peep, or teaser, or press invite. Some alleged leaks of the 929 are available, but for all we know it could be a Q1 or Q2 2014 phone, like the 1320. It is already mid November. They are cutting it close yet again, if they plan to release anything at all for the Holidays.
In conclusion, I WILL NOT be getting the Lumia 1520. Nokia keeps on disappointing me each and every time with their strange and unfathomable product decisions. I might get a used 1020 down the road for fun, but Nokia's lack of punctuality and focus on the mainstream means my daily driver will still not be a Nokia and Windows Phone will still just be a feature phone oddity.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram