Lumia 520 and 720 - initial thoughts?

[squire777]

So what does everyone think of the 520 and 720? They weren't much of a secret but we did get to see more pictures and hands-on videos to help us get a better view of them.

In regards to the 520, it is a very nice phone considering the price (roughly $200). If anyone is looking for a budget phone they have two good choices now in the 520 and 620.

I quite like the 720 as well and will pick one up if we find out that it has Band IV support hidden away inside (Nokia site does not list it at the moment). However at the moment it looks like there aren't any carriers in North America that will sell it, and it looks like Nokia is targeting Asia with both the 520 and 720.

 

[ryker002]

I'm still waiting for a smaller sized phone that can fit in a smaller sized pocket.
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express

 

[aubreyq]

I'm still waiting for a smaller sized phone that can fit in a smaller sized pocket.
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express

What screen size you have in mind?

 

[anon(5370748)]

I'd still get a 920.

Hopefully Nokia is doing their research and isn't going to cause confusion and perceived devaluation by saturating the market with so many different devices.

 

[benjiprice]

I like the 720 a lot and would get it to replace my ailing Focus S but it doesn't look like it's coming to the US for now. I might get a 520 to get my by until fall launches.

 

[rmichael75]

Yes you are right. 720 is poor man's 920.

But what is awesome is the cost of 520 and the design. I will get one for my sis and see how it goes.

 

[jlzimmerman]

I understand why they didn't release a replacement for the 920 yet, but I hope soon they (or other manufacturer) release a WP with a display larger than 4.5"

 

[jabtano]

All right I like what Nokia is doing, we have two really nice looking devices. offering a pretty good punch on a very affordable price. It's feature packed with Nokia exclusive apps. The are going to sell really well. brining in more people to world of Windows Phone. what better way by offering affordable devices that are feature packed... It's a win for both Nokia and WP8. Yes I was hopping to see a new high end Nokia but this works as well in getting the platform to grow.

 

[AUCLABruin]

If that 520 is really under $199, Nokia better be recruiting ever regional/MVNO carrier that sells phones. It looks great, and people trying it out would like it a lot to ignore Android. Nokia should get the 720 here too, but the 520 can bring in good sales, IMO.

 

[omniusovermind]

The pricing of Nokia's lower end is a little disappointing. Comparing the 720 against the Nexus 4 (I'm not debating which OS you like better) The N4's hardware specs appear more future proof. I can see giving 512 RAM for the 520, 620 but for $350 they should have shot that up to 1GB. Whether you like Android or not, you're still also getting access to all the apps on Play, first crack at OS updates with no carrier interference, as well as Google Maps, Youtube support etc. but both devices will cost you the same. They should've undercut the Nexus 4 by $50. As was mentioned above, the 720 could be considered the poor man's 920, but given that the 920 has been just a tad more problematic than I would hope for and WP8 is still new I'd be more comfortable with a smaller investment into their phones and the WP8 OS until those things change.

 

[speedtouch]

Sadly, I remain unexcited by all current and all announced WP8 devices. I wish there was a proper Lumia 710 successor. One with a smaller screen, like 4" or less, with the same CPU, RAM, GPU as its big brothers, the Lumia 820 and 920.

 

[BHFH]

Now when I think of it, why did they release the 820 with only 8GB storage like the low end devices? I know you can expand it with SD card but it's not the same. I think the 920 should have been 32/64, 820 with 16, and the rest of the mid to low range 8.

 

[rmichael75]

The 720 has cheap looking polycarbonate. They also should've put a 720p screen on there. There are tons of Android phones in the mid-range that have 720p screens. I don't need silly extra sensitive touch that is only useful for a small niche of people, especially not with global warming. I am also not seeing an evolution of Nokia design. Nokia has the worst screen to bezel ratio of any phone maker. It's like I'm buying a phone released 4 years ago. Sure Nokia can claim it is a design aesthetic and that they are not mindless followers running with the pack, but we know that is all BS. Elop said he would never release a big screen phone and follow the Android herd, but lo and behold! The Lumia 900 is 4.3" and now the 920 is 4.5". They claim to be special and different from the others and very self-indulgent, but in the end they will cave to the pressure of the marketplace. And the 21st century.

MWC was extremely disappointing in general, but I was expecting at least a hint of announcement for the mythical unicorn known as the true Lumia Pureview phone. There wasn't even a metal unibody 920 that was rumored. I would get excited over that, even though it's basically a 920 and nothing special. Another hypocrisy if they do move all their flagship phones to metal is all the BS they were spouting about how great their polycarbonate was and how a phone cannot handle metal reliably with all the signal attenuation but then all that goes down the drain after two years because principles don't matter in a competitive marketplace, but Nokia has a big mouth regardless and will continue to spout crap when they feel like it. The rule is that the smaller and less successful a company is, the more they will mouth off. Nokia is fitting the mold nicely.

Less talk. More Pureview.

Good that you are not the decision maker in nokia or else you would have released the next pure view device and killed off 920.

Anyway here is the info about the camera in 720. And It is a very good phone. I will eat into 920 sales and might make 820 redundant but well 820 was not setting world on fire anyway.. So it is ok.

Here is the info about 720 Camera:

An innovative approach to imaging with the Nokia Lumia 720 – Nokia Conversations : the official Nokia blog

Nokia's presentors were as usual useless. Give Apple the Job, they will say that this is the most innovative phone ever after 920. Anyway i think they didnt want to spoil 920's market just yet.

 

[rmichael75]

Sadly, I remain unexcited by all current and all announced WP8 devices. I wish there was a proper Lumia 710 successor. One with a smaller screen, like 4" or less, with the same CPU, RAM, GPU as its big brothers, the Lumia 820 and 920.

You should send mail to Elop. They might release 410 with 3.8 inch. But hey they have 620. I think Nokia believes that the market for less than 4 inch is very small. I think thats how Htc and Samsumg also believes.

 

[Plyschgrodan]

720 looks great. Size seems perfect and specs looks sufficient. It will be a nice replacement for my ageing 800. Also used the 920 at work (we are evaluating WP for enterprise use) but think I want a more nimble phone.

 

[squire777]

For me at this point it's just a matter of waiting until people unlock the 720 and see if it is really pentaband. Band IV is not listed but it never was for other Nokia phones which ended up having the capability.

 

[AngryNil]

If the 520 is available in Australia, I'm definitely considering it. Under $200 means I can also buy the next Nokia flagship, which I am definitely excited about considering the potential fixes that Blue could bring and the rumours of Nokia going with a thin aluminium shell. The 520 would remain a good device for development testing, since it's the baseline Windows Phone 8 device (the only factor it doesn't cover is the severely limited storage of the HTC 8S, but that's something easily quantifiable).

 

[alllies]

I want to have the 720 as my daily driver and I will trade camera capabilty over the high ram demanding game Asphalt7!

 

[tissotti]

The 720 has cheap looking polycarbonate. They also should've put a 720p screen on there. There are tons of Android phones in the mid-range that have 720p screens. I don't need silly extra sensitive touch that is only useful for a small niche of people, especially not with global warming. I am also not seeing an evolution of Nokia design. Nokia has the worst screen to bezel ratio of any phone maker. It's like I'm buying a phone released 4 years ago. Sure Nokia can claim it is a design aesthetic and that they are not mindless followers running with the pack, but we know that is all BS. Elop said he would never release a big screen phone and follow the Android herd, but lo and behold! The Lumia 900 is 4.3" and now the 920 is 4.5". They claim to be special and different from the others and very self-indulgent, but in the end they will cave to the pressure of the marketplace. And the 21st century.

MWC was extremely disappointing in general, but I was expecting at least a hint of announcement for the mythical unicorn known as the true Lumia Pureview phone. There wasn't even a metal unibody 920 that was rumored. I would get excited over that, even though it's basically a 920 and nothing special. Another hypocrisy if they do move all their flagship phones to metal is all the BS they were spouting about how great their polycarbonate was and how a phone cannot handle metal reliably with all the signal attenuation but then all that goes down the drain after two years because principles don't matter in a competitive marketplace, but Nokia has a big mouth regardless and will continue to spout crap when they feel like it. The rule is that the smaller and less successful a company is, the more they will mouth off. Nokia is fitting the mold nicely.

Less talk. More Pureview.

It's called marketing. N8, E7 were Nokia unibody aluminum phones from years ago and worked great.

You wont see PureView before Windows Phone gets major update and we get new screen resolution and SoCs. There's a reason why the year old 808 PureView is has the only OS and just recently before Qualcomm 600 was the only phone that's hardware could even run that 41MP sensor. Because Nokia could do whatever it wanted with the kernel and make its own hardware with it's TI partner for extra GPU stuffed inside that camera sensor and make it all work on Symbian as it had full control on the software it needed and what hardware it could put to the phone.

You can just stuck 41MP sensor on a phone when you don't have hardware to run it and software to support that new hardware and the algorithms build for PureView oversampling.

With Windows Phone 8 you are stuck on a two SoCs supported and kernel provided by Microsoft that seems quite uninterested with WP these days. There's also a reason why HTC said there's no plans to bring HTC One camera to Windows Phone because of the restricted camera kernel.

 

[anon(5745313)]

The only bad thing with the 520 is that itlacks ffc. I can live without led and compass but the ffc is a deal breaker for me. Possibly, I will go for 620 (although the 512mb of ram could prove to be very restrictive in terms of store access).