Lumia 640, 1 year later: Are you still using it?

[mc_razza]

If you have/had a Lumia 640 last year (from April to December 2015), I'll like to know the following:

-When did you buy your first one?
-Are you still using it? If so, are you on 8.1 or Windows 10 Mobile? If not, why not?
-Has your usage changed from last year to now? (Any answer is fine for this question)

Last May I dropped my Lumia 520 one too many times and completely shattered the screen. This unfortunate event (or blessing in disguise) forced me to reconsider the 640. Previously I had kept an eye on it for months and months waiting for a decent price drop but sadly Aussie retailers weren't all that generous. In the end I finally purchased one (in glossy white) on clearance for AUD$199.00, down from $299.00. It wasn't going any lower so I grabbed it while I still could before the 640 was pulled. After a few hours breaking it in I noticed the display had a fault. A week later I exchanged it for another one and since then it's been smooth sailing.

I use mine every day as my daily driver and I absolutely love it. I'm still running WP8.1 Denim. I like it. Everything works well. I'm in no hurry. Eventually I will upgrade, probably when it gets to the point where it hits critical mass for reduced app support. That said, I've upgraded our spare 635 to W10M so it's not like I'm deliberately missing out on anything. Prior to exchanging the 640 with the defective screen, I upgraded it to W10M and was mildly impressed with the general speed and performance improvements here and there, but I wasn't keen to upgrade permanently.

As for usage it's increased over my usage with the 520, but that's down to hardware and RAM limitations of the latter.

I can't see myself upgrading to a newer Lumia (650 or 950) or even the rumoured Surface Phone anytime soon. Most likely in the next couple of years I will. Hopefully it won't take an unfortunate slip from my grasp like the last one. lol

 

[barondebxl]

Mine is my backup phone and works flawlessly

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[phuqit]

Bought ours in Dec. 6015 Wife still uses her's, I upgraded to a 640 xl when the price dropped to $150 a month ago. Running insider on mine and love it. Wife still on 8.1 though I may update her's soon. We came from the lumia 635, which was a good phone also. We both have desktop computers, so phones are mainly well phones. They do double duty for browsing at work during breaks. They are durable, dependable, and well just dependable. Love em.

 

[eightbiscuit400 thomas]

Yes I have mobile 10, I had it for about six months

 

[Earworms]

I obtained my first Lumia 640 late last year, very late. I got an at&t GoPhone from the Micro$oft Store and it works, worked great with my carrier, Cricket Wireless. This was my third Windows 8.1 phone and my fourth Windows phone overall. Earlier this year I dropped my Lumia 640 a couple of times and cracked the screen, so I went and bought another on off of eBay, but this time I bought an unlocked one. I later installed Windows 10 Mobile on the cracked Lumia 640 just so that I could compare the two versions of Windows. I definitely like Windows Mobile 8.1 better than Windows Mobile 10. Windows 8.1 is noticeably faster than Windows 10 on my Lumia 640.

 

[Maromi-kun]

Grabbed the T-Mobile Lumia 640 around this time last year as a replacement for my Lumia 810 since its USB port died on me the week before I was supposed to fly to California. Cortana had my info synced so that was my reason to get the 640 along with it being the phone the 810 should've been. Been my daily driver ever since and currently on the Anniversary Update on Release Preview ring.

If it had a Zeiss lens like the 810 and could use Tap-to-pay like the 640XL, it would've been the perfect midrange device.

 

[Mike Newport]

I bought my 640 for 30$ from best buy about 6 months ago. I have to say coming from a 1020 it was a bit disappointing. But to be fare the 1020 cost me 300$. I was running insider preview fast ring on my 1020 and I absolutely loved it. So I was already kinda adjusted to win 10, plus groove and photos app are far superior on 10 then 8.1. All that being said, I love my 640 on 10 now. Although the anniversary update has brought some glaring performance issues, I'd still take a 30$ 640 over a 30$ android any day. I will continue to use the 640 as my dd, and keep praying that Windows Mobile stays alive. Once you have the 640 with all it's mighty syncing power(laptop&pc) android and ios just simply are not an option. I feel like the UI on Windows 10 smokes ios and android. Funny story a buddy bought the s6 edge and we were out and about and his battery died, so he asked to use my phone, keep in mind he's a android user, well he takes my 640 and says wow man these windows phones are really cool, to bad their so much more expensive then android. Lol. I replied yeah that's a whopping 30$ device your holding. Needless to say, he is now a 640 owner. Great device and a high quality phone that's still a great dd.

 

[Biotic Blue]

I bought my L640 July last year having previously used an L620, I love the windows OS, the live tiles and all that as previous to my L620 my android phone I used an app to make it look and use like a windows phone. So when the L640 first came out I took a look a the specs and for the price it was a no brainer, picked it up for ?120 unlocked and to be honest I have little fault or problem with the phone, it has always been my daily driver and does what I need, I'm not a power user and am not missing apps that may be available elswhere, but the efficiency and integration of office and the no data required navigation which I use from time to time, including in other countries for no data cost is excellent. Decent battery life and smooth operating experience I have I would not be looking to change anytime soon.

In fact my only draw back at the minute is that I miss the Facebook and Twitter integration into the People hub, that was unique on the platform and quite handy but having no major issues there is little purpose to consider a change.

 

[Magikal]

I bought it in june 2015, coming from Lumia 520. It was a big jump at the time, it was running WP 8.1 GDR2 like a charm, no glitches, no blue dots, no nothing.
It runs W10M just fine, but I'm starting to see the first problems, maybe due to the aging CPU, or maybe due to the lack of firmware updates. I think it's going to be a good Windows device for another 6 months or year, but I expect it to start sinking in with the arrival of RS2.

 

[Victor TM Fernandes TM]

I bought mine precisely at 2/08/2015 , it was my birthday gift hehe. As soon as I saw in at my work, everyday I explore it a bit and it really got me interested even convinced some people to buy ( I hated when customers said things like "I prefer Android, that one (Lumia640/XL) is very confuse" :asleep
The 8.1 was good but W10M is even better however I've noticed some instability, already did some resets and still the same, wish that more efforts was made in terms of stability and app improvement, since every now and then apps still crash in crucial moments (sending pics, uploading videos, texting, etc)

 

[2526b]

Some information online states the 650 is the "last" Lumia, leaving the 640 the last 8.1 phone. Many reviewers also note the 650 is not, in all areas, an upgrade to the 640.

Popularity, profit, number of apps, camera lenses, turning your thermostat on remotely...etc, to me is not how I view the value and usefulness of a device and operating system.

In my thought, MS missed the boat. They have (or had) a great product and gave up based on popularity rather than standing by their design and platform. I understand, money runs the business. However, even 1% of the market is still 1% more than you had if you're not in it.

A very small percentage of people commute to work in a Jaguar, but no one looks out in the parking lot and says, "what a piece of junk."

 

[aybarrap1]

Popularity, profit, number of apps, camera lenses, turning your thermostat on remotely...etc, to me is not how I view the value and usefulness of a device and operating system.

In my thought, MS missed the boat. They have (or had) a great product and gave up based on popularity rather than standing by their design and platform. I understand, money runs the business. However, even 1% of the market is still 1% more than you had if you're not in it.

A very small percentage of people commute to work in a Jaguar, but no one looks out in the parking lot and says, "what a piece of junk."

You nailed it. The downfall of windows mobile seems mostly MS just not wanting to focus on the platform. It is sad that they did so because it is a good one. With a little work and money it could have been great by now.

While I agree apps are not a selling point, but because MS failed to focus, they never got some of the major support.

 

[IIDXholic]

Daughter is still using hers, and I have mine as a second. Too bad I cannot unlock it though..... (forgot unlock code)

 

[Baihaqi Adiananda]

I bought this phone july last year as my first WP and till today still use it as my daily driver.
I'm on insider fast ring and will never rollback to 8.1 even when it more snappy on it cause for me w10m has better interface and edge after anniversary update much more reliable that I don't need to install other browser. Now apps rarely forced close, still I can find loading or resuming frequently when multitasking (1 gig of ram on 2016 lol). App gaps still there but as long as I can find all apps that I need it wont be my problem.
What I really like from this phone is it durability. I didn't use any case for this phone but I drop my phone a lot that I cant count, thanks for plastic shell wrapping all body of this phone so I just need to replace my broken shell with a new one. I cant imagine if I have metal or glass frame phone, it will leave permanent scars for sure. Another thing is performance, yes it has performance drop after 1 year but on acceptable level Imo and still has a better performance than last year android budget phone Only poor battery life (cause I'm on most unstable w10m build) and gaming in this phone (seriously I CANT PLAY FIFA MOBILE) that bother me though its not a major problems.
Overall I didn't find reason to replace my phone right now and will upgrade to surface phone if it hopefully release next year.

 

[Sedp23]

nope i moved on to the 640 xl

Sent from mTalk

 

[aybarrap1]

Mine has now been handed down to my 5 year old for games and Netflix. Updates for W10M has started to bog it down some so I eliminated a lot of functions and it works great for my son. The processor and low RAM just can't cut it like before. Really wish MS would actually put out a mid range device with a SD 6xx processor and 2-3 GB of RAM in the $300-$400 range.

 

[RumoredNow]

Mine has now been handed down to my 5 year old for games and Netflix. Updates for W10M has started to bog it down some so I eliminated a lot of functions and it works great for my son. The processor and low RAM just can't cut it like before. Really wish MS would actually put out a mid range device with a SD 6xx processor and 2-3 GB of RAM in the $300-$400 range.

In the US? Keep an eye out for that Cerulean phone.

 

[james42519]

i got 640 in august for birthday and used it over a year now. it is at&t gophone but unlocked it before using. still use with at&t with net10 though. wish i got another one for $30 at walmart when they were there now. looking at getting 650 at cricket free now but they haven't had it since friday. my net10 service is up on wed so if they don't have it then i am going to have to do dumb stuff like moving number from net10 at&t sim card to net10 tmobile sim card so the web site will let me get it free.

i would have used the second lumia 640 to update to win10. i don't feel good about doing that to main phone and don't want to lose stuff updating. how do people set up there phones if they have more then one? are they all connected to the same microsoft account? will that cause trouble in the future if they are all together? will settings sync do something if i have both phones connected and windows 10 computer?

 

[Werentuckl]

Hook it all up to the same account James. It helps in that all your emails, SMS, contacts, messages, calender, onedrive, data, all stays synced across all your devices. Especially if you have internet across them. Works out pretty well for me infact. I only ever need to make changes on one phone. Contacts/Calender/Data, whatever have you. And it all syncs across my devices pretty swimmingly fine ^_^

Edit: Also, just updating your primary to W10 isnt such a bad deal afterall, really. A lot of us have done and are happy with it too. But yes, do go for that 650 and tell us too. Its always good to acquire another one. ^_^

-- W

 

[Rubidad]

Greetings,

I have had no luck syncing my unlocked L640 running latest cumulative Insider preview windows 10 to my Onedrive account-photos do not automatically upload despite using the correct camera settings; Onenote will not sync, and calendar in inconsistent . I have never been able to sync across my devices-an Asus laptop running latest cumulative update for Insider preview and my windows 10 phone.

On the other hand, my wife's l640 still has 8.1 and photos, calendar, and contacts sync just fine, as my phone did until I started running windows 10.

I've read quite a bit on Microsoft's forums, but can't fix the problems.
Any ideas would be welcome