Tuesday 9 July 2013

Nokia Lumia 720 Full Features, Specification & Price

Nokia Lumia handsets are coming thick and fast. The 720 is midway in the collection with midrange specs for Nokia standards but additional add on nudges make it closer to the high end smart phones available in the market.

Fairly light weight and handy to carry (128 gm, 9 mm thick) the polycarbonate unibody design is tough and without flex. Buttons on one side include volume rocker, power/sleep, camera shutter with a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a microUSB port on the top and bottom respectively.

It operates on the Windows 8 operating software which might take a bit of getting used too after Android or iOS, but it's simple and fairly easy to learn. Adjusting the app tiles around, re-sizing, to the scrollable home page is another salient feature that works well. Not supporting the high variety of apps that other operating software's follow however the apps are eventually being created but it creates many essentials and is currently offering more than 140,000 apps.

Apps run well, but just a wee bit sluggishly compared to other powerful engines. The dual-core 1GHz processor backed by 512MB RAM is distinctly mid-range these days, especially with many handsets now providing a full 1GB or more of RAM. But while it might feel a little underpowered on an Android handset, Windows' streamlined architecture means you don't really notice any slowdown in general use.

Nokia has an exemplary package of extras as standard, including HERE Maps with its range of views including standard, satellite, public transport and traffic maps. You can download maps and use them with HERE Drive turn-by-turn satnav, even when you don't have a Wi-Fi or network connection, all for free. You can even download the new City Lens app, which we recently saw demonstrated on the top-end Lumia 925. This shows local businesses and points of interest using augmented reality — hold your phone's camera up and it will overlay details about what's nearby. Nokia Music is also a big plus, with free downloadable playlists of popular tunes.

The 6.7-megapixel camera is a step up from the 620′s five-megapixel model and comes with Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, a good-sized F1.9 aperture, LED flash and autofocus. That's a pretty decent spec on its own and you can add further features thanks to Windows Lenses — bits of downloadable software that add additional functionality such as Smart Shoot, which takes five rapid shots so you can choose the best one. Other Lenses include Panorama for wide-view shots, Cinemagraph, which allows you to add moving elements to still pictures, and Bing Vision, which lets you scan barcodes and QR codes as well as books, CDs and DVDs.

Picture quality is very good, easily up there with most eight-megapixel types, with sharp edges and accurate colours. The video camera made a decent show of itself too, recording 720p video at 30fps and the 1.3-megapixel camera performs well with Skype video calls in low light conditions.

There's 8GB of memory on board, which is a good start, but unlike many Windows handsets you can also add more via microSD card — up to 64GB. This being Windows of course you also get 7GB of cloud storage free of charge via SkyDrive.

The Nokia Lumia 720 is a solid mid-range phone but with better than expected build quality, a better than average camera and a good range of Nokia extras including HERE Maps and Drive satnav, plus Music and the Microsoft Office suite. You get a lot for your cash, and it's worth checking out if you've only been considering yet another Android handset.

Dimensions 127.9 x 67.5 x 9 mm
Weight 128 g (4.52 oz)
Display 4.3-Inch, 400 x 800 pixels, with IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with 16M colors. Including Multitouch & Corning Gorilla Glass 2 Protection—ClearBlack display
3.5mm Jack
Microsoft Windows Phone 8 OS
Qualcomm MSM8227 chipset
CPU; Dual-core 1 GHz
GPU Adreno 305
microSD Card Slot up to 64 GB
EDGE Up to 236.8 kbps
Speed; HSDPA, 21.1 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual;-band
microUSB v2.0
v3.0 Bluetooth with A2DP
Internal memory 8 GB, 512 MB RAM
6.1-MegaPixel Camera, 2848 x 2144 pixel, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, LED flash
1.3.6" sensor size, geo-tagging
Video, 720p@30fps & Secondary; 1.3-MegaPixel, 720p@30fps
Sensors; Accelerometer, proximity, compass
Messaging, MMS, Push Email, Email, IM
HTML5 Browser
A-GPS support and GLONASS
Colors; RED, Cyan/Black, Yellow, White
Non-removable Li-Ion 2000 mAh Battery
Stand-by timing up to 520 h (3G)/ (2G)
Music Play timing up to 79 h
Talk time up to 23h 20 min (2G)/ 13h 20 min (3G)