nokia 640xl review

Microsoft (erstwhile Nokia) has adapted itself with consumers' growing love for big-screen phones (also lovingly known as phablets). Right from the top-of-the-line Lumia 1520 to the mid-range Lumia 1320, the company has tried to address the segment with devices at different price points. With the Lumia 640XL, Microsoft has tried to improvise on its previous efforts. It has made the phone slimmer and slightly more manageable (by reducing the screen diagonal) and endowed it with good hardware capabilities. Is the Lumia 640XL the best mid-range phablet available in the market? We try to find out in our review... Look and feel In the Lumia 640XL, Microsoft retains the same design aesthetics we've seen in phablets like the Nokia Lumia 1520, 1320 and the recently launched smartphone, Lumia 535. As with recent Lumia phones, the 640XL also sports a Microsoft logo at the front and back. The Lumia 640XL essentially comprises of a phone panel and a wrap-around polycarbonate back cover. Despite not being a unibody-design phone, the 640XL feels very solid. The polycarbonate shell feels thick and durable. We did not notice any wobbles or squeaks even when we pressed the phone hard. The panel has rounded corners but the edges are flat. The back is slightly curved near the edges enhancing the grip of the phone. Our white coloured unit sported a matte finish which, to our delight, did not get smudged. However, it does get soiled easily after a few days of use. You can use a case or just wipe the grime off with a cleaning cloth. The right edge of the phone features the power and volume rocker keys, in the black colour and offer good tactile feedback. The top edge sports the 3.5mm headset jack while the bottom features the micro-USB port. The phone doesn't feature capacitive navigation keys. The removable shell hides the battery(also removable) which is branded Microsoft, two micro-sim card slots and a microSD card slot. The back features a slightly protruding camera lens that reminds us of the Lumia 1520. Microsoft's Lumia 640XL lives upto the standards set by Nokia when it comes to durability and strength, at the same time offering optimum ergonomics and good looks. Display The Lumia 640XL features a 5.7-inch HD (1280x720p) ClearBlack IPS LCD panel with a pixel density of 259ppi and Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The phone's display offers sharp and crisp text and graphics even though the pixel density is comparatively low due to the large screen. It offers good viewing angles and we found the screen to be less reflective with decent outdoor legibility. The panel's touch response was also pretty good and we did not experience any problems. Software Lumia 640XL runs Lumia Denim which is Windows Phone 8.1 with Update 2 with some Nokia-exclusive features. Interestingly the 640XL and 640 are the first devices that ship with a GDR 2 or 8.1 with Update 2. Windows Phone 8.1 ironed out inconsistencies and achieves feature parity with competing smartphone platforms like Android and iOS. It pretty much covers the basics and would satisfy most casual users. Update 1 brought features like Live Folders, Cortana support (alpha) for India, SMS merge and forwarding, consumer VPN and Internet Explorer improvements. Update 2 brings an enhanced Settings app that breaks settings items into different sub-heads. It also makes the settings items search-able (through a search button) and brings the ability to pin individual settings items to the Start screen. The Windows Phone Settings app was a big mess and Microsoft has tried to fix it to a certain extent with the update. We like the changes but feel the Settings need an even bigger overhaul. The update also brings the ability to connect to a Bluetooth keyboard in case you wish to hook up a physical keyboard with your phone. We finally got a chance to use the Lumia Camera app complete with the Rich Capture feature that allows capturing and merging multiple images together simultaneously, and applying auto HDR with dynamic exposure steps and flash settings. Cortana voice assistant now works in India if you activate and select UK English in the speech settings. It worked fairly well and was able to detect our speech most of the times. It is not as good as Google Now when it comes to localisation but is slightly better than Siri. The feature is still in alpha so we'll not discuss it at length. Lumia 640XL comes with a large number of preloaded apps (including Flipkart, Mobikwik, BookmyShow) in addition to Nokia and Microsoft apps. Thankfully most of these apps can be removed. Is Windows Phone a good alternative to Android when it comes to apps? Well, more third party apps and games are now available for Windows Phone 8, but it still pales in comparison to the app selection offered by Android and iOS. Also, official apps for services like Instagram lack some critical features available on other platform. Line, Twitter and WhatsApp (WhatsApp is officially not supported on Denim) notifications are also slightly delayed. Internet Explorer works but all mobile sites are not optimised for it. While multitasking is supported, it's not as smooth as other leading platforms and you still meet the dreaded 'Resuming..' screen time and again. The strength of the software, however, is Microsoft Office Mobile and Here Maps. The e- mail experience (especially if you use Outlook and Exchange) is also unparalleled. All our hopes are now set on Windows 10. Camera The Nokia Lumia 640XL features a 13MP camera with a 1/ 3-inch sensor, f/2.0 aperture and Zeiss lens. It doesn't feature optical image stabilization. The camera module comes with Backside-illuminated image sensor, Dynamic flash, and Rich capture features. The quality of images captured outdoors, in daylight was great with good level of detail, accurate colour reproduction, little or no noise and good contrast. Low-light shots also came out well, though these had some noise. The phone offers video recording in 1080p and 720p resolution at 24, 25 and 30fps for each, allowing more creative use of the camera. Videos shot with the phone looked pretty decent. Just like the Lumia 730, the Lumia 640XL also comes with a 5MP front camera for selfie lovers. The phone's camera has 24mm focal length, f/2.4 aperture and wide-angle capabilities. Photos taken with the selfie camera show mostly natural colours, and details were sufficient. The Lumia Selfie app lets you enhance photos, and here we have used one filter that makes the photo appear livelier than the original shot. We were able to take wide-angle selfies too, fitting in more people into the frame without compromising the photo. Performance The Microsoft Lumia 640XL is powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM. The specifications are mid-range or budget (Android phones like Moto G are powered by Snapdragon 400) but we must remember that Windows Phone is not a very resource hungry operating system. The Lumia 640XL comes with 8GB internal storage that can be expanded with the help of a microSD card (supports cards of up to 128GB). External storage support is a big plus. The phone scored 11,888 in Antutu benchmark. We don't endorse benchmark tests and do not recommend a phone based solely on benchmarks as real world performance is different at times. The phone delivers good performance when it comes to launching and switching between apps, browsing websites and scrolling inside apps. We were also able to play graphics intensive games like Asphalt 8 without any hiccups even at visual effects set to maximum level. The phone was able to play HD videos and supports most popular video formats. It comes with GPS and A-GPS for navigation and maps and was easily able to lock a signal. The phone also comes with NFC connectivity to initiate file transfers to other NFC-enabled phones and receive data from NFC tags. The phone has a 3000mAh battery and we found the backup offered by the phone to be pretty impressive. It will last you almost a day and a half even if you put the screen brightness at the highest level You'll be able to make about 3-4 hours of phone call #more info visit-gotaddicted.wordpress.com