Nokia Lumia 710 Review: A New Era for Windows Phone

When it was announced last year in 2011 that Microsoft and Nokia would become heavy partners in the smartphone landscape, it was clear the future of Windows Phone was bright. Enter the Lumia 710, the first Nokia-built Windows Phone for the United States. The Lumia 710 may not be the highest spec’d phone on the market, but it’s affordable price point speaks loudly. Does the Nokia Lumia 710 mark a new era for Windows Phone, or is it just another ho-hum device you should probably pass up? Read the full BriefMobile review to find out!

• Windows Phone 7.5 Mango Operating System
• 1.4Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon Processor
• 3.7 Inch WVGA LCD Display, 800×480 pixels
• 5MP Rear Camera with LED Flash, 720p Video Recording
• 4G HSPA+ on T-Mobile
• 512MB RAM
• 8GB Internal Storage
• 1300 mAh Battery

Despite being an entry-level smartphone, the Lumia 710 manages to follow Nokia’s high-quality design traits. In the hand the phone feels solidly built and even a tad premium thanks to the soft-touch plastic finish on the back. The phone is a tad thicker than most at 12.5mm. It doesn’t feel noticeably thick though thanks to the curvaceous design, but we’d like to see Nokia at least try to make their phones thin.

On the front you’ll find the 3.7 Inch LCD display (which is not AMOLED), your three physical Windows Phone buttons, and some branding for T-Mobile and Nokia. On the right you have the volume rocker and the standard Windows Phone camera button (which I came to really enjoy). The left greets you with a slot to pry off the battery cover and the bottom has a small hole for a lanyard or charm of some sort. Up top you have the power button, 3.5 mm headphone jack, and the Micro USB charging port. The back gives us a look at the 5MP camera with LED Flash, more Nokia branding, and a pretty giant speaker towards the bottom.

In an industry where most entry-level phones are treated as after thoughts and given low-quality materials, it’s nice to see Nokia actually put some thought into a low-end phone. The phone feels solid in the hand, has an interesting design, and even feels slightly premium. You’ll be hard pressed to find many other new $40 smartphones that don’t use totally crumby materials and feel cheap. Nokia did an excellent job in this area.

Since this is an entry-level smartphone, Nokia had to save money somewhere. The Lumia 710 features a 3.7 Inch LCD WVGA display (which is 800×480) and I found it to be pretty disappointing. I’ve used many WVGA LCD displays before and generally didn’t have a problem with them. You’d expect text to be crisp and the overall picture to be sharp thanks to the 252ppi, but that isn’t necessarily the case here. When zoomed all the way out on webpages for example, the text is impossible to read. Overall text is not as clear or sharp as it should be which is frustrating at times.

Viewing angles here are pretty narrow as well. Tilting the phone just a couple degrees results in whites turning completely yellow and colors getting distorted. On that note, this screen does a pretty bad job with reproducing whites in general. With brightness cranked all the way up, a white web page looked more yellow than it should and this effect heightens drastically when brightness is turned down. The screen stays well lit and clear in bright environments, however, which is always a good thing.

The phone makes use of Nokia’s proprietary ClearBlack technology which means blacks should be inky and completely dark. However, because this isn’t an AMOLED display, putting the ClearBlack prefix on this screen is a little misleading. Blacks aren’t truly black, they’re actually more of a slight grey. On a good note, the screen is made out of Corning Gorilla Glass. Again, Nokia excels in the build quality department and stays true to that even on their lower-end devices.

The Nokia Lumia 710 features Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, the first substantial update to the Windows Phone OS. I’m primarily an Android and iOS user and I must say, Windows Phone is… well… different. Is that a bad thing? Of course not! In a market where all smartphone OS’s are basically homescreens filled with icons, it’s nice to see a company go a completely different route and give consumers something truly unique. I will admit, however, that it took me a few days to get used to the Windows Phone OS. Everything is laid out differently. Typically you navigate by endlessly swiping left or right. In most places, the Windows Phone UI is just a black page filled with rounded text. Sometimes it feels uninspiring and cluttered, other times it just works and feels great.

On Windows Phone there’s really only one homescreen, which is a breath of fresh air from Android and iOS which can have over 7 home screens. On this homescreen you have your Live Tiles, as Microsoft calls them, which are basically a next-generation version of icons. Instead of a static icon that doesn’t display any helpful information, the Live Tiles are dynamic and change when you get new updates or notifications. For example, your email Tile will update to display the number of unread emails you have, or the People’s Tile will update to show which of your friends have just updated their social networks. It’s a really fresh design element works really well. One feature I’d like to see Microsoft implement in a future update is folders. Right now there’s no way to have a folder of apps. You’re forced to either have all your apps on the main page or have to constantly swipe through a seemingly endless vertical list of apps. Folders are definitely needed in Windows Phone.

One thing I’ve noticed about Windows Phone is that its’ simplicity is on the same level as iOS. The interface overall is extremely simple and plain (which can be seen as good or bad) and customizability is nowhere near the levels of Android. I’m not sure if this is the result of the platform being young or Microsoft actually going for a restrictive user experience. Either way, I’d like to see Microsoft expand the functionality a little bit so users don’t feel insulted by the lack of customizability and can truly use their phone as a mobile computer. I’ve also noticed that there isn’t a ton of variety with the way apps look and operate. Almost every app uses the endless swiping paradigm with overly huge fonts. It’s cool for a few apps, but when every app uses it, it kind of gets old.

The lock screen can’t be interacted with in any way. You simply swipe it up to unlock the phone. It’ll display the time, date, unread notifications and the like. But you won’t find functionality like iOS or Android to go directly to the Camera or another designated app. The keyboard is very nice to type on and is super responsive. Coming from iOS and Android I definitely didn’t have any issues typing on the Window’s Phone keyboard. I found the keys to be a tad narrow but that could be because of the phone’s small screen size compared to my 4.65 Inch Galaxy Nexus.

Upon using Windows Phone, it’s easy to tell Microsoft spent a lot of time on the small details. Everything from the sound effects to the seamless animations and the small transition effects are just beautiful. Windows Phone definitely feels more refined than Android and in some aspects and feels more modern and innovative than iOS. I truly applaud Microsoft on their OS and am excited to see it develop further in the future.

Performance on the Lumia 710, or rather any Windows Phone device, is absurdly smooth and consistent. You’d think with a single-core 1.4Ghz processor we’d see an instance of lag here and there, but nope. The Lumia 710 does not lag, ever. Web pages load promptly, pinch-to-zoom performance is oddly smooth, and navigating around the UI is butter. Windows Phone uses a ton of graphically-intensive animations and they are clearly noticeable, unlike Android and iOS where they’re more subtle. If it weren’t for the animations, Windows Phone would be an instant OS. When you click on an app, it opens instantly, only to be slowed down by the animation. Since the OS is so smooth, I generally don’t have a problem with the animations. Now that’d be a different story if the phone lagged and stuttered, but that’s nonexistent here. I really think the animations add a layer of personality and style to the OS not seen on the competition.

It really makes me wonder how Microsoft can achieve such seamless and consistent performance across the board using underpowered hardware, but even the most high-end Android phones will occasionally lag in the web browser. It’s a truly mind-boggling thought. Performance wise, I don’t think I’ve ever used a smoother phone than the Nokia Lumia 710.

The Nokia Lumia 710 features a 5MP camera capable of recording in 720p HD. For a phone in this price range, the Nokia Lumia 710 manages to take decent photos and record really good videos. The video quality is rather impressive and the audio is stellar for a smartphone of this caliber. Photos are impressive as well. The sensor manages to soak in a good amount of light and render a very clear photo. I had some trouble getting the camera to auto-focus (I’m not sure if it was just my unit or if all 710′s have trouble focusing) but when it did focus, the quality was really good. Take a look at the samples below!

The Nokia Lumia 710 features a 1300 mAh battery which is certainly a bit smaller than most smartphones nowadays. I’ve found battery life to be pretty average. I could just edge through a typical workday with low to moderate usage. If I was watching a lot of videos and web browsing, battery life definitely took a hit. Oddly enough, the phone also takes an eternity to charge. You’d expect a 1300 mAh battery to fill up pretty fast, but the Lumia 710 strangely takes a long time. Compared to other cell phone batteries, I was not too impressed.

As a phone, the Lumia 710 is excellent. Call quality is among the best I’ve heard in any smartphone. There’s no background noise, both lines were loud and clear, and dropped calls were nonexistent. The speaker is really loud as well, so those who are always in loud environments won’t have an issue here. The Lumia 710 features T-Mobile’s 14.4Mbps HSPA+ ’4G’ network. Data speeds aren’t blazing fast by any standards. T-Mobile’s other recent 4G handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S II and HTC Amaze simply leave the Lumia 710 in the dust as far as data speeds go. It’ll get the job done, but we would have liked to of seen Nokia go with a faster HSPA+ modem here.

The Nokia Lumia 710 definitely marks a new era for the Windows Phone ecosystem. Nokia has a rich history in the cellphone space and they will definitely enrich the overall appeal of the Windows Phone brand. For an entry level $40 smartphone, the Lumia 710 is a definite stunner. You’re getting a solidly constructed device that performs admirably and has a great camera. However, being that this is an entry level smartphone, the overall package doesn’t quite stack up to the most high-end options out there. We found battery life to be pretty disappointing and the screen left a sour taste in our mouth. For the price point, however, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better smartphone than the Lumia 710.