Microsoft Mobile – Tech Raman

Lumia 630 Review [Hands-On]

Lakshmi Rajan — Wed, 14 May 2014 00:52:31 +0000

After bagging Nokia into its kitty, Microsoft is launching the first Lumia device under its watch in India and it also becomes the first Lumia device to arrive with Windows Phone 8.1 OS. There is also another first, Lumia 630 also is the first dual-SIM device in Lumia series. I always feel only in Lumia the vibrant, colorful panels looks very attractive and Lumia 630 is no different coming in bright orange, bright green and bright yellow rear panels alongside the usual white and black colours. The green is my pick of the lot. It looks really cool! Lumia 630 falls under the budget-phone bracket and is priced a tad higher than the Lumia 525 but well below the Lumia 625. (don’t get confused by the numbering) The 4.5in IPS display has a 854×480 resolution, a slight improvement on the rest of the budget-Lumia screen’s 800×400-pixels. Still a bit underwhelming pixel count but nevertheless the display packs a color punch and looks pretty good enough. Nokia’s ClearBlack technology boosts the display. Further there is also Corning Glass 3 screen protection. What lies under the shell? A 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 quad-core chipset powers the Lumia 630 but surprisingly they have opted for 512MB of RAM only. It must be noted that unlike the Android, WP is quiet an efficient OS but when Lumia 525 came with a 1GB of RAM, it should have found a place here too. Still, the quad-core processor proved to be a good leveling force and the device didn’t feel lagging at the brief period I toyed with. I am sure it will handle most of the regular stuffs people do at this segment barring some resource-crunching games. The device uses a polycarbonate body yet there is nothing of the cheap plasticy feel like most Android devices of this segment contents with. The rectangle block has slight corners on the edges and the Lumia 630 looks cute and feels good on hand. I quiet liked the matte finish of the chassis. No wonder even as the market share shrunk for various other reason, people still rate Nokia high on their device’s build quality. Hope the reputation and the effort continues under Microsoft too. The power button and volume rocker are found on the right while the left is stripped clean off any buttons and ports. On top and bottom as expectedly are the audio jack and USB port respectively. [gallery link="file" columns="4" ids="7142,7143,7144,7145"] The chassis almost look like an unibody but in real terms, it can be peeled out. The inside looks neat with slot for the dual SIM and memory card. Talking about the external memory card. It can be accommodate up to 128GB. Windows Phone 8.1 brings forth lots of new features and possibilities and Lumia 630 gets some of the benefits. One noticeable difference is the lack of hardware navigation keys and Lumia 630 uses on-screen capacitive keys. The device also gets in-phone search. Another introduction is the ability to customize live tiles on the home screen with our own background image. The image seeps down into various tiles as you scroll down. The parallax effect of the background image makes it more interesting and visually appealing. So good bye, the boring block color we have seen on Windows Phone 8 running devices. Go to Start + Theme setting for changing the background. Also earlier we could only have three coloumns of apps in larger Lumia devices but with the new software update, it is possible to have a third coloumn on Lumia 630. Yet another refreshing update is the Notifications + Action centre. Like with Android devices, swipe from top for the Action centre.It gives quick access to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Camera, brightness. Also you can see the notifications as well as control the notifications settings to allow/restrict notifications from certain apps. Lumia 630 comes with Microsoft’s new Word Flow keyboard. It is unarguably the best native smartphone keyboard around. This keyboard was officially certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest smartphone keyboard in the world. An interesting titbit the record was set by an Indian, Gaurav Sharma. You can swipe your finger for accurate text entry and it has great auto-correct features plus there is also a good dose of emoticons to get playful. Now to the camera. A 5-megapixel shooter is mounted on the rear sans a LED flash. The device lacks a front-shooter. There are quiet a dollops of features and also apps like Nokia Cinemagraph, Nokia Glam Me, Bing Vision are tied up to camera setting. First impression: verdict Lumia 630 is cute with a good build quality for a budget-smartphone, the WP 8.1 brings a host of new features that makes the smartphone better at usability. The brief time I toyed with the device, it looks like success of Lumia 520 might continue with this phone too. We will wait for our review device and give a detailed report but I am positive with the brief encounter. ]]>

Nokia XL Review [Hands-On]

Lakshmi Rajan — Tue, 06 May 2014 11:07:31 +0000

Back in February this year at World Mobile Congress, Nokia put to rest all the rumors to rest and officially announced its foray into the Android world by launching the Nokia X series. Not one but 3 devices was showcased and but Nokia added a twist to the tale with its own forked version of Android which is way different than what Android users knew. Nokia X is a customized platform built on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). It’s very unlike your regular Android and has the look and feel of Asha and Windows OS. In March, Nokia X was launched in India and now Nokia is all set to launch Nokia XL and X+ here. During a showcase event, I had a brief time with Nokia XL and here is a hands-on review of the bigger phone of the Nokia X series.

Nokia XL design and build

On a first glance, you might mistake Nokia XL to a low-end Lumia device. Almost a Lumia 625 look-alike, the device is made of plastic and comes in colorful panels. With a 5-inch display the Nokia XL dwarfs the 4-inch X and X+ and is clearly aimed at the budget buyers who also want a bigger screen. In Europe, Nokia XL is priced at 109 Euro, so for a l0w-cost device its expected to have watered down specs. So the 5-inch IPS display comes with a modest 800×480 pixel resolution. To XL’s credit the display manages to be decent enough inspite of the 187 ppi pixel density. Though not very sharp, it is passable at this price segment. Nokia has a reputation for good build phones and it is evident with XL too. It build and feel of the device is better than most of the low-cost Android devices. It feels sturdy and good on hands. In fact, you might even mistake the device to have a unibody though the back panel can be removed. We will talk about it a bit later. At 10.9 mm it cannot boast of a slim figurine but it does not feel awkward holding it either and weighs 109 grams. The phone comes in eye-candy colors and I always feel only Nokia gets the color used better on their devices. Let’s talk of the colors and ports. There power and volume buttons are on the right and are color-matched with the body. A minute attention to design language like this is commendable for a low-cost device. The power/lock key is placed just below the volume rocker on the right side. The USB port is on the bottom and the audio jack on the top of the device, there is also a speaker grille on the lower bottom half of the rear and the camera is centered on upper half of the rear with a LED flash above it. [gallery link="file" columns="4" ids="7049,7050,7051,7052"] As I mentioned earlier, the body of Nokia XL could be mistaken for a unibody but it does come with a removable back panel. Even the inside has an attention to neatness. Along side the battery compartment, there are a dual SIM-inserts and a microSD card compartment all placed side by side neatly. The 2000mAh battery is good for 13 hours of 3G talktime, or 26 days on standby as per the company.

Nokia XL – hardware specs

In terms of specs the Nokia XL comes with a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 768MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, 5MP rear camera and a 2MP front shooter. I would have liked a 1GB RAM. There is also a microSD card slot to pump the storage up to 32GB. The Nokia XL also has dual-SIM support.

Nokia XL Software

This is the most interesting part. We are talking about Android phone but looks and feel anything Android as known. As I mentioned earlier, Nokia X platform is a forked version of Android heavily tweaked and re-imagined without any trace of Google apps and with heavy Windows OS influence and loaded with Microsoft and Nokia apps. The current OS version is called Nokia X software platform 1.0.1 and is based on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean OS. Stripping the Google identity, the OS is tightly integrated with Mircosoft’s services. There is also no Google Play Store and instead Nokia has its own curated Nokia X store. Nokia claims it is very easy to port Android apps to Nokia X store and it would take just 4 hours to do it. In case, a particular app you are searching is not available on Nokia X store, the search result would lead to Nokia acknowledged third-party app stores which hosts the particular apps. With an additional extra step, you can download the app and get it running on your device. One can also sideload APK files. Swiping from right to left on the lockscreen takes you to the Homescreen on Nokia XL. You are greeted to a series of tiles similar to Windows phone.You can move around the tiles by holding and dragging, change the tile size or even change the color of tiles if you like to color-match particular genres of apps. All the apps are positioned on one vertical-scrolling row. A swipe sideways on the Homescreen leads you to the Fastlane which is essentially an intelligent log that simplifies the way the phone is used and personalized. Its a running feed that logs all the latest activities on the device. So the apps you used, message notifications, call log, social interaction all are right there and right here including even the music controls you made. If you think its an hyper-flow of information, you can control and streamline what you would like to see on the lane. Further Fastlane is touted to be adapt to your usage as you keep using the device. Carving its own identity and replacing many of the Google apps, we have Here Maps, Here Drive, free Mix Radio music streaming and Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage. Skype is also tightly integrated.

Nokia XL Camera

The less-than-ideal condition meant I could not take sample shots, so await our detailed review very soon. A 5-megapixel front with 1/4-inch sensor and flash and 2-megapixel rear camera should be satisfying the segment. There is no dedicated shutter button. The software is loaded with many features like colour effects, face detection and controls for exposure, ISO, brightness, white balance, contrast and saturation.

Early Verdict:

Nokia XL is aimed at emerging markets like India and a 5-inch big display and expected competitive pricing means there might be good takers for the phone. Nokia X platform though at earlier stage is very interesting experiment and combined with Fastlane gives a good navigation and UX. Plus, the build quality is a key differentiator in the segment swarmed with plasticky-feel phones.]]>