Techimperia Rating for Nokia Lumia 520 : 4/5
Pros
- Good Camera in Bright Sunlight
- Super Sensitive Touch Screen (Can Use even with Gloves On)
- Does not feel Cheap
- Sturdy Design
- Good value for money
- Bundled Nokia apps
Cons
- Display could have been better
- No LED flash or front camera
- App ecosystem not at par with Android and iOS
Nokia has been trying hard to make its mark in the smartphone race. The company had earlier launched its high-end and mid-range Windows Phone 8 offerings in the form of Lumia 920 and Lumia 820. The Finnish giant now seems to be gunning for the budget smartphone market. It had launched the Lumia 620 at the sub Rs. 15,000 price point in March 2013.
Design
Nokia Lumia 520 follows the same design philosophy as its other Lumia siblings. It comes in a host of colours such as yellow, blue, red along with the usual black and white. You can also change the rear casing (at an extra cost) in order to the match the colour of your smartphone as per your mood. However Opening the back casing of the Lumia 520 is no child’s play, it’s takes a bit of effort.
The 4-inch screen of Lumia 520 is scratch resistant. However, the screen surface of Lumia 520 feels slightly rough as compared to screens of the other Lumia devices. There are three capacitive Windows Phone buttons – Back, Start and Search placed just below the screen.
The polycarbonate body of the smartphone oozes sturdiness. Nokia Lumia 520 is slimmer and lighter than the Lumia 620 and Lumia 820. In fact it looks slightly premium in terms of looks when compared with the Lumia 620. However Lumia 520 is certainly not the slimmest phone around, rather a 9.9 mm thickness phone is pretty average now-a-days. Though, Its curved back makes it easy to grip and on the overall gives it a nice feel
The right panel houses the volume rocker, power/ standby button as well as the camera shortcut key. Having all the physical buttons on one panel can be a bit confusing and you will have to fidget a bit to get used to the button placement. On the positive side, the buttons are fairly sized and reasonably responsive.
Display
Most of the smartphones under the Lumia range come with ClearBack LCD display, However, The Lumia 520 is an exception in this regards. To make the smartphone cost effective, the Finnish smartphone maker has opted for a 4-inch IPS LCD with an 480×800 pixel resolution at 233ppi density. Hence the picture clarity of the screen is not that great compared to other Lumia smartphones, but it not Too bad when compared with other smartphones offered at a similar price point, even it can still give them a Run for their money.
Text, videos and pictures look sharp and crisp on the Lumai 520. The viewing angles of the Lumia 520 are good and so is the under sun legibility.
The touch response of Nokia Lumia 520 is very good. As a matter of fact, Lumia 520 deploys super sensitive touchscreen technology that enables you to operate the screen even with your fingernails or while you are wearing gloves. The smartphone takes a little while to get used to the touch but post that there is simply no looking back. Though, The screen is reflective and is also a finger print magnet.
Camera
The Nokia Lumia 520 comes with 5-megapixel camera at the rear which can record video at up to 720p. The good thing about the camera is that it is an autofocus rather than a fixed focus Camera, which is usually Found on most budget smartphones.
The pictures clicked are clear and sharp. However, the colour reproduction of the camera is not very good. The colours look brighter than what they actually are.
Camera Sample Picture From Nokia Lumia 520
Moreover, there’s no flash on the rear, so the pictures clicked indoors or when the light is not adequate are grainy and not really up to the mark.
Sadly, there is no front camera available on this smartphone and Absence of LED Flash hurts too.
Software
Some of The Must Have Apps On Nokia Lumia 520 are
- #2InstaWithLove
- Here Maps
- Here Transit
- Media Downloader
- Nokia Trailers
- Truecaller
Some of The Known Apps Which Cannot Run On Lumia 520 are
- Temple Run (Requires 1GB or more RAM)
- Here City Lens (Requires Compass)
Performance
The Lumia 520 is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and Adreno 305 GPU. It comes with 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, which is expandable by another 64GB via a microSD card. The company is also offering 7GB of cloud storage via SkyDrive for this smartphone.
Though 512MB of RAM seems a bit less, but it does not hamper the performance of this smartphone. The apps load quickly on the smartphones and browsing between menus is Slick. Scrolling web pages in Internet Explorer is breezy. However, as noted earlier, it will prevent you from playing some popular games like Temple Run that require a ridiculous 1GB of RAM.
The audio playback quality of the Lumia 520 through speakers is good. We were able to play full-HD clips, and all popular formats including .MOV and .AVI were natively supported by the phone.
We tried playing games such as AE 3D Motor, iStunt2 and Asphalt 7 Heat on this smartphone. The gaming experience was Very good. We Found No Lag Whatsoever While Playing all These Games.
The Lumia 520 comes with a 1430mAh battery, which is slightly better than the 1300mAh battery on the Lumia 620. The fully charged battery easily lasted a complete day with our usage.
Conclusion
If you are looking for a budget smartphone for around Rs.10,000 that is not running on Android, then look no further than the Nokia Lumia 520. The smartphone looks decent and packs in enough punch for a smartphone of this range. Moreover, this smartphone comes with a Nokia brand name, and a build quality that few, if any, that can match at this price-point.
So if you are still scratching your Head whether to go for this one or not , We give it a thumbs up.
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