Nokia launched several Lumia devices since October 2011 when they partnered with Microsoft. Lumia has been huge turn for Nokia in smartphones Market with better Camera solution and durability. Now since Microsoft Launched Windows Phone 8 last year in October, Nokia launched 7 more Lumia smartphones with this new Windows OS including Lumia 920, 820, 720, 520, 925, 928 and the one we reviewing today Lumia 620. Nokia Lumia 620 is powered by latest Windows Phone 8 operating system 1 GHz Dual Core Snapdragon S4 Processor, 512MB of RAM, 8GB internal storage, 5 Megapixel Camera and 3.8 inch WVGA 800×480 TFT display with CBD technology. It is one of best budget smartphone under Lumia Series available at the price of 14,500/- Here are the main highlights of Lumia 620:
- CPU: 1 GHz Dual Core Snapdragon S4
- RAM: 512 GB
- Storage: 8 GB, expandable upto 64GB using MicroSD Card
- Screen: 3.8 inch WVGA TFT display with 800 × 480 pixels Resolutions
- Dimensions: 115.4 x 61.1 x 11 mm
- Weight: 127g
- OS: Windows Phone 8
Lets check out the smartphone and its features in detail.
Design:
Lumia 620 seems quite stylish and attractive in design and looks. Weighing just 127 grams, it is 115.4 x 61.1 x 11 mm in dimension which is even smaller compared to Lumia 520. Unlike many Lumia devices 620 has a removable rear panel instead o Unibody. Infact I liked the packing of this device as it has the entire front part covered with hardened glass display and the rear plastic cover wrapping the front part. The rear cover is made of thick Plastic material. Lumia 620 comes in six different colors including Yellow, Green, Magenta, Cyan, White and Black. If you need to change the color you just need to change its rear cover as it is the only colored body on the entire devices, rest all is the front display which cannot have colors, right? The variant we are testing is in Black color.
Lumia 620 is very comfortable in navigation and provides better grip. All the keys are placed very smartly on the device which can be access easily with just one hand. As you can see in the image below on the front we have 3 capacitive buttons at the bottom of the 3.8 inch WVGA TFT display including Back, Home and Bing Search keys. On the top of the screen we have a VGA front camera, call speaker and of course ‘Nokia’ logo.
Left side of the device is empty with no keys, while on the right side we have dedicated Camera key at below, Power button in the center which is also used for Screen lock key. At the top of the right side we find Volume up/down keys.
At the top of the phone we have just 3.5mm Headphone Jack. Micro USB port which is also used for battery charging is placed at the bottom of the device with Call MIC.
At the rear side of the device we get 5 Megapixel rear camera with autofocus LED flash, with Nokia Logo at the center and Loudspeaker at the bottom.
If you are thinking where the sim slot is, then let me remind you that this device has removable rear panel. Beneath the rear cover we get MicroSD Card sim slot while the SIM slot is placed beneath the battery. Yes, you need a Micro SIM Card for Lumia 620. In order to remove the back cover you need to press the camera lens cover and pull up the rear panel from its corner.
Screen / Display:
As we already said above Lumia 920 comes with 3.8 inch TFT WVGA display with Clear Black technology offering 800 X 480 Pixels resolutions. The display offers 246 ppi pixel density which makes the device look crisp and nice. Nokia has also provided additional options regarding display in settings such as Sunlight Readability, Brightness, Battery saver, etc. Furthermore the clear black technology put additional polarizing layer on the display which makes better and clearer outdoor visibility. Lumia 620 offers clear view from any angle. Talking about touch sensitive, its very smooth. No matter you playing games, watching videos, browsing websites or reading text, you will love the viewing angles.
Here is the complete screen details:
- Display size: 3.8 ”
- Display resolution: WVGA (800 x 480)
- Display features: Polarization filter, Brightness control, Orientation sensor, Proximity sensor, RGB Stripe, Sunlight readability enhancements, Color boosting, Ambient light sensor
- Display colors: TrueColor (24-bit/16M)
- Aspect ratio: 15:9
- Display technology: LCD, ClearBlack
- Display height: 83 mm
- Display width: 50 mm
- Touch screen technology: Capacitive Multipoint-Touch
- Sensors: Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Magnetometer
Windows Phone 8 and Performance:
Lumia 620 is one of the seven devices running with latest Windows Phone 8 operating system under Lumia series of smartphones. As we know Operating system plays very important role with hardware, in this device we get very good usage of the WP8 OS. Though Lumia 620 is bit low in configuration but the optimized operating system wont let you realized that you are using middle range Lumia. Infact it would be surprising to know that there is no difference in the operating system between Lumia 620 and Lumia 920. You know how powerful Lumia 920 is, right? If not, check its review here http://www.techarena.in/review/256771-nokia-lumia-920-review.htm. We tested both Lumia 920 and 620 together and found that they both offer the same user experience such as resizable tiles, support for Indian languages, bluetooth sharing with and without NFC, etc. So this is a very good news for Lumia 620 users that they getting exactly the same experience at such as budget price.
In terms of performance obviously Lumia 620 is not as good as 920 but you will never realize that you are not using the same. You get Live Tiles on the home screen which is also known as Metro UI, you can also customize these titles completely according to your preference. You can move tiles, increase / decrease the size OR pin/unpin any application to homescreen. You can also change colors of all widgets to make your homescreen more attractive. In terms of performance also, Lumia 620 will not disappoint at all. In fact, it comes with all the built-in Apps which we have seen in Lumia 920 as well including Explore Nokia, Nokia Music, Nokia Drive, etc. You also get the same camera features such as Smartshoot, Cinemagraph , Panoram, etc.
We dint faced any problem using any of these apps on this device. You get very fast and smooth app response. It also offers better multitasking. You can open several apps at the same time and run them in background without any lag or freeze. We will see all these apps individual in details below in the “Apps” section. As of now lets talk about Lumia 620’s connectivity solution. The device offers USB 2.0, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi: WLAN IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n and NFC.
Here are the complete details of Connectivity options in Lumia 620:
- AV connectors: 3.5 mm audio connector
- USB: USB 2.0
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth 3.0
- Bluetooth profiles: Object Push profile (OPP) 1.1, Hands-free profile (HFP) 1.5, Serial Port profile (SPP), Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP) 1.0, Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) 1.2, Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) 1.4, General Audio/Video Distribution Profile (GAVDP), Service Discovery Application Profile (SDAP)
- Wi-Fi: WLAN IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n
- Wi-Fi security modes: WPA2 (AES/TKIP), WPA, WEP, PEAP-MSCHAPv2, EAP-SIM, EAP-AKA
- NFC: Secure NFC for payment
- Other wireless connectivity: Wi-Fi Channel bonding
People say Blackberry is the best smartphone for officials. That’s correct but with Lumia 620, you will never miss any of your emails, appointments, etc. It keeps you connected with all Email Accounts including Exchange accounts, POP and IMAP. It also keeps you connected with all your Social Networks, Chat Messengers, etc. You can add accounts such as Outlook, Hotmail, Nokia mail, Yahoo Mail, Google account, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other Exchange/POP/IMAP accounts. Here are complete details of Email and Messaging support in Lumia 620:
- Email clients: Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook Mobile, Gmail, Mail for Exchange, Office 365, Nokia Mail, Windows Live / Hotmail / Outlook.com
- Email protocols: SMTP, IMAP4, POP3
- Email features: Viewing and editing of email attachments, Always up to date, Multiple simultaneous email accounts, Text-to-speech message reader, Email attachments, Conversational view on email, Linking multiple inboxes to one, Inbox filtering, HTML viewer
- Supported instant messaging services: Twitter, LinkedIn, Windows Live Messenger
- Messaging features: Integrated text messaging and chat, Instant messaging, Concatenated SMS for long messages, Multiple SMS deletion, List of recently used numbers, Audio messaging, Text-to-speech message reader, Text messaging, Number screening for messaging, Unified MMS/SMS editor, Automatic resizing of images for MMS, Distribution lists for messaging, Multimedia messaging, Conversational chat style SMS, Unified inbox for SMS and MMS
We also have a KIDS CORNER in Lumia 620 as well where you can make a separate account for your kid. It is something like parental Control. Let’s checkout what’s the benefit of Kids Corner.
Kids Corner:
This is very useful software if you have any kid at your help who uses your phone in your absence. Not only just to prevent your phone contents to be accessed by kid, you can also use this application as a Parental control to keep our child safe from Unwanted or adult contents. Once activated you can password lock your account so that it cannot be access by anyone and secondly you can keep your kids safe from unwanted contents by allowing access to only selected applications under Kids Corner account. You can simply assign few apps of your choice which should be only accessible to your kids. In order to activate the same, go to Settings > Kids Corner. To assign apps go to Applications, Tap Kids Corner and add the apps of your choice.
Customization and Navigation
With Windows Phone 8 operating system, you can customize your Home Screen tiles as per your preference. You can ping as many application you want to the home screen, change their size, change their colors, and many more. Normally you can pin all your applications on your home screen and customize it as you want (small or large) but if you don’t want to pin, still the apps are accessible easily by swiping left. Navigation is very simple too. As I said, just a left swipe and you see all your installed apps in a list. If you have opened multiple apps at a time, you can switch between them easy by just press and hold back key for 2 seconds.
Applications
I said many times above that Nokia 620 is very similar to 920, it is proved again with the applications. You get almost all those apps in 620 which we have seen in Lumia 920 such as Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, Nokia Music, City Lens, etc. Lets check out what is Nokia City lens. It is Nokia’s own application that allows you to find places of your interest nearby you. If you are looking for places such as food, hotels, shopping malls, etc around you simply, open City Lens app and any of the options, for example ‘Hotel’. The phone will use your GPS, find the nearby Hotels and display on the screen with distance, contact info and walking or driving directions to the particular location.
Similarly Nokia Drive is yet another very helpful application for guys who drive frequently. This offers your turn by turn directions in 2D and 3D as well as Verbal directions. So you don’t need to take off your eyes from the road. As on moving, Nokia Drive will keep you updated with the remaining meters and traffic as well.
Maps use to be always very helpful when you travel long distance. With Lumia 620 you get the same Nokia Maps which we have in Lumia 920. Apart from searching the places and direction, this Map will also show you all popular places around you which keeps changing according to you location. You can change the Map view according to your preference by selecting Normal Map, Satellite, Public Transport and Traffic Map.
Other Navigation Features we get with Lumia 620 are:
- Navigation features: Pin places to Start screen, Public transportation routing guidance, Reveal the surrounding places, Reviews, info and photos for places, Routing options, Save favourite destinations, Call, share and get directions to places, Free maps, Save and sync favs with maps.nokia.com, Find upcoming departure times, See places through the camera viewfinder, Live traffic information, Automatic day/night view switching, Venue maps – shopping and transport centers, Free voice guided turn-by-turn drive navigation, Offline maps, Online and offline favourites, Speed limit warnings
- Location technologies: Magnetometer, A-GPS, Glonass, Cellular and Wi-Fi network positioning
As far as Browsing is concerned, Lumia 620 comes with built in Internet Explorer 10 to offer you multi tabbed fast and smooth browsing experience. You can open Multiple Tabs, check history, save favorites, pin any particular webpage to your HomeScreen or you can share pages to email or on Social Network right from the browser itself. You can also change the view to Mobile or Desktop display to make your browsing more effective.
These were the few important applications we get with Lumia 920. However the device comes with Windows Phone Store from where you can download thousands of free and paid application. Compared to other Mobile platforms like Android or iOS surely Windows Phone store has very less number of application but all major applications like WhatsApp, faceBook, WeChat, Skype, Nimbuzz and many more are available on Windows Store as well which will not make you feel that you are in lack of application. They have also introduced some interesting games as well. We have installed some games on this device and we will show you its performance in our Lumia 620 Video Review.
Other important Applications that come built-in with Lumia 620 are as follows:
- Personal information management features: Calculator, Clock, Calendar, Phonebook, Fixed dialling number, Alarm clock, Social networks in Phonebook, OneNote, Wallet, Family Room, Kid’s Corner
- Business apps: Adobe acrobat reader free download, Lync (Corporate IM) free download, SkyDrive storage for documents and notes
- Document formats supported: Excel, PDF, Word, Powerpoint
- Sync type: Exchange ActiveSync, Windows companion app, Mac companion app
- Sync content: Calendar, To-do list, Video, Pictures, Music, Contacts
Camera:
Most of the Lumia devices have always been impressive with Camera. Lumia 620 comes features 5 Megapixel rear camera with Auto focus with two-stage capture key . There is also a VGA front facing camera capable of recording at 640 x 480 pixels. The two most important features of Lumia Camera are Cinemagraph and SmartShoot. These lenses help you to enhance your images to much extent. The best I like here is the “SmartShoot.”
Smartshoot
We have seen this feature first in Lumia 920. It is very similar like changing the lens on any digital SLR Camera. Using this feature while capturing images from your Lumia 620 you can extend the camera functionality for taking the best shots. For example, while clicking an image SmartShoot captures a sequence of images out of which you can select the best shot, remove unwanted stuffs from the image as well as change faces. This helps you to get the perfect shot. Once you click the image, simple click on Edit icon, carry on your editing and save the perfect image as you want.
Cinemagraph:
This is yet another useful feature in Lumia 620 camera which we was also introduced first in Lumia 920. Using this mode while capturing images you can make a magical blend of Photo and Movie like animation. It is like a GIF animated image. Using Cinemagraph is very easy, just launch camera, click Lenses and select Cinemagraph.Capture a image, again tap on part of image which you want to animated and save. This helps you to save a High Quality gif image which I don’t think any other tool can do. In short Cinemagraph helps you to create an alive image.
Panorama
This is yet another built-in camera feature in Lumia 620 which allows you to capture your favorite moments in Panorama style, and that too in High Quality image.
Here are some other features of Lumia 620 Camera:
- Main camera sensor: 5 MP
- Main camera focus type: Auto focus with two-stage capture key
- Camera digital zoom: 4 x
- Carl Zeiss Tessar lens: No
- Main camera f-number/aperture: f/2.4
- Camera focal length: 28 mm
- Camera minimum focus range: 10 cm
- Camera image formats: JPEG/Exif
- Flash type: LED flash
- Flash operating range: 3.0 m
- Flash modes: Off, Automatic, On
- Main camera – other features: Touch focus, Landscape orientation, Auto and manual white balance, Still image editor, Geotagging
- Digital camera add-ons: Cinemagraph lens, Smart Shoot lens, Panorama lens, Bing vision
- Capture modes: Video, Still
- Scene modes: Automatic, Night Portrait, Sports, Night, Close-up, Backlight
- White balance modes: Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Daylight, Automatic
- Light sensitivity: ISO 100, ISO 800, Automatic, ISO 200, ISO 400
- Photos viewed by: Camera Roll, Timeline, Photo editor, Favorites, Album, Photos from social networks
- Secondary camera resolution: 640 x 480 pixels
- Secondary camera f-number/aperture: f/2.4
- Secondary camera – other features: Video recording, Still image capture
Battery:
Lumia 620 comes with 1300 with mAh battery from which we can expect not really a good but a standard battery life of upto 10 hours on WiFi or 3G and 14 hours on 2G. Good part is that when you battery level comes below 15% the phone keeps you notifying to charge the phone.
Battery Features:
- Battery model: BL-4J
- Battery capacity: 1300 mAh
- Battery voltage: 3.7 V
- Removable battery: Yes
- Maximum 2G talk time: 14.6 h
- Maximum 3G standby time: 330 h
- Maximum 3G talk time: 9.9 h
- Music playback time: 61 h
- Wireless charging: No
Conclusion:
Over all Nokia Lumia 620 is one of the best budget Lumia Smartphones at the price of Rs 14,300/- with better build quality, a bright and clear display, of course its camera with Smartshoot and Cinemagraph lenses, superb Audio, and more. You can also change its rear panel and make your phone look new with different colors every day. Apart from this the optimized Windows Phone 8 operating system gives you the same feel and experience like people have with 920. The useful applications mentioned above like Nokia City Lenses, Nokia Drive, makes it handy device for people who travel and drive while at the same time it is also very useful for a professional photographer to carry such a small device in his pocket but don’t miss anything what he wish to capture.
Pros:
- Better build quality and compact size
- Bright and Clear Display
- Camera with Smart features like Smartshoot and Cinemagraph
Cons:
- Low RAM.
- Lack of Games and apps
- Battery life
