Microsoft Lumia 535 is a budget Windows phone that costs around Rs.9000. This phone is exception under Lumia series. Lumia 535 is ideal for those who are looking for affordable Windows phone and rich features together. It has great screen size; it is sleek and also gives you a decent camera quality. It is right to say that Lumia 535 is one of the best affordable Windows phone in the market. If you are switching from Android to Windows then it will be complicated for you to work on Lumia 535 for few hours as the UI is entirely different. Microsoft Lumia 535 also comes with the updated Windows 8.1 OS that adds many extra features. With big screen it also brings ample of internal storage. The camera quality is not bad with good autofocus support. We will be checking out the pone in more detail. Before that let's have a look on its specification.
Microsoft Lumia 535 Specification:
- OS – Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim
- Screen – 5" IPS LCD qHD screen with max resolution of 960 x 540 @ 220 ppi
- Colours – TrueColor (24-bit/16M)
- CPU name – Quad Core Snapdragon 200 @ 1200 MHz
- RAM – 1 GB
- Storage – 8 GB
- Expandable – 128 GB Micro SD Card
- Free cloud storage – 15 GB
- Battery capacity – 1905 mAh
- Sensors – Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor
- Weight – 146g
Design:
Microsoft Lumia 535 is a sleek phone. It comes with removable back cover. The phone is light and looks classy. The touch quality is great and the big screen is very comfortable to use. There was a bit issue with the touch support before, but with the new Windows 8.1 update all the problem has been resolved.
Front:
There is a 5-inch IPS LCD display on the front that provides you a maximum resolution of 960 x 540 @ 220 ppi. The touch quality is amazing. Microsoft Lumia 535 runs on Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim. The update adds many new features on this budget phone. Like the Lumia Camera that offers you to take amazing photos at a faster rate. At the bottom there are three capacity buttons. Sensors and a 5MP camera are on the front side.
Sides:
Microsoft Lumia 535 is a sleek phone. It is light and easy to carry. It has two buttons on the right which is for screen locking and volume control.
Top/Bottom:
3.5mm audio cable is provided on the top side with a MicroUSB cable at the bottom for charging and for transferring data.
Back:
A 5MP camera sits on the backside with flash and offers you many extra features. Like F/2.4, 28nm camera focal length, and a bright flash. Microsoft Lumia 535 has a removable back cover and battery. It is easy to remove and it also looks a bit thick. It runs on 1905mAH battery. There are two micro sim slots inside along with a memory card slot also. You can add an microSD card upto 128GB on the same.
Overall, Microsoft Lumia 535 is a pure and amazing Windows phone. It is loaded with ample of new features that are required for day to day usage. Lumia phones are amazing for professional usage. When it comes to facebook, web browsing, chatting, etc; then Lumia devices are unique and better than Android. As they are not really loaded a lot with bloatware and are bit more secured.
Camera:
Microsoft Lumia 535 is a selfie phone. That is the reason the front camera is upgraded to 5MP wide angle. And it has f/2.4 aperture to take clearer and better pictures. It gives you a FWVGA 848 x 480 max resolutions. You can record some nice video through that. The front camera pictures are really impressive, as it is having a 5MP on the front side which is not commonly found on other devices. It is also nice for video chatting. Below is a gallery which offers you picture quality of front and back camera. You can check the same for more info. Similar to front camera, Lumia 535 also has a nice back camera which features the same 5MP quality. New windows update has enhanced the phone output a lot more. This has increased the auto focus and camera processing speed. You can take instant pictures. But if you shake the phone while taking pictures, then it will be blurry. It is best to use the Microsoft Lumia camera app for the same. This app is loaded with the most common and advanced features for taking quality pictures. For taking selfie it has a dedicated Lumia Selfie app. This app has an auto Selfie feature where you have to move the camera on front of your face and it will click the image. Try not to shake it too much. In the same way the back camera is also effective and has few customizations. If you want to extend the use you can try using camera 360 which will add more filters on photos. Microsoft Lumia 535 comes loaded with various pre-installed applications. It has Skype, App Social, Battery Saver, BoxTV, etc. It also comes with Cortana. But it does not work for our region.
Multimedia and Gaming Output:
HD videos play very well on Microsoft Lumia 535. The output is nice on full brightness. Through YouTube app you can stream various songs and videos on the device. It is a good multimedia device. For playing variety of other video formats you can try using MX Player. The same thing is applicable to the audio also. Microsoft Lumia 535 has a good speaker volume. At max volume you will be able to listen to all your video and music without much effort. Even when the phone is kept on desk the volume is high enough. The speaker quality is fine and the same is applicable to the headphones also. There is an official Microsoft headphone in the box with mic. But there are not buttons on it to change songs or to disconnect a call.
For gaming Microsoft Lumia 535 is not the best choice. If you are an android fan, then you won't be happy to have this model. Because for Windows we are having very few games which work very well on the same. Microsoft Lumia 535 is not a serious gaming phone at all. But still you can get a few good games like Candy Crush, Temple Run, Dead Target, etc. These are entry level games which are also available on android.
Performance and battery life:
Microsoft Lumia 535 is powered by a 1.2Ghz Quad Core processor and has 1GB of RAM. It has 8GB internal storage with an expandable 128GB option through SD card. It works very well with different applications. It does not lag or freeze from any angle. You can instantly switch from one app to another through the return key. After using this phone for few hours I was quite satisfied with the output. If you had configured multiple accounts on the same like outlook, facebook, one drive, etc; then you might feel some issue at the time of sync. Especially with OneDrive if there are too much files on the cloud. With this if you activate auto image upload, then you can get 15GB of free storage on OneDrive.
Microsoft Lumia 535 runs on 1905mah replaceable battery. Its battery life is quite impressive. You can use it without worrying much about the power for an entire day. But you have to turn of various things in it. Like Wifi Sense, Data Sense, etc. There are many settings which put impact on the overall battery usage. Wi-Fi sense is an app that will automatically connect you to a free wifi. And this consumes power. It will switch your phone to Mobile DATA instantly when you are out of wifi range. So better sit back and checkout all the settings one by one and disable all the options that are not needed. As per the specification it offers you 11 hours of talk time on 2GB and 13 hours on 3G. It is capable of offering you 8.5 hrs of wifi network browsing time and 6.5hrs of continuous video playback. There is no doubt on the same. If you think battery is used too much you can enable power saving mode.
Conclusion:
Microsoft Lumia 535 is a worth buying phone at a cost of Rs.9000. It is a feature rich phone with good design and quality. It is a treat for Windows users. For those who are really serious about using their phone for work specially, can go ahead with such model. Here you get a 5-inch IPS LCD display that is big enough to checkout emails, chat and do many other things. And above that the price is under Rs.10000 which is quite surprising. You cannot expect much from the build quality here. It is mostly plastic and non durable model. But the screen has a Gorilla glass protection that offers a bit scratch resistance design. Overall the battery life is great here. Sometime the top part of device gets hot when you take pictures, but that is not a very big issue.
Pros:
- Good Battery Life
- Great Performance
Cons:
- Average Back Camera
