Analyzed: Nokia Lumia 710

Well well well. What have we here? We're looking at the Nokia Lumia 710 which by the way happens to be a direct competitor to the Samsung Omnia W that we tested earlier. Both phones are virtually identical when it comes to their specs and price for that matter. We'll do a comparison between the two in a separate article but for now let's keep our attention on Nokia's entry level smartphone.

It's not a particularly good looking phone this, sure you have a gorilla glass covered display but the Nokia didn't feel entirely comfortable when we held it in our palm. Some parts felt quite rubbery to be honest. The buttons at the bottom also felt like raised pieces of soft plastic as opposed to being part of the touchscreen. You also get a dedicated camera button on the side of the phone but unfortunately you will use a lot of your strength and patience just trying to take a simple picture (more on this later). On the technical front, the phone is equipped as follows:

1. Single core Qualcomm 1.4GHz processor
2. 3.7" display at a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels
3. 512MB RAM
4. 8GB storage (which cannot be expanded)
5. 5MP rear camera with 4 x digital zoom and LED flash (with no front facing camera)
6. 720P HD video recording at 30 frames per second
7. Battery capacity: 1300mAh
8. Weight: 125.5g

As you can see from the specs, it is very well equipped for an entry level phone. These features seem to be standard these as seen in the Nokia and the HTC One V or the Samsung Omnia W. Sadly though, in the Nokia's case, even the base features weren't quite up to far. Take for instance the camera. The auto focus feature on the camera is absolutely horrible. Trying to get it to work especially using that dedicated camera button will test your patience. You have to hold down the camera button using the right amount of pressure or it will just end up taking an out of focus shot. The recovery time after each shot is measured in seconds as opposed to milliseconds. Another miss. 

Compare the Lumia 710 to the Lumia 800 and you can instantly tell the difference in speed while trying to scroll through apps or doing normal tasks like browsing the web or watching a video. While the display was bright, it suffered from heavy pixelation as was noticed while we played the HD version trailer of The Avengers. It took away the effects of the film. Not cool at all. The sound was fairly decent but it kind of defeats the purpose if you can't make out the video! You do get fairly average mids and highs which will be appreciated when listening to music. We thought there might be a silver lining to all this with the battery, but we were sorely disappointed. We couldn't even manage to get 6 hours out of a full charge while using the phone heavily (gaming, videos, music, browsing, document editing). In case you haven't noticed yet, the phone just felt sub-par. Considering how good the Lumia 800 is, we couldn't help but wonder if Nokia spent all their time developing the higher models than their entry model.

Our Rating: 

The Nokia Lumia 710 is currently on sale in India for Rs. 15,300 (~$306) at Nokia stores.