Nokia Lumia 710

Nokia's Lumia 710 is a budget follow-up to its first Windows Phone 7 handset, the Nokia Lumia 800.

It's very slightly larger than the 800 in all dimensions, has the same Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) operating system and 3.7in 480x800 display, but the screen is TFT rather than AMOLED, the camera is a 5 rather than 8-megapixel version and it has 8GB rather than 16GB of storage. The 1.4GHz single-core processor is identical.

The phone feels very well built, with a classy edge-to-edge glass fascia and a colourful backplate. Windows Phone 7 Mango brings numerous improvements to the original, including smartphone staples such as multi-tasking and copy and paste. It feels really responsive in everyday use, much more so than the Android interface, and it's attractive and slick. You can add multiple Windows Live accounts, as well as Gmail and Exchange. We're particularly fond of the email client, which is one of the only mobile clients we've seen with an unread message view, but the calendar isn’t brilliant - entries in the month view are too small to view so you have to zoom into the day, and there's no week view.

Web browsing using Internet Explorer is fast. Double-tapping a page zooms in to a more readable level than the default zoom. In our side-by-side tests, however, we didn't notice much of a speed difference between the two browsers.

Since its launch, the Windows Phone Marketplace has expanded to over 60,000 apps. It may not have as many apps as its rivals, but the quality has improved greatly since our last visit, with some bigger names visible such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Spotify. Sadly, some of these apps aren't highly rated, and some, such as Microsoft's YouTube app, are simply shortcuts to a mobile version of a web site.

Microsoft software handles most of the 710's main tasks: Xbox Live for games, Zune for music and videos and Office for business files. Nokia has included its Drive satnav app, and there's also a link to download Nokia Maps from the Marketplace, but we don’t think Nokia Maps offers much over Windows Phone 7's own Bing Maps. And at the same time Nokia city lens is the greatest map application ever than any other maps provided by the rivals.

Nokia has integrated its music service, which works reasonably well. The Music app lets you log into your Nokia Music account - a boon for those who've previously bought a Nokia phone and acquired music that can only be played on Nokia devices. The Music app's Mix Radio function is worth a look - it's a collection of pre-defined playlists designed to introduce you to artists on Nokia's roster, and it's easy to download individual songs that tickle your fancy. The track listings veer towards the popular, but there are some good tunes on there and you can save a playlist for offline playback.

To transfer music and videos to the phone and to get your photos off, you need to use the Zune desktop software. This is a reasonable media player and interface, but we weren't particularly keen on having to use it - we prefer just dragging and dropping files in Windows Explorer, as you can with an Android phone.

Hardware-wise, the Lumia 710 is an excellent phone. It feels just the right size and shape and feels well made. There's a dedicated camera shutter button, and we liked the physical Back, Home and Search buttons. Our only real gripe is the top-mounted power button which you need to unlock the screen; we prefer the Lumia 800's side-mounted model.

The Lumia 710's 3.7in screen looks sharp, and colour and contrast are great - Nokia's ClearBlack technology works well with Windows Phone 7's primary colours, and the screen is very bright. It's not up there with the Lumia 800's OLED display, though - blacks aren't as deep and viewing angles aren't as wide. The touch interface is smooth and responsive, although it lacks an oleophobic coating to stop fingerprints smudging.

The camera takes good shots, although under fluorescent lighting it picked up a bit of chroma noise. Images were crisp and had natural colours, and the LED flash works well to illuminate dark areas. Videos share the same good image quality, but movement was jerky and focus seemed to jump about in video mode. It's not up there with the Lumia 800's camera.

It's worth pointing out that despite a total of 8GB storage, you only have about 4GB free to store your own apps, photos, videos and music, and there's no memory card slot for expansion. You can use the free 25GB of cloud storage you get with Microsoft's SkyDrive, but then downloads will cut into your data plan. Battery life is also disappointing: in our video playback test, the Lumia 710 only lasted for four hours and 19 minutes, compared to 5h 48m from the Lumia 800; we've yet to see a Windows Phone 7 handset with particularly impressive battery life.

There's no doubt the Lumia 710 is a slick, powerful and well-designed phone. Windows Phone 7's app selection may have some catching up to do, but it's still a great operating system, so if you're willing to take the plunge this fun, chunky handset is a good way to go about it. The Nokia Lumia 800 has more storage space and a better camera and screen, and is only around £5 a month more expensive on a similar contract, though.

Details
Part Code	NOKIAL710BCUK
Review Date	11 Feb 2012
Price	Rs.13,300 approximately
Rating

Hardware
Main display size	3.7in
Native resolution	480x800
CCD effective megapixels	5-megapixel
Flash	LED
Video recording format	MP4
Connectivity	Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB
GPS
Internal memory	8192MB
Memory card support	none
Memory card included	N/A
Operating frequencies	GSM 900/1800/1900, 3G 900/1900/2100
Wireless data	EDGE, HSPA, WCDMA
Size	119x62x13mm
Weight	126g

Features
Operating system	Windows Phone 7 7.5 Mango
Microsoft Office compatibility	Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote editors
Email client	POP3/IMAP/Exchange
Audio format support	AAC, AAC+, eAAC, eAAC+, MP3, MP4, WAV, WMA, AMR
Video playback formats	MPEG4, H.264, H.263, WMV9, ASF, AVI
FM Radio
Web Browser	Internet Explorer 9 Mobile
Accessories	headset, USB data cable, mains adapter
Talk time	6.9 hours
Standby time	16.7 days