LOOKS: SIZE ZERO BEAUTY
The curvy design of the Lumia 720 is somewhat similar to other phones in the series. However there are subtle changes in the design which become evident when you take a closer look. The front of the phone has edge-to-edge Corning Gorilla Glass 2, 4.3-inch IPS touch LCD screen of 217ppi pixel density. Three feather touch keys are placed right below the screen for Back, Home and Search. A front camera along with speaker grille is placed above the screen. Flipping the phone around reveals the main camera with flash on top and a loudspeaker at the bottom. The power, volume and camera buttons are placed on the right side of the phone, and are not clearly marked, although one can make out what they do. The audio port is located on the top of the phone and the USB charging cum data port is at the bottom. Overall the phone looks smart enough and is not very heavy to lug around.
HARDWARE: GOOD STUFF UNDER THE HOOD
For the price, Nokia is offering some good hardware in the Lumia 720. The phone comes with a 1 GHz dual core processor built on a Qualcomm MSM8227 chipset. For storage the phone has 8GB on board memory (expandable using a memory card) and graphics are provided by an Adreno 305 GPU. On the flipside, the phone comes with just 512MB RAM, which stops it from playing some titles like Temple Run 2. But that apart, the phone performs smoothly enough with no slowdowns in regular functions. The rear camera has a 6.1-megapixel sensor, while the front one has a 1.3-megapixel one. Both can record HD video. The phone also supports Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, and Bluetooth.
SOFTWARE: WINDOWS PHONE POWER
Like all the new Lumias, the 720 too runs on Windows Phone 8. That means you have the standard tiled interface with resizeable tiles, and animations that appear with many embedded Microsoft programs such as Xbox Live. Nokia has installed its usual bevy of apps including Maps and Music - free navigation and unlimited music downloads out of the box. Social network connectivity is also inbuilt with seamless connectivity to one’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. And of course, then there are Microsoft’s own software goodies – Internet Explorer for browsing the Web, and MS Office for all one’s office suite needs.
MULTIMEDIA: FABULOUS SCREEN AND SOUND
The screen is one of the strengths of the Lumia 720 - games and movies look exceptionally good, and we were able to play videos movies in popular formats without any problems, although there were some issues with full HD videos. The loudspeaker has deceent volume levels, and the supplied headphones are not bad either. The propriety apps for videos and music work well and rounding off the multimedia muscle of the device is the 6.1-megapixel camera which gave us some very decent images. The colours were nice and vivid, but we did face some issues with sharpness. Even low light images were fine – plus and minus the flash.
USER EXPERIENCE: A MIGHTY FINE ONE
All in all, our time with the Lumia 720 was a pleasant one. The screen responds well to swipes and touches, the voice quality and reception is crisp, even when the loudspeaker is on. There are wide variety of apps on the phone and most games work well and look good too. The typing experience on the phone was very good too. The battery life is very respectable for a phone with this large a display - a single charge can see you through a day comfortably, and if you are careful, even a day and a half.
NOKIA LUMIA 720 REVIEW RATING
The Lumia 720, like other phones in the range, is available in a number of colours. And we must confess to being impressed with both its appearance and performance. If you want to look at other options, you can check out the Samsung Galaxy Grand Quatro available for Rs. 16,500.
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