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Hands-On: Nokia Lumia 800 and 710

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Oct 26, 2011, 8:00 AM   by Eric M. Zeman   @zeman_e


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Lumia 800 




Lumia 800  





Lumia 710 

The Lumia 710 is an average smartphone that is meant to bring Windows Phone Mango to the masses. It sports a significantly lower price point when compared to Lumia 800 — and has an appropriately less-expensive feel to it.

Rather than polycarbonate, the 710 feels like any other normal plastic smartphone. It is much thicker than I'd like a modern smartphone to be, and the materials are definitely cheaper than those found in the 800. The combination of the size, weight, and shape made the 710 feel bulky. The rounded sides of the phone make it easy to hold, though, and it fits well in the palm of your hand.

Lumia 710  

Rather than offer three capacitive controls as most Windows Phones do, the 710 has three physical buttons to access the Windows Phone control elements. These buttons had an OK feel to them. The controls on the right edge — volume toggle, screen lock, camera — all felt a but cheap and stiff to me. It is obvious that Nokia had to trim somewhere in order to get the price point 150 Euro less than that of the 800.

The Lumia 710's display is the same size and resolution of the 800s (3.7-inches, 800 x 480 pixels), but it is a standard LCD panel rather than an AMOLED panel. Though it also claims to offer ClearBlack technology, the difference between the two displays is significant. The 800's display clearly outmatches the 710's LCD. That's not the say that the 710's display is bad at all, but it is obviously of lower quality than its larger brother. Blacks looked good, and the colorful Windows Phone tiles looked great.

As for the user interface, it is pretty much stock Windows Phone. Despite the single-core 1.4GHz S2 SnapDragon processor, the phone felt speedy and never slow.

Nokia is shipping the Lumia 710 to some of its key European markets in late December and will slowly ship it elsewhere during the first half of 2012. As for U.S. support, the version announced today is a tri-band 900/1900/2100MHz device. Nokia said it will make its North American market plans known in early 2012.

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Robotic Captain Ahash

Oct 27, 2011, 6:35 PM



And I thought the evo was too large...

Oct 26, 2011, 5:36 PM


Seriously, this is ridiculous. They have getting their butts kicked for the past 3 years in the smartphone market and this is the best they can do ? Has nokia ever heard of diversification ? HTC got it, Samsung got it, but Nokia just doesn't get it. Why does nokia think they can outsell all the other OS's when windows 7 has been selling miserably by HTC and Samsung over the past year ? This has nothing to do with which OS is better at this point. Big corporations are about making money, and making money only. So what would nokia have lost if they were to sell both Android and Win7 ?

The answer is that they wouldn't have lost anything and instead, NOkia would most likely own the Android market with their superior hardware. Most Nokia emp...
sell what sells, and trash the rest.

Because Nokia Windows Phone 7 handsets aren't selling that well?
You know, with that mentality, the only phones would be Android or iPhone. Why not get on with an OS that gives people another option? Everyone doesn't want or like Android or iPhone.

Oct 26, 2011, 8:23 AM

iPhone or Win?

I really want a windows phone but I've already started to get all my content on iTunes.

It kind of sucks that all the software is so fragmented which makes the consumer "commit" to a specific OS.

I would feel more comfortable having all my content with iTunes because its dependable. I would love to one day get a Mac book air, and a tablet (iPad perhaps), and an iPhone to keep everything on one OS which the advantages would be to keep my content interchangeable.

Downside? Apple is expensive, and I really like this Nokia relationship with Microsoft, but my question is, How committed are they? If I decide to go with windows for all of my content, will I be sorry in the long run?

Too much effort and money has been put into this. It's not like MS pet project the Kin phone. This is something that has been well thought out and executed. So far, MS seems to have have a handle on the update fragmentations from updates, unlike Andro...

Oct 26, 2011, 9:04 AM


The Lumia 800 looks really really really nice. Any word on a U.S. release date?
hey, I know you are an iPhone fan and was wondering if you can share some advice on a problem of mines. If you don't mind could you answer my concern of mines, do you think Windows would be worth the investment in the long run or will they give up qui...

Oct 26, 2011, 9:32 AM

If only they ran Android...

They might be worth a look. Appears to be decent h/w, but brain-dead software...
I agree, they should have just made an Android and jump on the band wagon. It would have saved them much faster then windows will.
Nobody would care at all if this phone ran on Android, in fact, it would be suicide for Nokia to even consider. The spec-heads would riot! "no dual-core'" "no huge screen'" "no robotic arm that comes out of the screen and types for you!"

These phon...

Oct 26, 2011, 9:27 AM

removable battery?

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