The Lumia 820 is clearly designated to sit
in the shadows of its bigger brother, the Lumia 920. Like what HTC’s Windows
Phone 8S is to the 8x,the Lumia 820 is a more affordable WP8 device, with a
feature set pared down to reflect its lower price tag.
The
Lumia 820 is clearly designated to sit in the shadows of its bigger brother,
the Lumia 920.
Like the Lumia 920 though, the Lumia 820
comes with a powerful Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of
memory. This is likely due to Microsoft’s strict hardware requirements for
running the Windows Phone 8 operating system. The differences on the outside
are quite obvious though.
To start, you get a smaller 4.3-inch
display (versus 4.5 inches on the Lumia 920, and without Nokia’s Pure Motion
technology, too). On the other hand, the screen doesn’t feel smaller than the
Lumia 920, mostly because Nokia removes a significant amount of bezel space all
around. This also means that the three capacitive touch buttons below the
screen are made a little smaller, but they’re no less usable than the larger
ones on the Lumia 920. In addition, the screen features a lower resolution of
800 x 480 pixels (versus 1280 x 768 pixels on the Lumia 920), and an
8-megapixel camera (also without PureView).
The
Nokia Lumia 820 has plenty of unique features and costs less than the Lumia
920, making it a tempting offer if you consider making the move to Microsoft’s
OS.
Still, the Lumia 820 does have a few things
going for it. The Lumia series’ classy polycarbonate bodyhas been modified on
the Lumia 820, taking on a less angular form and now sporting a removable back
cover. The rounded edges, as well as the smaller frame and lighter body (at
just 160g), make it easier to hold and handle compared to the much larger Lumia
920. Beneath the cover lies a microSD card slot, supporting memory cards of up
to 64GB in capacity. With 8GB of built-in storage on the Lumia 820, this means
you can have up to 72GB of storage at any time.
Nokia’s
Lumia 820 includes a removable 1,650 mAh battery and it claims you’ll get
around 8 hours of 3G talk time, with 360 hours of standby.
While the lower price does mean some
changes in the feature set of the Lumia 820, some compromises do deliver a
positive experience. For one thing, its smaller size makes for better handling.
Secondly, the removable battery and memory card slot are features which will
come in handy for many. Better yet, the Lumia 820 actually did better than the
Lumia 920 in our battery benchmarks, topping the charts at 400 minutes of
run-time, versus just 271 minutes for the Lumia 920. In terms of CPU
performance, the use of the same processor and exact same amount of RAM as on
the Lumia 920 meant similar numbers for its cheaper sibling.
Nokia
has opted for its usual button less left-hand side, with the power, camera and
volume buttons all on the right-hand side.
If you’ve been waiting to jump on Windows
Phone 8 on a budget, and can live with a few shortcomings, the Lumia 820 is
worth a shot.
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Specifications
§ Product
type: Smart phone
§ Connectivity:
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G, HSPA
§ Operating
system : Windows Phone
§ Application
store: Yes
§ Touch
screen: Yes
§ GPS:
Yes
§ Form
factor: Candy-bar
§ Available
colors: Black, Blue, Grey, Purple, White, Yellow, Other
§ Screen
size: 4.3 in.
§ Camera
resolution: 5 megapixels
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