While the Nokia Lumia 710 is a fine and attractive smartphone, it couldn’t possibly hope to match the Nokia Lumia 800 for sheer style. Really, we don’t know a smartphone that could. But that’s not the case when it comes to the Nokia Lumia 710′s Windows Phone OS and bundled software – there is absolutely no compromise here whatsoever.

Nokia Lumia 710 review (hardware)

Windows Phone 7.5 has fast established itself as the slickest and most forward-thinking mobile operating systems around. It’s based around the gorgeous Metro UI, which uses boldly coloured window tiles, high res background images and large, heavily stylised (though always clear) fonts to really stand out from the crowd.

It’s built around a hub page filled with large square icons called live tiles. These represent the main functions of your phone – so there’s one for making phone calls, one for your contacts, one for text messaging and so on. The key feature is hinted at in the live tile name – they relay real-time information to you without the need to actually enter the app. If you’ve come from the static icons of Symbian, this will be a bit of a revelation.

For example, your contacts app (called People) will pull any images associated with your contacts to the fore, creating a mosaic of your friends, family and colleagues right on your Nokia Lumia 710 start page. Instant personalisation with no messing around. A rather more useful example would be the text and email live tiles that tell you how many unread messages you have. The calendar tile, meanwhile, tells you what your next appointment is at a glance. App developers can add their own live tiles, which you can choose to pin to the start menu.

No other mobile OS boasts such a unified approach, and that’s most evident when you stray into the apps themselves. Each of the default applications – and most of the third party ones found on the Windows Phone Marketplace for that matter – adopt the Metro UI aesthetic. This involves a simple system of scrolling left and right to flick between important elements, each represented by a large header that gradually scrolls into view. The email app, for example, lets you flick between all, unread, flagged and urgent messages with a left or right swipe.

Speaking of email – setting up an account is extremely easy here. Select the set-up option from the start page, or the Add an account option from the settings menu, and you’ll be able to add an account from all the usual sources – Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and more. In the case of something like Gmail, you can even choose to sync your contacts and calendar info with Windows Phone’s equivalent systems. It’s seamless.

Scrolling right from the start page brings up a list of all the apps you have on your Nokia Lumia 710, which in turn brings us to one of the few perceived weaknesses of the Windows Phone OS. While the Windows Phone Marketplace is very nicely presented (again in the Metro UI style), it doesn’t have as many apps as its major rivals. When you consider that the Windows Phone OS has been around for well under two years, though, the fact that it has more than 40,000 apps to choose from already is truly impressive. The important points to note are: the Marketplace is growing fast, most of the major players (Spotify, Flickr, eBay etc) are represented, and many of these are the best of their kind on any platform.

Gamers, too, will find an ecosystem that preaches quality over quantity – and which is quickly catching up in numbers too. Your Nokia Lumia 710 has access to a number of games that hook up to your Xbox Live account, awarding you achievements that will go towards your Xbox 360 Gamerscore. This facility alone makes the Windows Phone versions of cross-platform giants such as Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies the best on any smartphone platform. There’s also a growing catalogue of smaller and cheaper indie games.

What sets the Nokia Lumia 710 (along with the Lumia 800) apart from other Windows Phone devices, even, is the exclusive Nokia software. Nokia Drive is the undoubted star of the show, offering a full turn-by-turn navigation system for free. With the ability to preload maps, the Nokia Lumia 710′s powerful GPS capabilities and Nokia Drive’s clear 3D view, you can genuinely consider putting your expensive sat nav system on ebay. It’s that good.

Nokia Maps, too, is a far superior alternative to the default Bing Maps, while Nokia Music adds free themed radio playlists that can be streamed or downloaded. All excellent additions, and you can bet that Nokia will have more up its sleeves.

We said in our hardware review that the Nokia Lumia 710 offers the full functionality of the Nokia Lumia 800 for less money, but in truth that’s largely defined by its software. This is the full Windows Phone OS experience, and it makes the Nokia Lumia 710 one of the most appealing and capable smartphones on the market.

Calling the Nokia Lumia 710 a mid-range smartphone is doing it a disservice. It can do everything the premium Nokia Lumia 800 can do, and it’s been built with Nokia’s usual sky-high standards firmly in mind. Rather, Nokia has made some wise choices with its components in order to offer a more affordable package.

Nokia Lumia 710 unboxing review

Take the Nokia Lumia 710′s design, for instance. It’s completely different from its sibling, which shows how Nokia has made this an alternative that depends on your personal tastes as much as your budget. Gone is that daring all-in-one polycarbonate shell. Instead you get a traditional design with a removable battery cover (and, of course, battery). Nokia has used this to give you more customisation options, packing in a different-coloured battery cover with the phone.

Don’t think this makes the Lumia 710 feel any less solid in the hand, though. The battery cover snaps in to place with reassuring certainty, and there’s no hint of any creaking or flexing in the fully constructed handset. There’s a pleasant matte look and feel to the rear of the device that aids with grip and makes the phone feel more premium. At 12.5mm thick and with a weight of 125.5 grams it’s slightly thicker than the Lumia 800 but substantially lighter.

Consider, too, the Nokia Lumia 710′s hardware controls. Nokia has gone with a set of physical buttons for the Back, Menu and Search commands rather than capacitive touch equivalents. Rather than feel cheap, these buttons fit perfectly with the Nokia Lumia 710′s overall design, and many will actually prefer the sureness and dependability they provide.

The volume and camera shutter buttons are still on the right have side of the device, but the power button has been relocated to the top. This makes it a little tougher to wake the phone from sleep with one hand, but easier to feel out without looking. The Micro USB and 3.5mm headphone ports are both on top of the device, but there’s no physical flap covering the former. The Micro SIM port has been relocated from the top of the device to inside the phone – you’ll have to remove the battery to insert it.

It’s true that the 3.7-inch LCD display found here lacks the eye-popping colour contrast and deep blacks of the Lumia 800′s AMOLED equivalent, but it is the same size and resolution (800 x 480). In fact, the bold text and sharp edges found throughout the Windows Phone Mango OS seemed even crisper and more defined on the Lumia 710. Our one criticism is that the screen is extremely susceptible to greasy finger print marks.

Nokia has made almost no concessions inside the phone, which means the Nokia Lumia 710 runs on the same swift 1.4GHz processor backed by 512MB of RAM as the Lumia 800. We’ll discuss the Lumia 710′s performance in more detail in our software review, suffice to say the OS and apps fly along as well here as on any other Windows Phone device.

With 8GB of internal storage, the Nokia Lumia 710 isn’t the most capacious phone on the market, but then not many other phones give you 25GB of free online storage with SkyDrive. Simply send all your photos, videos and documents here and reserve that 8GB for apps and music and you’ll be surprised how much you can cram on.

The Nokia Lumia 710′s 5-megapixel camera won’t be displacing the Nokia N8 from its mobile imaging throne, but it is capable of reasonable snaps with sufficient light. Accessing the camera is quick and easy – just hold the camera button – and shutter response is nice and quick. Images are a little grainy in less-than-optimal lighting conditions, but video is decent at 720p and 30 fps.

All in all, then, the Nokia Lumia 710 is a very accomplished smartphone. It might not be quite as desirable as the Nokia Lumia 800, but the way Nokia has managed to cram all of that phone’s functionality into a solid and affordable handset deserves considerable praise.

From the moment you open the Nokia 700, one of the first things you’ll notice is how gorgeous, (more expensive, even) the Nokia 700 actually looks in real life. It’s really thin, too, so thin that carrying it around took some getting used to. The grip could feel a little more secure, but we soon got used to it, even after dropping the Nokia 700 indoors (twice) -  the butterfingers that we are.  

Switching the Nokia 700 on and having a look around the Nokia Belle interface, we discovered a more up-to-date look and feel about it. The capacitive touchscreen AMOLED screen looks great. If you’ve previously been using a capacitive touchscreen, you’ll find the vibration feedback a little off-putting to begin with, but we learned to live with, and barely notice it, in time, although it won’t be for everyone.

Getting used to using the multiple homescreens also takes some time. Swiping away at the four homescreens in search of what you want can feel hit and miss if you don’t remember where you put that app shortcut or widget you like. We should use the search bar more often.  

We soon learned that laying out each homescreen for different uses would be handy. So, one screen could be reserved for the FM radio and music apps, another solely for contacts, another for shortcuts to games, and so forth.

We’ve spent most of our early days with the Nokia 700 keeping an eye on email, Twitter, and Facebook. Email was a matter of providing an email address and password, and then tapping a button. Easy. An email widget home screen lets you preview the last three emails, which is great. And  emails appear to update often, so we are pleased with that.

We’re still getting to grips with the built-in Twitter and Facebook apps. They are both a little different to the desktop versions, and a little unwieldy at first, taking too many taps to use the functions we wanted to use most. The Facebook app is a little better, with message, friend and notification icons appearing at top as on the desktop version.

Both are our most-used apps, along with Shazam, which we love to use to find the name of any songs we want to know the name of. We also love the WhatsApp app. The instant messenger app is a nice way to talk to a group of friends at no extra cost. All you have to do is enter a friend’s number, and then invite them for a chat. We love it. And we’re sure that we’ll love it more once we get used to the Nokia 700’s keypad. However, our favourite Nokia 700 app so far is Fruit Ninja – it’s just too addictive.

Web browsing was faster than we thought. A handy window splitter even lets you view multiple pages at once at once. However, typing in web addresses on that dainty keypad is not fun. The touchscreen keypad is well made, but on a screen this small, you’ll make more than the odd spelling mistake.

Overall our experiences of living with the Nokia 70, bar a few niggles, have been largely positive. Nokia Belle has already showed that it can transform a mid-entry phone into one that feels more like a high-end handset.

A keypad that is easy to make typos on, and fiddly built-in social tools are so far the biggest blots on what is otherwise turning out to be a very good fully-featured smartphone: one that we still look forward to playing with some more. Look out for further write-ups of our Nokia 700 extended hands-on experience.

Check out our Living With The Nokia 700 (review) photo gallery below:

Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710 set to conquer the world

Slide out the internal box from its colourfully painted shell and you’ll immediately be confronted with the Nokia Lumia 710 itself, sitting pretty in a moulded lid like some kind of… sleeping… smartphone… princess. We’ll discuss the handset in greater detail (and hopefully with better metaphors) soon – suffice to say we’re surprised at just how ‘premium’ it feels.

As with many modern smartphones, the phone tray doubles as a lid for the rest of the contents. We’re always surprised that the most expensive – and important – component is used as such rather than wrapped up in cotton wool (whether figuratively or literally) in the middle of the package, but then we’ve never had a damaged Nokia yet. Just under the lid is your usual documentation – you know, all the stuff you really should read but never do.

Slide the lid off and you’re confronted with the rest – a standard Micro USB charger, a USB lead for hooking up to your computer and some ear buds (the ones that mould to your ears rather than just sit there spilling sound out, thankfully). The most interesting inclusion, though, is an extra rear cover. While the standard once that comes affixed to our Nokia Lumia 710 is black to match the front, this second one is bright Cyan, much like the tone of blue used on the Nokia Lumia 800. I loved this inclusion, and swiftly made the swap to a bold two-tone look.

So that’s the unboxing sorted – you can check out the snaps of the process below. Next up – the Nokia Lumia 710 hardware itself! Can’t wait to get stuck in to this one.

Check out our Nokia Lumia 710 Unboxing hands-on photo gallery: 

The Nokia Lumia 800 Leopard print one-piece snap case has been designed as a cheap and cheerful way to protect your new Lumia smartphone. It’s basically a plastic half-shell that clamps over the sides of the device with holes cut out to allow you access to the buttons beneath.

 Check out our Nokia Lumia 800 silicon jacket review

Giving the Nokia Lumia 800 one-piece snap case a more tactile feel, you’ll find the plastic shell comes with a faux leather coating that means the case is nice and firm in the hand, with little or no slip to it.

The big problem we have with the Nokia Lumia 800 one-piece snap case is that the holes but out don’t really work that well. The Flash and camera slots on the back are great, as they are a perfect fit. However, the holes on the side are overly large and make getting quick access troublesome.

The sample of Nokia Lumia 800 one-piece snap case we were sent came with a rather striking Leopard print on the back. Thankfully, there are a host of different designs as this one can best be described as ‘WAG-tastic’ and certainly stands out from the typical approach to style! In fact, we’ve been hard pushed to find anyone who actually likes it!

Garish design aside, the Nokia Lumia 800 one-piece snap case works well if you’re rather clumsy and likely to drop your Lumia a lot. The case has quite a large lip around it, which certainly adds to the width of the phone, but does mean that if you should drop it, the case takes the brunt of the force!

Overall, the Nokia Lumia 800 Leopard print one-piece snap case has its merits but not enough to make us switch from the silicon jacket the smartphone actually came with!

The Nokia Lumia 800 Leopard print one-piece snap case is available from Amazon at a price of £3.99 (inc. VAT).

Check out our Nokia Lumia 800 Leopard print one-piece snap case review photo gallery:

]]> http://www.noknok.tv/2012/01/12/nokia-lumia-900-windows-phone-what-the-experts-are-saying/feed/ 0 http://www.noknok.tv/2012/01/12/nokia-wh-920-purity-by-monster-stereo-headset-in-ear-review/ http://www.noknok.tv/2012/01/12/nokia-wh-920-purity-by-monster-stereo-headset-in-ear-review/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:00:15 +0000 Stephen Ebert http://www.noknok.tv/?p=41841 The Nokia WH-920 Purity by Monster in-ear headset is one of the latest products to come out of Nokia’s audio partnership. Monster knows how to make a quality pair of earphones, so it was with great delight that we were sent a pair ourselves. We were even more pleased to come away impressed. Read our Nokia WH-920 Purity Monster Stereo Headset review to discover why.

If you’re going to listen to music on your Nokia, you may as well invest in a good pair of headphones. Knowing this, Nokia and Monster have paired up to deliver what we can now confirm is a top quality headset offering hands-free calls and some top-notch audio at a competitive price.

Check out the Nokia Purity by Monster tech specs

An RRP of £99.99 (inc. VAT) will seem a lot to any but the most fanatical music fans, but look online and you’ll find the Nokia WH-920 Purity by Monster for little over £65 over at Amazon. For that price you’ll be getting a headset that doubles up as a a great pair of headphones as some you’ll find for twice that price.

Features-wise there actually isn’t a lot to the headset. Its two main jobs are to receive and make calls, and let you listen to music. The Nokia WH-920 Purity by Monster headset does both of these incredibly well.

A ControlTalk Universal controller attached to the cables lets you receive calls by pressing the centre square button. We found call quality as good as that when speaking through the Nokia 700 we tested it with. Volume controls either side adjust the volume. The in-ear plugs do a great job of shutting out external sound when taking calls, eliminating the feeling of having to shout to the person on the other end, which is always a bonus. Nobody wants to make a fool of themselves in public now, do they?

To make a call simply hold the middle button down for a couple of seconds. A beep sound indicates when to make the call using voice recognition. Saying the name of your contact as it is written in your phone’s contacts section will make the call. While this does work, you’ll still find yourself having to repeat some names.

As with similar services, you’ll need to speak clearly  at the right pace to guarantee success all of the time. So the Nokia WH-920 Purity by Monster headset isn’t without flaw.  

Check out the Top 5 Nokia Lumia 800 accessories

Then again, opinion is likely to be swayed by what you wish to use it for. The headset clearly performs better when receiving calls than making them. It’s as a music accessory that the Nokia WH-920 Purity by Monster headset comes more into its own. 

Putting Monster’s claims of accurate sound reproduction and bass without distortion to the test, we found the headset performs remarkably well. Monster promises “crisp highs”. After dosing our Nokia 700 with a bit of jazz, and a spot of ‘Video games’ by Lana Del Ray, and more, we’re inclined to agree. High sounds come out loud and clear.

Promises of bass minus distortion also prove truthful. Fans of hip-hop should get a lot of joy out of this headset. If truth be told, rival headphones from the likes of Sennheiser deliver bass with a little more punch to it to the point of dominating the listening experience. Some like that, some don’t. Nokia WH-920 Purity by Monster feels more like a compromise between the two, however, the bottom line is that bass comes out very well without blocking out the rest of the detail. Hip tracks old and new provided some great listening. Even some of our favourite bass-filled dance oldies such as MJ Cole’s “Be Sincere” came out great.

Sound quality-wise, we have few complaints. One thing we did notice, however, was that compared to some specialist headphones, there are others that are louder. We had some SoundMagic E10 earphones nearby to put this theory to the test, which proved to be that little bit louder on full volume. Then again, the Nokia WH-920 Purity by Monster are as loud as you’ll ever need them to go without giving you that popped eardrum feeling afterward.

Unfortunately, the volume controls did not work on our Nokia 700 – they will only do so with Windows Phones – so if you’ve got a Nokia Lumia 800 you’ll be getting the maximum functionality from it. Other will instead have to make do with adjusting volume on their handset.

As build quality goes the Nokia WH-920 Purity by Monster are well made. They feel more sturdy than luxurious. A flat tangle-free cable appears to live up to its promises. The headphones themselves are crafted from plastic, which does the job, but for the price we expected them to feel a little more…expensive.

That’s not to put the headset down too much. When they are in your ears, it doesn’t make a difference. A neat little case comes with the package to store the headset in that you can easily store in a pocket. An adaptor and a 3.5mm headphone jack lets you plug the headset into a range of Nokia devices.

Overall we came away pleased. We loved the well balanced sound when listening to music. Call options are basic, but they do they job. Call quality itself is satisfactory, and the cable does a great job of not getting tangled easily. The Nokia WH-920 Purity by Monster Stereo Headset comes recommended – this is a quality headphone/headset combo, but be sure to look out for a bargain before laying down the cash.

Check out our Nokia WH-920 Purity by Monster Stereo Headset photo gallery:

The Nokia Play 360 Bluetooth Wireless Speaker MD-50W is a great looking device that is available in a range of colours, from black or white, to the blue we were sent to check out and review. Weighing in at 514g and measuring 110 x 110 x 124mm it is a neat and compact size and creates a great sound, given the 2.5-inch size of the speaker driver inside.

NFC explained: what you need to know

We really like the design, as it’s modern and youthful while still managing to be highly practical. On the back of the speaker you’ll find the Power switch, 3.5mm audio connector for those who still need a wired connection, as well as a micro-USB port.

However, the real deal with the Nokia Play 360 comes in the form of NFC, which means that if you’re using a Nokia 700, Nokia C7, or an imported Nokia N9, then all you need to do is touch of the top of the speaker with your smartphone and you’ll instantly be linked to it.

Once connected, the Nokia Play 360 Bluetooth Wireless Speaker MD-50W has a booming sound that can be controlled by the dials on the device itself, or even using the control slider on your Nokia smartphone. You can access you music collection in the same way, and the speakers will even cut out should you get an incoming call, which is a really nice touch.

The main difference with the Nokia Play 360, over traditional speakers, is that the sound driver is omnidirectional rather than straight, so you’ll find the sound fills the room with ease.

The tech spec, for those who like to know such things, are pretty impressive too. With a frequency response of 86 – 21,000 Hz and total harmonic distortion (THD) at nominal power of < 2% at 200 mV input signal, you’ll find it can pump out up to 75dB of high-quality sound.

What that means in the real-world is that with 2.1Watts of power the Nokia Play 360 is a loud and bright speaker. When it comes to sound quality, the Nokia Play 360 has a nice bassy sound that manages to stay sharp and clear even at high volumes.
 
Powering the Nokia Play 360 Bluetooth Wireless Speaker MD-50W is easy as you can hook it up to the mains using the aforementioned Micro-USB cable, or you can take it on the road with you, courtesy of the battery in the base of the speaker that offers in the region of 20 hours of music playback. We tested it with our Nokia 700 (and even borrowed a Nokia C7 to try it out) and found that it works exactly as advertised; you simply tap your Nokia smartphone on top of the speaker and it instantly sets up a connection between the two. Repeat and it’ll kill the link. It really is that simple!

We found the speakers to be a pleasure to use and the use of NFC makes it so easy to hook up to your phone that wires simply become a thing of the passed.

The Nokia Play 360 Bluetooth Wireless Speaker MD-50W retails for around £120 (inc. VAT) but if you shop around you should be able to find it for less. We think it’s a sound investment, that not only looks and sounds great but is also incredibly easy to use. You can find out more about the Nokia Play 360 at Nokia UK.

Check out our Nokia Play 360 Bluetooth Wireless Speaker MD-50W review photo gallery:

]]> http://www.noknok.tv/2011/11/18/30-expert-nokia-lumia-800-reviews/feed/ 0 http://www.noknok.tv/2011/11/17/nokia-lumia-800-more-expert-reviews/ http://www.noknok.tv/2011/11/17/nokia-lumia-800-more-expert-reviews/#comments Thu, 17 Nov 2011 08:00:01 +0000 Alex Bentley http://www.noknok.tv/?p=38663 With the Nokia Lumia 800 now officially on sale across the country, we’ve been taking another look at what the national press has been saying about this stunning new Windows Phone. With positive reviews coming from all corners, it’s clear that the Lumia 800 can be counted on the long list of Nokia’s most critically acclaimed smartphones to date.

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