ET review: Nokia Lumia 820

NEW DELHI: Nokia's Lumia 820 is a new phone designed to fill the void between the flagship Lumia 920 and the entry level Lumia 620.


While the phone resembles the Lumia 920's unibody design, it actually has a removable back panel. Nokia offers rear panel in various colors and there's also a panel with wireless charging built-in (available separately). Right up front, we felt that the phone feels bulky and heavy (160 grams) compared to other smartphones with similar size displays.

The 4.3-inch Amoled display offers rich colors and good sunlight legibility but it has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. This won't make a difference when navigating the OS, but when playing game or watching videos you can see individual pixels.

It shares the same hardware specs as its big brother: a 1.5Ghz dual core processor, 1GB RAM and offers expandable storage. The hardware is good enough to run Windows Phone 8 OS with all its bells and whistles as well as provide smooth multi-tasking.

An 8MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash is present on the rear with a 26mm wide-angle lens and a f2.2 aperture . However, the image quality is strictly average with lots of visible noise. The video recording quality is good, but it records audio in mono - strange because there are dual microphones.

Battery life is a day and half with average use thanks to the efficient processor and low-power Amoled screen. If you prefer Android, you can get Sony's Xperia Ion for similar price. It offers a larger selection of apps, better 4.5-inch screen and a superior camera.