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Try the Tech Lumia 640LTE Review

Anonymous
Not applicable

Nokia Lumia 640 LTE review

 

About me and this review

 

 

OK so I was lucky to be given the chance by 02 to road test the Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE and a Microsoft band (more on the band later) and if I am being honest I was less than excited at getting a windows phone because you see I am an android guy through and through ever since the inception of android I have been there usually through the nexus programme aka google flagship phone or a HTC flagship device either way it’s been android.

 

So to make this review fair and honest I decided against a shoot-out between this device and an equivalent android (moto G of you are interested) because as I found out during my test the specs of a device means nothing it’s the overall package of the software and the hardware combined.

One thing I want to make also clear during this review if I mention a particular thing that annoyed about the operating system before you shout at your screen and tell me the way to do it please be aware I only had the device for a week due to me wanting to make sure it was back with 02 before the Christmas shutdown.

 

You can just skip to the end if you wish and read the summary

So here we go…

 

  • Unboxing initial thoughts and switching on

The first thing I noticed was wow its bright orange and I mean bright orange I had a bit of a faff getting the rear cover off to place the battery which is a rather large 2500mah Is a big plus the screen is nice 5inches running at 720 with 294ppi the processor is a snapdragon 400 with 1gb of ram.

 

One word of caution on this phone the screen seems to be a magnet for anything like finger marks just by handling the device I managed to make it look like I had fried an egg it and it don’t have greasy hands as a rule and nor do I get the same problem with any other device.

 

Thankfully the garish orange backing can be swapped over to another colour if you are looking for a more discrete phone.

 

The phone in hand feels light and I don’t mean flimsy just comfortable having said that I had just stopped using a nexus 6p to road-test this so it felt small compared to that but very comfortable, as with all modern phones one of the first purchases a new user should make would be a case as the glass protrudes the case and would not stand up to a fall even at hip height

 

The usual micro sub cable on the base for charging and a headphone jack on the top and the volume up and down plus the power button on the right hand side which at first were the wrong way round to what I am used to i.e. power button on top of the volume but it’s easy to get used to

 

On the back of the Lumia 640, there is a single rear-firing speaker, a neatly displayed Microsoft logo, a single LED flash and the 8MP rear-facing camera with the front camera being a 0.9 MP camera

 

I entered my sim plugged the charger in and switched it on and went through the usual setup and downloading of updates you always get with a new phone.

 

  • Hands on

After the initial updates it then prompted me for windows update 2 now from what I have read on the net this comprises mainly of bug fixes and now the ability for the options to be lumped into a more organised list although if this is more organised I would have hated to have seen it before it seemed very cluttered and the same kind of options could have been streamlined even further.

 

I’ll give you an example there is an option for display which has a sub option of brightness yet a separate section for wallpaper and yet another option for wallpaper.

 

Like I said earlier it comes with a 5inch screen that is bright and vibrant in nearly all lighting conditions and it’s nice to see the blacks are crisp even on the a very bright day it runs at 720p which on such a budget phone is a very welcome addition as well as the auto brightness option

 

Moving on to Cortana not sure how to broach this I dare say given more time telling her what I like and what I don’t like she would give me the information I wanted and not Barclays bank share price but on first impressions it seemed to be very lacking compared to Google’s offering with google now, having said that I don’t use internet explorer or edge on my pc so I won’t pull my search history through.

 

Some of the searches through Cortana seemed to take an age to search it was worse on mobile internet but was pretty bad on Wi-Fi.

 

Overall I liked the layout of the desktop/home screen it seemed strange at first not being able to swipe left and the ability to be able to access all my apps relatively quickly on the windows phone it involved scrolling down and hitting the all apps option at the bottom of all the tiles

 

One of the Achilles heals of many a budget phone especially on android is the animations and rendering of swiping and open apps I found on the windows operating system this was not evident at and suffered no lag at all opening the majority of apps which was a refreshing change even traditional power hungry apps like maps it had little or no lag

 

The battery as I mentioned earlier is a big surprise I generally got 2 days of use out of each charge making probably half hour of calls each day numerous texts lots of emails and a lot of screen on time generally faffing around trying to get to grips with the operating system with its lower resolution display and the snapdragon 400 just ticking along at its own pace and a very well optimised windows platform these 3 ingredients make for a very happy battery life.

 

Should the battery dip windows has its own built in battery saver app this in essence shuts down all non-essential background tasks and syncing emails and when I used this the battery life extended by 4 hours a very welcome and useful option should you leave your charger at home or your commute is delayed for a few hours with no noticeable loss in performance as with some battery saving apps.

 

  • Using the device on a daily basis

Ok straight out of the box I noticed one obvious thing I have a signal in my kitchen now that may not seem a big thing to many of you but certainly in the last few years I have been unable to get a signal in certain rooms of my house and next to nowhere at work except in one area no such problem with this Lumia it seems the radio is geared up well and very stable on a 4g signal

 

On the subject of calls the call quality was very good in my ear and the other person’s ear and the hands free is pleasingly loud allowing the phone to be on a desk and you the other side of a room and we could still have a conversation.

 

Talking of sound the rear speaker although not amazing its more than adequate on this level of device, I am not one for walking around with music playing through the loudspeakers but in the interest of science I did just that but  in private

 

The video quality of playback again is never going to match the powerhouse devices but the pleasant screen size makes for more than adequate viewing pleasure from numerous angles

 

Moving on to the app store this is where Microsoft is clearly lacking behind google and apple  I made a point of not installing any apps until I needed to use one and found no issue’s locating a particular app but during a search of the windows store its clear it is severely lacking in content.

 

The camera the main thing many people use on phones is always going to make or break a reputation of a handset on paper 8mp is nothing to shout about for the rear facing camera yet the reality is the camera is surprisingly good for the price point this phone is aimed at.

 

In natural light the camera takes a good strong image with vibrant colour pallet and good level of detail on close subjects.

 

In darker situations like the majority of phones it struggles this is not a put down on the device and a common problem on all but high end devices.

 

The front camera is a .9mp affair ok for the odd selfie or video chat but the overall image appears grainy and washed out only more emphasised in lower level lighting.

 

  • Summary and conclusion

Things I liked

  • Great screen at this price point
  • Very good call quality and signal strength
  • Really good battery life
  • Slick windows os with little or no lag opening apps
  • Being surprised how a camera that looks ok on camera managed to take some really good photos

Things I disliked

  • the very slippery rear case that could easily skid across a surface
  • low level light photos
  • the blandness of the home screen
  • the app store is sparse and what apps they have don’t seem to receive updates

 

Like I said earlier I am not a previous windows phone user but my relatively short time with the Lumia was surprisingly pleasant not sure my next phone would be this particular windows device but I wouldn’t be disappointed if I was to receive one and if the brand keeps improving then a windows power phone would be a good choice but here in lies Microsoft problem

 

Where do they go from here do they push as they have attempted to here for the mass market in which case the Lumia 640 will not cut it with its current setup as it stands the 400 snapdragon is ok and up to the job efficiently but things in the mobile market change so fast that Microsoft may find themselves playing catch up its main android rival moto g has the newer snapdragon 410

 

In my honest opinion Microsoft should forget for now competing with apple and google for the casual user and focus its attention on business users and pick up what’s left of blackberry’s crumbled empire and push the windows 8 and 10 link as an out of office device

 

Thank you again to the team at 02 for giving me the chance to test this device I have another review to post for the Microsoft band

 

  • Overall ratings
  • Quality 4/5
  • Features 3/5
  • Ease of use 3/5
  • Wow Factor 2/5

Value for money 5/5

28 Comments
MI5
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Signal will always be better on a plastic phone.
The premium aluminium does block some of the signal unfortunately.
jonsie
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Enjoyed the review slight_smile

Anonymous
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@MI5 wrote:
Signal will always be better on a plastic phone.
The premium aluminium does block some of the signal unfortunately.

Agree, I've found that with Samsungs, they are plastic which the signal is pretty good but not as good on an aluminium phone such as an iPhone 

Cleoriff
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Interesting point about concentrating on business users @Anonymous. Someone once said a few months back that they always used Windows phones for their business....

Anonymous
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@Cleoriff I always thought Windows phones were marketed towards business users a bit like the old Nokias you got like the communicator version

MI5
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It was probably me. I wouldn't use anything else for work.
Cleoriff
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@MI5 wrote:
It was probably me. I wouldn't use anything else for work.

It was you. I wasn't mentioning your name as you said it about a year ago and wasn't sure if you had changed your mind since then wink

MI5
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No, swear by it for work.
jonsie
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I like the way they cross with my office 2016 on the PC.  Word and Excel work great too so ideal for business use. Don't have much use for business these days though....

Anonymous
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I wasn't sure who the lumia range is aimed hence my comment
I think they would like the volume sales from casual users
MI5
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They need to get the social media apps polished before they start taking "casual users" away from Android or ios.
Curr946
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Totally agree with you @MI5
MI5
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With Android quality apps across the board it would wipe the floor with the competition.
jonsie
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@MI5 wrote:
With Android quality apps across the board it would wipe the floor with the competition.

Unfortunately that won't happen slight_frown

MI5
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Something will happen at some point...
Either a shake up of app store or the ability to sideload android apps.
jonsie
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I think Microsoft will really need to pull out all the stops because as good as their phones are,  the lack of apps really puts far too many people off their products.  At one time my first choice of phone was Nokia,  they were so far ahead of other mobile phones but nowadays, since the advent of the 'smart phone', they lag sadly way behind. 

MI5
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They are, but it's only in the app dept.
Hardware/software performance and battery life puts Android to shame.... it really does.
jonsie
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I have no doubt of that but they need to step up their game to compete with android and ios.

Curr946
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It issue here is the developers don't wont to code for yet another platform. There has been of MS offering the option to side load android apps, there is also talk of striking a deal with IOS. But something tells me, MS will continue to stay a bit pig headed and push to get developers on-board via the universal app option. Which by the is a great idea in theory
Anonymous
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Pig headed & want to do it there way. That reminds me of a certain other company @Curr946 are you an iphone fan?

Curr946
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Noooo.
Anonymous
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I'd been a loyal WP user for years owning everything from the Lumia 800 to this L640. The major issue I had was not the lack off apps, they are mostly covered now but more the quality of said apps, Compared to iOS apps they are like betas and rarely receive updates. Instagram for example last time I checked hadn't been updated in a year. Take O2's own Tugo app, it simply doesn't work on WP as the reviews will confirm and its that way with a lot off apps, sure they are up their now but rushed up and either don't work or lack functionality.
Anonymous
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@Curr946 wrote:
It issue here is the developers don't wont to code for yet another platform. There has been of MS offering the option to side load android apps, there is also talk of striking a deal with IOS. But something tells me, MS will continue to stay a bit pig headed and push to get developers on-board via the universal app option. Which by the is a great idea in theory

Sadly the Project Astoria to port Android apps has been scrapped. The iOS app port is still going ahead but believe it or not that project is for the Windows PC app store not phone.

Curr946
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Any thoughts on the band?
Anonymous
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What a wonderful and well-structured review!

 

Thanks for sharing your experience and opinion on the Lumia 640

 

I love how you summarize in short your thoughts 

 

  • Overall ratings
  • Quality 4/5
  • Features 3/5
  • Ease of use 3/5
  • Wow Factor 2/5

Value for money 5/5

 

 
 Can't wait to see the reviews for the band!
Anonymous
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Band review delayed slightly due to not iniitally being compatible with android 6.0.1
I wanted a fair comparison using it on windows and android
Anonymous
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Great review slight_smile
Toby
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Fantastic work here @Anonymous! Its been a great week for reviews slight_smile

Good to know the battery-saving system is effective. It is not on all devices that's for sure!