By: Ewan Spence For Forbes
The latest Windows Phone powered handset comes from Microsoft’s mobile division. The Nokia Lumia 735 is pitched at the selfie niche, but don’t be blinded by the buzzword, this is a mid-range handset that has a lot of power and potential.
Before I start, let me address the tricky question of how to identify the team that has designed and built this handset. The phone is branded Nokia on the hardware, the model is the Nokia Lumia 735, the name string in the device is Lumia 735, and ultimately it’s been released by Microsoft. For this review, I’m going with ’Lumia 735′ for the handset and ‘Nokia’ for the design and manufacturing team.
Just be aware that the back-story to the handset is still convoluted, but when it reaches the stores, the consumers aren’t going to want forensic details in the organisation of the parent company. All they’ll want to know is if the Lumia 735 is a good handset.
The short answer is, yes it is.
Lumia 735 (picture: Ewan Spence)
A Design With History
One of the reasons I felt comfortable with the Lumia 735 the second it came out of the box is the design. Built around Nokia’s Fabula design language, the 735 is reminiscent of the Nokia Lumia 800 (the first Windows Phone from the then partnership), the Meego powered Nokia N9, and the Symbian powered N8. Picking up this ’blown cushion’ effect, with a shallow bevel across the back plate, curved sides on the left and right of the handset, a flat top and bottom, and a hint of curve on the Corning Gorilla Glass, is like welcoming back an old friend.
Sentiment aside, it sites nicely in the hand, and the shape has a long association with Nokia. That consistency of brand is going to be vital to Microsoft’s strategy of transitioning the Finnish devices and services section into Redmond.
There is one key difference in the Lumia 735′s implementation of Fabula - it is no longer a sealed unibody design. The rear polycarbonate case can be completely removed by leveraging the top-right corner (helpfully demonstrated by a removable sticker). This gives access to the nanoSIM card and microSD card slots, and the user-removable 2220 mAh battery.
Lumia 735 (picture: Ewan Spence)
The extra bulk added by these design choices is noticeable in the dimensions of the Lumia 735. At 134.7 mm x 68.5 mm x 8.9 mm, the 735 has a footprint that feels large in comparison to other modern smartphones. Nokia has not focussed on making a ‘small’ handset here, it has focused on making a handset that works well at a SIM free price of £220 (around $290). At just under 9mm thick, with a replaceable back shell and a Qi wireless charging plate, the fashion for thin is still in, but on balance the design choices here are smart, and well implemented. Given the lineage of Fabula, that’s not a surprise.
Powerful Performance At A Price
In its 8.1 guise, Windows Phone remains an efficient operating system. If you are used to Android specs, the Lumia 735′s numbers would not suggest this handset would be as slick and fast as it is. The CPU is a quad-core Snapdragon 400 series, running at 1.2 GHz. The 735 comes with 1 GB of RAM, and 8 GB of internal storage.
When you have an OS that is coded well, then the above represent more than enough resources to deliver a very strong experience. The Windows Phone UI involves a lot of window effects, scaling, and scrolling, yet I never experienced any judder or lag while testing the handset, and everything responded to touch events and key presses. Windows Phone can run in 512 MB of RAM, although some third-party apps (notably games) require the full 1 GB of memory to be present to run. Thankfully those limitations don’t apply to the Lumia 735.
Lumia 735 (picture: Ewan Spence)
The 4.7 inch screen on the Lumia 735 is one of the best in this price range. The resolution is 720p (1280 x 720 pixels) giving a pixel density of 316ppi. That’s ahead of the qHD 960×540 that is still popular in this price band, and matches handsets at the next level.
Add in Nokia’s ClearBlack technology which enhances the deepness of the OLED screen while creating more vibrancy in the colours through the using of reflective and polarizing layers in the screen construction and you have a screen that is unsurpassed at this price point. It’s even strong enough to stay readable in bright sunlight. The screen really is one of the best parts of this mid-range handset.
I’m more worried about the 8 GB of storage. Windows Phone 8.1 needs a shade over 4 GB of storage to be installed and run effectively. Put aside another 1 GB or so for the extra ‘Nokia’ applications such as Here Maps and Mix Radio, and there’s not a lot of space left for the user. Windows Phone 8.1 does allow you to install applications to a microSD card, and with some of the larger games requiring three times the distributed file size to install successfully that’s not going to be enough storage space for most users. A microSD card is an almost absolute requirement if you are expecting to make use of the Lumia 735 for third-party apps, store music and video, or take a significant volume of photos and videos.
I know there needs to be some product differentiation, but the Lumia 735 would be a much more rounded machine if it had 16 GB of storage out of the box. Nokia had a long history of cutting specifications right to the bone, and sometimes beyond. It looks like that instinct is alive and well in Redmond.
Smile For The Smartphone
Rather than try to promote this handset as the best mid-range smartphone out there, the PR team has decided that the Lumia 735 will be ‘the Selfie phone’. Remember when I talked about niche marketing? In a case of ‘I’ll know it when I see it’, this is niche marketing done well.
What makes a smartphone a selfie phone? The first is good hardware, the second is built-in software optimising the experience, and the final area is the third-party apps and services scene. The Lumia 735 scores well in two of these categories.
Lumia 735 (picture: Ewan Spence)
The forward facing ‘selfie’ camera on the Lumia 735 is one of the best forward-facing cameras in the business. It’s a five megapixel camera with a wide-angle lens (at f/2.4), and it captures far more of a scene than the forward facing camera of any other leading smartphone. I’d go so far as to say that it rivals the rear camera on smartphones at a similar price. Alongside the physical capabilities of the camera, the wealth of imaging experience in the Nokia team means the raw image receives just the right amount of edge and color processing. There’s a lot of processing going on, and the images (from both cameras) lean heavily towards the heavy saturation favored by smartphone imagery (rather than a more natural muted look). Purists will want to tweak the images but for social media sharing and personal memories both of the 735 cameras are up to the task.
Software wise Nokia’s highly configurable camera software is available. As well as an automatic mode, you can use the manual options to set your white balance, ISO speed, shutter speed, and exposure. These can all be accessed with a single finger, but the width of the Lumia 735 means that using the thumb to change these settings in a one-handed hold is difficult for me. There’s too much of a stretch, and the ball of my hand brushes the bottom-left of the screen.
But it’s the ‘Lumia Selfie’ app that deserves attention. This is an updated version of Nokia’s Glam Me application. It strips out all the settings (apart from the flash) so taking a picture is not a complicated process. Just point, and shoot. The expected filters and cropping happen after the snap.
Obviously the forward facing camera has the screen as a viewfinder, but if you switch to the rear camera, then the Lumia 735′s facial recognition software kicks in. When the app detects a face, a series of beeps will alert you that the framing is on a face. Hold the smartphone steady and a higher pitched set of tones will let you know the picture is about to be taken. It’s a nice touch and works well. Expect with the 735, I can’t see why you would want to use the rear camera when the selfie camera is so strong and capable.
Sadly, the Lumia 735 is missing a dedicated camera button, which seems an oversight given the marketing Angle of the phone. This is mitigated by adding ‘Camera’ as one of the four quick-launch app icons in the notifications screen, but it’s a poor substitute for squeezing the camera button to open the app and take a picture that is possible on other Lumia handsets.
The final element is getting the selfie out of the camera. Both the main camera app and the Lumia Selfie app integrate with the Windows Phone sharing menu, and of course the image can be saved so third-party apps such as Facebook and Instagram can upload the image.
Listen Very Carefully
Of course all this functionality at the price point of the Lumia 735 requires some compromise and savings, and I think the audio hardware is the side of the 735 which saves some money. While I have no issues with the sound reproduction through the headphone socket, for listening to music in a room (or going hands free with a speakerphone) the mono speaker lacks power to really occupy a significant space.
Higher specced Lumias have dual microphones that can record ‘HD’ high fidelity audio, but the Lumia 735 is only equipped with a single mono microphone. It will be noticeable under certain circumstances (noisy video environments would be one), and while it’s not a deal-breaker when considering a purchase, every smartphone design is a compromise. I feel this is the 735′s.
Windows Phone 8.1 and Lumia Denim
The Lumia 735 is not the first Windows Phone running version 8.1 of the operating system (that would be the Lumia 630, read more here), but it is the first to come with Lumia Denim. This bundles together the ‘Update 1′ package to Windows Phone 8.1 along with a number of Nokia based applications to enhance the operating system.
Lumia 735 (picture: Ewan Spence)
Much of Lumia Denim focused on the imaging experience, and improving the quality and speed of the applications. As I discussed above, the camera software is one of the strong points of the Lumia 735.
Lumia Denim is dependant on hardware, and the omission of the ‘Glance’ software is unfortunate. This uses the low power nature of an OLED screen to display relevant information on the lock screen for very little impact on battery life - showing the time or the weather forecast is a good use of this. For Glance to work, the OLED screen needs a certain amount of display memory, and the Lumia 735 does not have that. This is likely a cost measure to keep the price of the handset as low as possible, but it does rob the Lumia 735 of a useful and distinctive feature of Windows Phone.
The Lumia 735 also takes away the capacitive buttons for ‘back / home / search’, and replaces these with on-screen buttons of the same nature. This gives the 735 a bit more screen real estate by hiding the buttons when they are not needed. A quick flick up from the bottom of the screen will reveal the buttons. They also show up when opening a new app, so that flick move will also hide the buttons. The idea behind this implementation is good, but it doesn’t yet feel natural. It still seems to pop up at random intervals, and is visible when I don’t want it, but invisible when I do want it. This is as area of the UI that needs a little bit of tweaking.
Windows Phone 8.1 has moved away from the minimalist design cues of Windows Phone 7 and 8, and moves closer to the Android way of doing things. There’s a notifications area you can pull down from the top of the screen showing you incoming messages and giving you access to four quick launch apps and your settings screen. The Live Tiles have been compressed to such an extent that they feel more like app shortcuts in a 6×10 grid layout rather than the classic design of square widgets that would provide you with a glance able overview of your online life.
There seems to be a conscious choice to shrink font sizes to get more information on the screen, rather than have the text scroll off the screen. Yes it means you can see more, but the stylish designs that attracted me to Windows Phone (when the design was still called Metro) has been replaced by a need to be more like Android. Windows Phone still feels unique, but it’s a little less unique now. It’s an interesting decision that should help new users to the handset feel more comfortable, but it dilutes the distinctive appearance of Microsoft’s mobile ambitions.
Conclusions
As a mid-range handset, the Lumia 735 is a very attractive handset. Windows Phone as an operating system really flies on this device’s hardware, and the focus placed on the forward facing camera has created a smartphone that is uniquely marketable. Pixel count isn’t everything, and the rear facing 6.7 megapixel captures some great images.
There are some issues – the mono microphone is one, and you are going to need to add a microSD if you are going to make use of any third-party software, or work with audio or visual media on your phone. That said, this handset isn’t aimed at the consumer who wants everything. Even though it’s a solid all-rounder the focus on being the self camera should serve the Lumia 735 well when customers are looking for something a little bit different in their next handset.
Credit:http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2014/10/04/microsoft-windows-phone-lumia-735/
Credit:http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2014/10/04/microsoft-windows-phone-lumia-735/
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