Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
The Nokia Lumia 920 was an impressive handset in terms of features, build-quality and innovation and it was a rightful flagship device for Windows Phone 8. Now that Nokia is starting to grow its Lumia family, it is interesting to note which outstanding features trickle down the line. We look at the budget focused Lumia 620.
A departure from Nokia's monobloc design approach evident in the Lumia 800, Lumia 900 and Lumia 920, the Lumia 620 is a small, 3.8-inch screen smartphone that's designed to give budget-minded users the most important features of Windows Phone 8. It is available from Telus in Canada.
Our review unit is the black on black model from Telus and is finished in matte with rounded corners. While not as imposing as the Lumia 920 (very few devices are) it is a reasonably solid little smartphone and it feels good in the hand if a bit on the slippery side.
The Lumia 620 has a power button, volume rocker and a dedicated camera button as well which is convenient. Nokia used a dual-core 1GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, 512MB of RAM and a 5 megapixel camera. The Lumia 620 is outfitted with 8GB of onboard memory but can also take microSD cards via an expansion slot. The Lumia 620 also takes a microSIM slot.
The Lumia 620 gets NFC (Near Field Communication) so it can interact with the Lumia accessories inckuding the external speakers and docks as well as various apps. The 1300 mAh battery is said to give 10 hour talktime on 3G networks.
The Lumia 620 does not have wireless charging nor can it access LTE data speeds, which is fine for a device in this category. The display seems decent but isn't anythwere as stunning as the Lumia 920. Still, it does a great job of playing back for photos and videos.
So, while small in size and with more meager specs in the screen and camera department, the Lumia 620 brings the full power of the larger Lumias in terms of processor and various other features. It is a more compact and affordable way to explore the Windows Phone OS and a solid overall smartphone for users who don't need the top of the line specs or 4G-LTE.