Nokia Lumia 710 review

Nokia and Microsoft’s partnership is now in full swing following the successful launch of the flagship Nokia Lumia 800, which apparently shifted 1.3 million units in Q4 of 2011. The Nokia Lumia 800 looked great, performed excellently and, thanks to Nokia’s Clear Black display technology, had one of the best displays we’ve seen to-date on a Windows Phone.

All told, the Nokia Lumia 800 - at least, for the time being anyway - is the best Windows Phone-powered device. But will the Lumia 710 change all that, considering it offers Windows Phone Mango and all those bolted on Nokia goodies at a discounted price point?

Design
Looking at the device we’d say that it’s certainly stands a chance. It’s obviously the more budget-oriented of the two devices - there’s no curved display or laser-crafted unibody, for instance, but we think it will still be able to hold its own against the likes of the HTC Radar and the LG Optimus 7.

Like the Lumia 800, the Nokia Lumia 710 takes a microSIM card approach like the Apple iPhone 4S. Accessing the SIM and battery is simple enough on the device - you just pop the plastic back panel off and you’re away.

Interestingly, the back panel comes in a variety of different colours (ours was cyan), which users can collect and customise their phone with. It’s a nice touch and is one we’re sure younger users will appreciate.

The Lumia 710 measures 119x62.4x12.5 mm and weighs in at 125.5g. It feels very lightweight in the hand, probably on account of its plastic chassis, and sports an impressive 3.7-inch ClearBlack (480x800 pixels) display that has a pixel density of 252ppi - which is very impressive for a mid-market phone such as this.

A microUSB, 3.5mm jack and Power/Unlock button run across the top of the device, and there’s volume rocker and camera shutter key running down the right-hand side of the handset. One thing that did irritate us slightly about the 710’s design is that you cannot unlock the handset using its physical navigation keys. Instead you’re forced to use the power/unlock key, which is sometimes difficult to locate.

Display
Thanks to Microsoft’s hardware mantra, the vast majority of Windows Phone devices sport displays with 480x800 pixels, and the Lumia 710 is no exception to this rule. But what makes the Lumia 710 different - like the Lumia 800 before it - is Nokia’s ClearBlack display technology, which tightens everything up significantly, ensuring blacks are black and colours are vivid. It is also supposed to minimise reflections.

Compare the 710’s display with the super LCD present on the HTC Radar and there’s a world of difference. Everything looks more vivid and colours appear to be more true-to-life. We’ve always felt slightly let down by the display quality on Windows Phone handsets, so we’re glad Nokia has come to the table with something impressive.

Of course, the LCD display on the Lumia 710 isn’t quite as impressive as the AMOLED one on the Lumia 800, but it’s still a massive improvement on the average Windows Phone fare.

Hardware
Nokia hasn’t pulled any punches in the hardware department either, fitting the Lumia 710 with a 1.4 GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon chipset, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and a 28mm f/2.4 lens. 

Like all Windows Phone devices before it there’s no support for microSD aboard the Nokia Lumia 710. This means you’ll be stuck with only 8GB of space for your music, media and pictures.

Fortunately there’s Microsoft's cloud storage service, SkyDrive, which gives your 25GB of storage for free, but downloading songs and video from this on the move will eat into your data plan. It’s still a nice touch, though, and just one of the many reasons why more and more people are switching to Windows Phone.

Having said that, if you’re not entirely comfortable using ‘the cloud’ and prefer to keep you music, photos and videos on your device then maybe it’s worth looking at the Lumia 800, which comes with double the storage, at 16GB – although this still isn’t particularly impressive by today’s standards where 32GB is fast-becoming the norm.