Nokia Lumia 820 review

The release of the Nokia Lumia 820 reminds us just how far Nokia has come over the past year. In October 2011, Nokia World saw the announcement of the Lumia 800, Windows Phone 7.5 in tow. The design was ground breaking, the UI clean and the added perks Nokia provided critically acclaimed. 

It’s November 2012 and now with Windows Phone 8 comes Nokia’s successor to the 800. Loaded with a new design, dual-core processor, 4.3-inch display and even more Nokia apps, it’s looking like an improvement from the offset. But the market has grown, Android is better; has Nokia done enough and is Windows Phone 8 where it needs to be to compete?

The Lumia 820 does something we didn’t expect in terms of design - it packs a removable back cover. After so much love for the Lumia 800’s unibody plastic, we questioned this decision, and we still do. We have however grown to appreciate the advantages of the interchangeable backing.

It’s got a lot to do with personality. The high-gloss red back cover for example is something of questionable colour choice in our eyes, however, the matte yellow is rich and bold. Once the backing is clipped on, the 820 feels more like a unibody device than any multicomponent phone we’ve used in the past. It’s solid, dense and manages to pull off great weighting too. All this and different covers add different functions, from wireless charging through to NFC.

The Nokia Lumia 820 isn’t small or light, weighing 160g. This weight is especially marked when compared to the 133g Samsung Galaxy S3, 130g HTC One X and 112g iPhone 5. Anyone into their solid phones can rejoice. The rest of you will have to accept that Nokia has bowed out of the lightweight wars.

As far as buttons go, the Lumia 820 keeps things traditional. MicroUSB port below, 3.5mm headphone jack up top, power button, volume rocker and two-stage shutter on the right with the 8-megapixel camera around the back. Removing the back cover leaves you with a 1650mAh removable battery, microSIM and microSD card slot.