Nokia Lumia 710 Review

The Nokia Lumia 710 mobile phone is the 2nd Windows 7 mobile phone launched by the Nokia mobile phone company for the United Kingdom.

It is more affordable than the popular Nokia Lumia 800. It is available for free on some contracts that cost as low as £15. This phone is clearly not designed to compete with the Samsung Galaxy S2 or the Apple iPhone 4S. So is this cheap smartphone worth buying, or is it another underpowered bargain smartphone?

What We Like

One of the things we like about this mobile phone is that it has plenty of physical Windows buttons. More physical buttons means less accidental presses while using this device. We are also impressed with the 3.7 inch WVGA (480 x 800 resolution) Clear Black display of the Nokia Lumia 710. The rich color production of the display makes viewing the screen very tantalizing to the eyes.

The interface and functionality of this mobile phone is also very good. The interface’s straightforward approach, Metro UI, and dynamic live tiles make this device easier to use. Typing messages is easy because of the responsive Windows Phone keyboard. It has great auto-correct features that keep mistakes to a minimum. Email functionality on this smartphone is also made simpler because of the threaded conversations and universal inbox system.

This mobile phone also comes with preloaded with some useful third party apps such as the Weather Channel, Nokia Drive, Netflix, TeleNav GPS Navigator, and ESPN. The best preloaded app is probably the Nokia Drive, which gives you free 3D maps and voice guided directions.

The overall performance is also very smooth even though this device is powered by a single-core processor and 512MB RAM. The internet browser loads very fast and the navigational controls are tight and responsive. The battery life of the Lumia 710 is also quite impressive. On normal usage, the fully-charged battery lasted for about 1.5 days.

What We Don’t Like

The Nokia Lumia 710 also has plenty of things that we don’t like. Firstly, the power button, shutter key, and volume rocker are a bit difficult to feel out and are not as responsive as those found on other mobile phones. Secondly, the poor viewing angles and weak brightness output makes the screen hard to view when you’re using it outside in direct sunlight. Lastly, it is odd that this smartphone does not include a front-facing camera because almost all the latest smartphones have front-facing cameras. The 5-megapixel camera at the back is decent, but we still got a lot of digital noise in photos shot under low lighting conditions.

Conclusion

Overall, the Lumia 710 is an average phone with decent features and good performance. The camera performs poorly in low lighting conditions and the screen is hard to view in direct sunlight, but if you don’t really care about that, then the Lumia 710 is worth a buy. You won’t be disappointed with the Lumia 710’s smooth performance, fast internet browser, and impressive battery life.