Nokia Lumia 620: Not just a good looking

Dubai: Nokia may have come all guns blazing into the high end smartphone market with its Lumia 920, but it’s also fighting to keep those looking for affordable phones with the Lumia 620.

The Lumia 620 is available in 7 colours — lime green, orange, magenta, yellow, cyan, white and black — and has been designed to have a rather fun and playful appearance.

It uses a ‘dual-shot’ technique which essentially gives it a two-tone style, where a shade of a secondary colour is visible depending on the viewing angle. There is definitely an emphasis on style and design.

The internals on the phone aren’t of the highest order —it has a 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM.

However the phone runs Windows 8 which does a great job of keeping things running smoothly. You won’t notice a lag or stutter in most of the phone’s operations. The operating system is quite a change — in interface and design — from what users may be used to on Symbian, iOS and Android. But, it is a pleasant one.

What isn’t pleasant is the dearth of apps. The availability of apps on the platform has improved but it has a long way to go before it can match up to the existing heavyweights. Nokia for its part is doing a great job by bundling applications such as Nokia Maps, City Lens, 2InstaWithLove and more. There is 8GB of memory to store your apps, music and more.

The Lumia 620 has a 5 mega pixel rear camera and a VGA front camera. The performance of the camera is average, but the pictures look good on the 3.8-inch phone screen, However, there is a noticeable difference between photos taken on the 620 and those taken from a phone with a better camera.

Surprisingly, the phone does include near field communication (NFC) capability to pair up with accessories and potentially make use of a mobile wallet. There aren’t many entry level smartphones with this.

The 620 also has a 1,300mAh battery that is a bit on the small side. The Nokia 620 is priced at Dh899, which is very competitive for an entry-level smartphone. If you’re looking for a cheap, but solid quality smartphone, the Lumia 620 is a compelling option.

The writer is a digital marketing professional and an early adopter of all things digital.