If you were to go with a regular numbering system, the big question is why this isn't the Lumia 725 - the increased CPU speed and storage capacity, plus the 512 MB of memory, means it fits the curve between the Lumia 720 and 820 far more than it does between the 620 and the 720. Throw in 4G capability and it becomes even more curious.
Win a Nokia Lumia 625 with EE this Christmas
Big is the fashion nowadays. Big and thin. And the Lumia 625 certainly delivers that with a 9.15mm frame caressing the 4.7 inch screen. Put this next to the rest of the Lumia range and on first glance I think the 625 will be the first to catch the eye - simply because it fits in with the PR message of what should be expected.
But I don't think that Europe is the primary market for this handset (even though I suspect it's going to do very well). The Lumia 625 is going for the Asian and Indian markets. Here the lower cost of the handset is balanced out by economic forces. The 625 has the look of a high end phone, but it's going to be easily within the financial reach of the mid tier masses.
One normal disadvantage is that the solidity of the phone suffers from this two part approach, but the Lumia 530 is very solid indeed, with no creaks or uncertainties whatsoever. The front glass isn't Gorilla Glass (so that's the first design compromise driven by the build cost), but is smooth enough to use and I thought I detected an oleophobic coating - it's certainly less sticky than the 520's screen.
The three side buttons (volume up/down, lock/power) are part of the shell and obviously perfectly colour matched. The 'bucket' here is nicely curved, matching the typical human hand very well - contrast this with sharp edges on the Lumia 520 and 630, for example. The camera on the rear has a slightly raised edge, protruding beyond the plastic shell, ensuring that putting the phone down on a dirty surface shouldn't pollute the camera glass too much.
Turning the Lumia 530 on and going through the usual Windows Phone 8 set-up sequence (account, wi-fi, and so on), it's evident that the 530 has the first generation virtual controls (back, Start, search), with no way to swipe away the navigation bar. As things stand, the 4" screen is thus reduced down to 3.93" all the time, though it's very likely that a firmware update in the near future (probably to 'WP 8.1 Update 1') will enable this navigation bar to be hidden and then swiped up again later, when needed.
The flexibility of having a software-filled navigation bar is partly used here, in that the icons rotate as you rotate the handset, so that they're always 'right way up', but without a way to hide them altogether, the current experience is a little frustrating. At least there options in Settings to set the background colour or to make the nav bar transparent - in practice this rarely worked as I thought it should, but there's zero point in getting upset because this functionality is all going to be improved shortly anyway.
The next - and biggest - compromise for the sake of build cost has been to use a cheap TFT display rather than the IPS panels on the likes of the Lumia 520 and 630 (the latter with an additional ClearBlack Display-lite linear polariser, itself a far cry from the full CBD circular polarisers seen on the top end and mid range models). Indoors, for casual use, this isn't an issue, with content on screen being clear and crisp enough (FWVGA, so 854 by 480 pixels, with RGB pixel layout), albeit with some 'tearing' as content is swiped around (no 'PureMotion' enhancements here, and quite a slow screen refresh rate).
Battery life was splendid here, helped enormously by both the efficiency of Windows Phone 8.1 and the relatively small screen limiting the ambition of which applications were used day to day. With what amounts to a sub-4" display, lengthy web browsing and social network sessions are unlikely, with the fixed focus and low-res video capture camera, this is unlikely to be called on that often too, and the biggest power drain overall for the target market will probably be games.
As I was writing this review, news came of the first sub-40 pay-as-you-go offers on the Lumia 530 in the UK. It seems that pricing breakthroughs are where the Lumia 530 is at - and will continue to be. Sub-50 Android phones are uniformly horribly built and specified, so the Lumia 530 seems to have the bottom end of the market well and truly sewn up, with only a few compromises mentioned above (display, chiefly, plus the lack of a front facing camera) perhaps available to irritate.
The Lumia 530's main competition sits at a slightly higher price point - the Motorola Moto E, for example, at 80 or so, with very similar specifications (a very slightly higher resolution screen and auto-focus camera are the main differences) and Android 4.4 on board. You could argue a winner between this and the 530 for a long time and not get anywhere - it's as much a choice of which OS, UI and ecosystem someone wants to join.
Nokia holds steady as competition really ramps up. With more and more Windows Phone hardware makers coming on board with new devices each month this year, I'm curious to see when or if Nokia usage share starts to fall. But it remained at almost 94 percent of all Windows Phones in use in June. But this month, Micromax, Panasonic and Prestigio finally show up in the usage stats, and AdDuplex notes a ton of new phones there are showing up in its logs including devices from Longcheer, JSR, AllView, Honeywell, Micromax, Panasonic, K-Touch, Prestigio, Blu, InFocus, and Lenovo. (Lenovo!)
Raw capture is something photographers will be familiar with, letting you edit the actual data the sensor captures, rather than the jpeg image that it outputs. It gives you much more control when it comes to adjusting your photos. We'd love to see this on other PureView models to get help get as much detail out as possible.
Use this comments section to discuss problems you have had with Nokia (UK), or how they have handled your complaints. Initial complaints should be directed to Nokia (UK) directly. You can find contact details for Nokia (UK) above.
Rather than having to have 2 cables with you in the car, this car charger has one built in! This saves you having to bring cables in the car and constantly having to move them around and risking breaking them or even forgetting one.
This car charger offers 20W charging capability, meaning that if you're on a quick journey, your phone will have gained plenty of charge just in that 10 minute journey. Also, even if you're using your phone as a satnav or using the Bluetooth feature, due to the powerful 4A offering from this charger from Ventev, you won't have to worry that these will decrease your battery or stop your battery from increasing in charge, unlike with other car chargers. 2ff7e9595c
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