With devices at all price points, there hasn't been a better time to dip your toes and try out Windows Phone. Today I will comparing the HTC Radar and the Nokia Lumia 710, both the lowest priced Windows Phone 7.5 Mango smartphones both either manufacturers. Both are priced at around £200 sim-free, but can be had for much less when bought on pay as you go. You can read my in-depth review of the Lumia 710 here and of the Radar here.
Both of these devices are second generation WP7 smartphones, meaning they are shipped with Windows Phone 7.5 Mango and comes with Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon S2 System-on-Chip (SoC) with Adreno 205 GPU. The Lumia 710's Scorpion ARMv7 CPU is clocked at a higher 1.4GHz speed, whilst the Radar is clocked at a more modest 1GHz. While it may seem like the Lumia 710 has a speed advantage here, Windows Phone 7 is so well optimised the speed difference isn't that apparent apart from certain areas like web browsing. Still the Lumia 710 is likely to be in a better position to take advantage of Windows Phone 8 Apollo, assuming of course that the OS is made available to either devices.
Nokia has recently rolled out the free Nokia Transport for Windows Phone 7 app, exclusive for their Lumia range of smartphones. Nokia Transport (formerly known as Nokia Public Transport) is also available for Symbian devices.
With location services pretty much the focus of everyone's attention now, the release of Nokia Transport couldn't be better timed. The app integrates with Nokia Maps in order to provide routing capability to the user via the city's public transport system. For this review I will be focusing on Nokia Transport in London, as that is where I happen to live (well nearby, anyway).
The key ingredient to how well Nokia Transport works is how simple it is to use. The app immediatedly detects your current position. You only need to enter your destination and it will do some number crunching (presumeably on Nokia's server) before displaying your route using the quickest method of travel. These routes are presented in a simple manner displaying the relevant transport required to complete the journey in clear big text, whether it be a bus or train or on foot. On foot routes can also be optionally displayed on Nokia Maps.
The Lumia 710 is Nokia's second ever Windows Phone smartphone. I have been using it for a couple of weeks, often swapping my Lumia 800 for this depending on my mood. Over my testing period I found that the Lumia 710 has a couple of advantages over the more expensive Lumia 800, mainly it has a user removable battery and a sharper LCD screen that has not been tainted by PenTile technology.
Despite its entry level price, it doesn't come with any of the compromises that you would normally find in budget phone. It runs on Windows Phone 7.5 Mango and has the the same 1.4GHz Snapdragon SoC as its more expensive siblings, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 900, so it is more than capable of running any current Windows Phone applications and games out there. Perhaps the biggest advantage is its 8GB fixed storage, but I doubt many entry level users will be complaining about that.
You can read my full review of the Lumia 710 right here.
The Lumia 710 is Nokia's second Windows Phone 7 device. It is positioned as an entry level device, but unlike most entry level devices, what you get is pretty much the same experience as with other Windows Phone devices, thanks to Microsoft's strict chassis rule. I have been using it for about a week now and the performance is pretty much exactly as it is with my Lumia 800 and other modern Windows Phone 7 devices.
Like the Lumia 800, the Lumia 710 is powered by a single core 1.4GHz Snapdragon SoC, which is pretty speedy for Windows Phone 7. It is augmented by 512MB of RAM. The LCD Clear Black display can be seen as either an upgrade or downgrade to the Lumia 800's AMOLED CBD display due to the use of traditional RGB matrix (versus Pentile on the Lumia 800). The 8GB of built in storage is disappointing, due to the fact that Windows Phone does not yet support hot swappable memory cards, but should be sufficient for the majority of people.
The camera has also been downgraded from 8MP to 5MP, though you will hardly be able to tell the difference between the two, no thanks to the Lumia 800's very poor image quality. The 1300mAh battery is also smaller, but at least it is replaceable, and the LCD display should at least ensure good battery performance when browsing the web.
Apart from the slight changes in specs, the Lumia 710 design itself is based on the Symbian-powered Nokia 603. It isn't the prettiest device around (in fact I think it is downright ugly), but it gets the job done. I initially welcomed the three hardware-based physical buttons on the front, but after a week I have since grown to dislike them because of how hard each buttons were to press. Nokia has included an additional battery cover (in cyan) to personalise the device, which is a nice touch. I would have preferred a free rubber case similar to the one bundled with the Lumia 800 myself, but you can't win all.
Internet tethering is still missing from the Lumia 710 (as well as the Lumia 800 I should add), despite the promise by Nokia back in November 2011 that it will be made available in a firmware update. While it does not affect me much, it is still disappointing considering this is a core Windows Phone 7.5 Mango feature. We will see if Nokia makes good on their promise to include tethering in their future firmware updates.
The Lumia 710 runs on the latest and greatest version of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango and comes preinstalled with exclusive Nokia applications as well as a couple of third party applications. Fortunately due to how Windows Phone handles apps, it is easy to delete these unwanted apps without leaving any residues. While WP7 isn't for everyone, it is a mobile OS that I admire most due to its unique and fresh UI.
