Microsoft Lumia 640 Hands on Review(Detailed)

Microsoft Lumia 640 Hands on Review(Detailed)

This is my first Microsoft Smartphone experience, trust me the first experience was unbelievable. This is an under 10,000 smartphone segment with a high end smartphone experience. At first look you can feel the build quality is upmarket.

Microsoft Lumia 640 Dual SIM 3.5G

Read the detailed review and ratings below:

Competitors: Main competitors in this price range are Micromax Nitro, Samsung Grand Max, Lenovo K3 Note, Xiaomi Mi 4i.

Build Quality (9/10):

The build quality is upmarket and looks very rigid, with the gorilla glass 3 and extended glass.

Primary Camera (7/10): [8MP Auto focus, f/2.2, LED flash]

Front Camera captures photos with vivid colors and the clarity is good for a 8MP camera, doesn’t look like the one who extrapolate 8MP lens to 13MP for the sake of specifications.

Camera has lot of options including live images, timer, bracketing and focus point changing option.

Secondary Camera (5/10): [0.9MP, f/2.4]

The selfie camera is only 0.9MP which is only suitable for uploads on social networking websites. Although the front camera has the capability to click auto selfie based on gestures, it still lacks some intelligence. 

Video Recording (7/10): [supports up to 1920 x 1080 pixels@30fps, continuous focus, and secondary camera supports 1280 x 720]

It has a decent full-HD video recording capability. The recording and saving is quick. 

Basic Phone performance (8/10): [Dual Standby Micro SIM, GSM+WCDMA]

The call clarity is very good; the voice on the call was decently audible. No call drops noticed.

Connectivity (7/10): [3.5G, GPRS, Bluetooth 4.0 (A2DP 1.2, AVRCP 1.4, HFP 1.6), WLAN IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, USB 2.0, Micro-USB, DLNA, Screen projection]

Although Bluetooth connectivity had issues connecting to Android phones, but later it connected well. The Wi-Fi connectivity was decent and had no issues connecting. Its USB connects through other micro-USB cables also. Remember the charger provided by Microsoft doesn’t can be used only for charging with power sockets and cannot be connected to PC, so you have to purchase the micro-USB cable separately or use any other standard micro-USB cables like Samsung/Micromax cables.

Speed/Response Time (8.5/10): [Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 400 1.2GHz, Quad core]

The phone responds very quickly and runs on a Snapdragon processor, and it never hanged or shown any slow performance. 

Screen (8/10): [16M, 5" Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3, HD720 (1280 x 720) pixels, 294 ppi, IPS LCD, Sunlight readability enhancements, Capacitive multipoint-touch]

The screen gives a rich and interactive touch experience. At peak afternoon sun also the screen is quite readable and has auto brightness control with Ambient light sensor. 

Design (8/10): [Dimensions-141.3 x 72.2 x 8.8 mm, 145 g, Double-tap to wake]

The phone looks decently sleek, and the back cover is not glossy, which helps is providing good grip while holding in the palm and is less prone for scratches. It has an option for daydream clock while it is in locked state, and doesn’t consume too much of battery also.

Video playback/Video Streaming (6/10):

I would say the video playback experience was not satisfactory. Although the video clarity and colors were perfect, but the video player app was lacking main features like dragging to a particular position of the video, full screen expand which doesn’t adjust the aspect ratio to fit the phones screen, and doesn’t play many popular video file formats. These features were however fulfilled with MX Player on Android, but Microsoft app market lacks apps like these.

Music Playback with speakers/earphone (9.5/10): [3.5 mm stereo headset connector, FM Radio, Graphical equalizer, Virtual surround]

This is the best feature in the phone, its music playing capability. The clarity is by far the best I’ve experienced in smartphones, even better than Apple iTouch/iShuffle. It has Virtual surround feature which works perfectly on earphones. Another good feature is the equalizer, which has bass booster. It has FM also, and was quite good in clarity.

Gaming (7.5/10):

It plays almost all games smoothly including the Asphalt 8 which I tried. The response was good and quick too.

Battery Life (8/10): [2500 mAh, Replaceable battery]

The battery was decent with about 1 day life after fully recharged with normal talk time and Wi-Fi usage.

Sensors and Navigation(7/10): [Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Magnetometer, SensorCore, A-GLONASS, A-GPS, BeiDou, Cellular and Wi-Fi network positioning]

The phone is fully equipped with essential sensors like high-end smartphones. GPS navigation was good with A-GLONASS, A-GPS, BeiDou and Wi-Fi network positioning features, but the core navigation app was lacking many important landmarks to search for. After using the awesome Google Maps for several years, Microsoft’s “HERE/HERE Drive” appears to be less useful. Microsoft app market lacks the Google maps app, making its GPS system less usable.

I would have given 9/10 if Microsoft provides Google Maps.

All other basic sensors work decently including light sensor or proximity sensor.

Memory and Storage (7/10): [RAM 1 GB, Mass memory 8 GB, MicroSD expandable up to 128 GB, OneDrive 1 TB of free cloud storage]

The phone is equipped with 1GB of RAM, which is more than sufficient to run almost every app on market.  But the internal storage lacks a bit, with only about 3GB of user available memory out of its 8GB internal memory. Microsoft should provide at least 16GB storage even at a cost of extra INR1,000/2,000.

OS (8/10): [Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim, Update coming soon to Windows Phone 10]

The performance of the OS is good and user friendly for Windows 8/10 PC users. It has best performing MS Office features on mobile devices. Upgrade for windows 10 is quite welcoming considering the future of Microsoft phones. Remember Apple gives upgrades to older devices also.

Ease of Use (7/10):

Usability is good with features and menus. The navigation keys don’t eat up the screen space, and can be viewable by swiping from bottom, which is a very good feature.

Value for Money (9/10): INR 7,999

At a price of 8k, this phone is easy on your pockets and looks amazing. It’s an easy go considering other smartphones in this price segment looks cheap and down-market or are less on features.

Overall Rating: 8/10

I would recommend going with this smart phone considering its price range, if you are looking for a trustable brand with decent features then this is an obvious choice. 

Quick Pros:
1.Touch sensitivity
2.Build quality
3.Looks are rich
4.Back/main camera
5.Brand name
6.Speed is good runs asphalt 8 also
7.Doesn't heat up much
8.Doesn't hang
9.Windows 10 update announced and will be available shortly.
10.Battery backup is decent
11.Value for money

Quick Cons:
1.Front camera
2.Only about 3.5GB of avail user memory
3.Limited choice of free apps on market
4.Bluetooth not smooth with android phones

Recommendation: Phone is excellent and looks elite. Except for limited apps available on windows market rest is great features and good quality. I would recommend this to buy for an under 10,000 price range.

Unboxing/Phone Pics:

Standard Box with void seal

Home screen

Daydream clock on standby

Customizable Lock screen

 Sample Pics clicked from Lumia 640:(unedited, only watermarked)

 

Colors

Outdoor, Landscape

Flowers, depth of field

Night photography

Outdoor Monuments/Structures

Nature Photography

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