Nokia Lumia 625 Review 988

Nokia Lumia 625 Review 988
The Nokia Lumia 625 is one of the last smartphones by Nokia, putting an end to what has been a bumpy ride for the Finns in the modern phone era. Whether the Lumia line will find greener pastures under Microsoft remains to be seen, but one thing's for certain - the Lumia 625 will be one of Nokia's last Lumia releases


Nokia Lumia 625 official photos

Back to the point though, the Lumia 625's main attention grabber is the healthy boost in screen size. By going from 3.8" to 4.7", the Lumia 625 gains almost a full inch in screen diagonal over its predecessor. This, along with LTE support, higher clock speed and full-HD video recording, highlights the primary advantages of the Nokia Lumia 625. For a more complete list of specs, you can refer to the following list.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM support
• Tri-band 3G and LTE support with 42 Mbps HSDPA and 5.7 Mbps HSUPA
• 4.7" 16M-color IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen of 480 x 800 pixels with Gorilla Glass 2
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, 1080p video recording @ 30fps
• 0.3MP front-facing camera
• Windows Phone 8 OS
• 1.2GHz dual-core Krait CPU, Adreno 305 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8930 chipset
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, dual-band
• GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS support
• Free lifetime voice-guided navigation
• 8GB of inbuilt storage
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
• Built-in accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port
• Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP and file transfers
• Deep SNS integration
• Xbox Live integration and Xbox management
• Digital compass
• Nokia Music
• FM radio
• 2000mAh battery
• Unparalleled talk time in our battery test

Main disadvantages

• 4.7" quite a stretch for the WVGA resolution
• App catalog falls short of Android and iOS
• Non-user-accessible battery
• Only 512MB of RAM
• No system-wide file manager
• No NFC
• Below average loudspeaker performance

Thanks to the larger screen and resulting larger dimensions, the Lumia 625 feels like a marked improvement over its predecessor. But bigger is not necessarily better, and the Lumia 625 may learn it the hard way. Big screen on a budget sure sounds nice, but WVGA on 4.7" could be too much of a stretch. And it's not a ClearBlack display either, which may as well be the only downgrade compared to the original Lumia 620 - along with the missing NFC chip.

No upgrade to the 512MB of RAM is potentially a minor disappointment, which can quickly be put to rest if the Lumia 625 behaves in our tests. The extra 700mAh of battery capacity is also a welcome addition.

  
Nokia Lumia 625 studio pics

Up next, we'll get started by unboxing the Lumia 625 and proceed with a closer look at the design and build quality.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 opportunity to input the dream

The Samsung Galaxy S4 has recently hit the shelves worldwide and attention is already turning towards the Samsung Galaxy S5 and what the phone will offer. Many of you would no doubt like to have some input into what you think Samsung should bring to the Galaxy S5 and you now have an opportunity to say what you’d like to see in a dream version of the device.
Some of you may remember that last year designer Bob Freking issued a video asking people what they would like to see for the Galaxy S4 and after plenty of input from enthusiasts he then came up with a trailer concept for the Galaxy S4 that amalgamated all of these ideas. It was a great experiment and Freking has now decided give it another go, this time for the Samsung Galaxy S5.
Freking feels that Samsung didn’t fulfill some of the opportunities for the Galaxy S4 that no doubt many people would like to see on the Galaxy S5 and also wants some new ideas for the dream Galaxy S5 concept. He’s come up with a tantalizing image asking what you’d like to see for the Galaxy S5 in 2014 and wants your participation with suggestions of specs and features as well as the design.
If the same happens as with Freking’s Galaxy S4 concept, ideas for the S5 will flood in, and then Freking will create the dream Galaxy S5 to tease us while we wait for the real deal. Freking feels that many would have liked an aluminum build for the Galaxy S4, as well as a better camera for low-light conditions and also suggests that maybe there were too many gimmicks, so what would you like to see for the S5?
Take a look at Freking’s new YouTube video below this story where he asks directly for input for his Samsung Galaxy S5 dream phone. We’d love to hear your ideas too. Maybe you’d like more RAM, camera OIS or even more internal storage? Let us know what you’d like for the Galaxy S5 in the way of design, specs and features by sending us your comments as this is something we’re really interested to hear.

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