Nokia Lumia 625 review

Is the Lumia 625 the mid-range smartphone you've been waiting for? Joe Minihane spills all.

The Nokia 625 bids to take on the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that is Android, with a spec sheet that is better than most mid-range kits out there and a price tag that's even more unbelievable. Could this be the best-value smartphone currently in the market. Read on to find out.

First impressions

Nokia’s all-new budget blower is a colossus. Measuring in at 4.7-inches and with the look and feel of a top-end smartphone, it doesn’t have the air of a budget device. It blasts into life quickly and feels nippy when flicking through Windows Phone’s various native apps, as well as the various Nokia add-ons. It’s hard to believe that this is a sub-£200 handset.

8/10

Design

Much like other Nokia Lumia phones, the 625 is a plastic device with real heft. That’s a plus point, as it feels as if it can withstand any nasty drops and scrapes. Its size is comparable to Google’s Nexus 4, while its curved rear design means its sits comfortably in the hand.

The buttons along the right hand side of the handset aren’t obtrusive, while our white model didn’t appear to pick up any nasty fingerprints on its rear shell. There aren’t many cheap smartphones that can match the Lumia 625 in the design department.
8/10

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Nokia Lumia 1020: is it enough to save Windows Phone and Nokia?

Reports of Nokia's rebirth are much exaggerated, says Joe Minihane.

It’s been impossible to escape stories about Nokia’s new Lumia 1020 in the past couple of weeks. Espoo did a desperately poor job in keeping leaks to a minimum.
It’s been said before that its Finnish offices are like a sieve, but the last few days it seems to have been more like a punctured shipping container.
From colour schemes, camera details, design and app info, everything to know about the Lumia 1020 was already in the public domain before Stephen Elop’s press conference last night.
That’s not to say that the Lumia 1020 isn’t a seriously impressive piece of hardware.
The phone itself is solid, but the camera shows that Nokia is still capable of leading the market in at least one area. T
he detail of its shots, the excellent Pro Camera app for making images look every bit as good as those taken with compact cameras and the ability to reel off five megapixel images simultaneously with 41-megapixel snaps puts it well ahead of the competition.
Look at this way: Nokia, and Microsoft, finally have a phone, which does something that its smartphone rivals can’t match.
Last year’s PureView 808 showed what Nokia could do with imaging, but being on Symbian it was never going to stand up to Samsung and Apple’s more finely tuned efforts.

But despite all that, a nagging doubt persists. Megapixels still mean something to the average punter, even if they don’t actually mean that much to those in the know.
They can help sell phones, especially to those addicted to the likes of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Nokia knows this, hence opening up its camera SDK to get developers working with its new camera phone software. However, we’re still talking about a phone which uses a critically lauded, but unpopular OS.
No matter how Microsoft tries to dress it up, Windows Phone is failing.
Android slays all before it, while iOS corners a loyal band of followers with a developer base that’s impossible to beat.
Nokia can market the Lumia 1020 as hard as it likes, but the simple truth is it will struggle to do the numbers compared to Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and Apple’s forthcoming iPhone 5S.
The tech is there, but years of mismanagement mean the Nokia brand is light years from where it was a decade ago.
Microsoft’s decision to boost support for Windows Phone 8 to 36 months will help, but probably only power users will care.

In short, this is one of the most exciting devices of 2013. It pushes innovation and will make rivals work hard to try and compete with Nokia.
But there’s no way that this, or any other device, is the panacea Nokia so desperately craves. The road is long and Nokia has much of it left to walk.

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Nokia Lumia 1020: O2 and Three getting phone this quarter

41-megapixel monster available soon.

The spanking new Nokia Lumia 1020, Espoo’s stunning camera-led Windows Phone, is set to land first on O2 and Three here in Blighty.
The impressive device, unveiled yesterday at a special event in New York, the Nokia Lumia 1020 will hit both networks this quarter.
Neither, however, has revealed how much the phone will cost on contract or exactly when it’ll be on shelves.
The Lumia 1020 packs a massive 41-megapixel sensor, along with a Nokia Pro Camera app for tweaking white balance, ISO and camera modes in order to snap sensational pictures.
The level of detail within images taken with the handset certainly looks breathtaking.
As well as reeling off those super high-resolution shots, the camera on the Lumia 1020 will also take a five-megapixel effort for easy sharing on social networks.
Nokia is hoping the device can reinvigorate its still–struggling smartphone business, while giving a boost to Windows Phone.

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Nokia EOS: five key rumours about Espoo’s new camera phone

We zoom in on what might be a picture-perfect camera phone.

Nokia is all set to reveal its much-hyped new camera phone at a huge event in New York tomorrow, July 12th.
Codenamed EOS, the device is expected to take the fight to Samsung’s recently launched Galaxy S4 Zoom, sparking a whole new battle in the fight for camera phone supremacy.
And while official details haven’t been revealed, there are plenty of juicy tidbits floating around the web about this killer new device.
Here’s our pick of the five key rumours you need to know.

1 It’s called the Nokia Lumia 1020

The name Lumia 1020 cropped up last week replaced the EOS name which has been doing the rounds for months. That naming strategy makes a certain amount of sense, seeing as Nokia has previously released Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 devices.
This would place the new device at the top of Nokia tree, making the Lumia 1020 Espoo’s flagship phone.

2 Or the Nokia Lumia 909

However, new gossip emerged earlier this week to suggest Nokia was actually planning on calling the handset the Lumia 909.
This also has a logic to it – Nokia’s last impressive camera phone effort was dubbed the PureView 808, after the camera tech inside. 909 therefore feels like the next step for Elop and co’s camera phone range.

3 It’ll pack 41 megapixels

This one’s a given. Leaked images have already shown the rear of the Lumia 1020/909 rocking a 41 megapixel badge next to the lens.
Meanwhile, last year’s PureView 808 packed in the same tech, with the same sensor ensuring pictures looked stunningly detailed.
No other mobile-maker has been able to get close to Nokia in this regard, so this new device is essentially about putting 2012’s tech into a Windows Phone, rather than a Symbian one. Either way, it looks set to be a winner.

4 It’ll cost around £400 SIM-free

Prices revealed in the US suggest users across The Pond will need to stump up around $600 for the privilege of owning a SIM-free Lumia 1020/909 SIM-free. That translates to around £400 on these shores.
It might seem pricey, but when you consider the Galaxy S4 Zoom clocks in at around £450, it’s not actually that bad. Contract deals should be even more competitive.

5 It comes with a heap of colour options

As ever, Nokia isn’t shy about serving up different colours devices. The Lumia 1020/909 is believed to be coming in black, yellow and white. That’s not quite as wide-ranging as previous efforts from Espoo, but still gives fashion conscious punters a decent choice.

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Nokia Lumia 1020 41-MP smartphone snapped

Industry-leading camera breaks free from Symbian.

The forthcoming cameraphone contender from Nokia has seemingly surfaced on the web, giving us our first glimpse of the 41-megapixel lens-toting smartphone.
Sourced by @evleaks, whose contact book seems to contain every venal network employee in the world, the photo depicts what we're assured is the Nokia Lumia 1020. Or the phone you might know by the 'Lumia EOS' codename that was previously attached to it.

Assuming the kit in the photo is the real thing, and it’s worth noting that not all @evleaks are 100 per cent legit, it doesn’t look like much of a departure from earlier Nokia Windows Phones in the design department.
But it’s probably to be supposed this won’t bother would-be buyers who are presumably attracted by the weapons-grade PureView camera.

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Nokia Lumia 925 hands-on first impressions

We take our first look at Nokia’s first all-metal addition to the Lumia family.

Since the painful demise of its once world-conquering Symbian OS, Nokia has made a slow but steady recovery with its widely acclaimed Windows Phone-powered Lumia range of smartphones.
While it may not be quite out of the woods yet, the Finnish phone-maker has proven itself a worthy contender in the smartphone landscape by producing some of the best-designed handsets in recent memory.

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The culmination of this mobile renaissance is Nokia’s latest flagship smartphone – the Lumia 925, which replaces the sturdy but still plastic polycarbonate shell of its predecessor for meticulously crafted, and inarguably more stylish, unibody aluminium construction that not just looks premium, it feels it too.
Admittedly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but as far as we’re concerned, the Lumia 925 is right up there among the smartest-looking smartphones currently out there.

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Nokia unveils Lumia 925 flagship Windows Phone smartphone

Debuts metal casing and Smart Camera mode.

Nokia has officially raised the curtain on its latest flagship challenger, the Lumia 925, as it plots its slow but steady comeback to the smartphone top table.
The Lumia 925 is a direct sequel to the Lumia 920, featuring a 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ display with ClearBlack technology, a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and an 8.7-megapixel PureView camera with optical image stabilisation – all rolled into a slick and slim metal chassis – for the first time in the Lumia range.

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