Nokia Lumia 720: Hands On

Among the two Nokia phones that where shown off at a press event in Delhi, the new Nokia Lumia 520 and Lumia 720, we got a chance to get our hands on the Lumia 720.

Unlike the Nokia Lumia 820, it’s thinner and lighter, but with a heavy battery and a 4.3” WVGA display which is nicely curved. The 4.3” WVGA comes with Nokia’s Clear Back Technology and Gorilla Glass 2 protection. But, don’t forget, the display is TFT (not AMOLED) and it’s curved. WVGA resolution (480 x 800) breaks down to 217ppi, which doesn't sound particularly exciting, but it's hard to expect a lot better for the asking price.

Now, let’s go back and have a look at the 6.7 MP camera. The resolution may sound strange at first, but that’s how we get 16:9 mode from the usual 8 MP Nokia camera. It’s just that the 4:3 section of the sensor is missing in Lumia 720.

The Lumia 720 camera uses a Carl Zeiss lens and is the first to feature a fast F/1.9 aperture for better low-light performance. It's not optically stabilized as the 920 camera, but Nokia are promising good low-light shots thanks to some clever image processing.

Nokia included their exclusive Lenses - Cinemagraph (it creates animated GIF), Smart Shoot (Scalado tech) and the brand new Glam Me for portrait shots with the 1.3MP front-facing camera.

The back of the 720 is nice to the touch, but that’s not where it stops - the back cover is exchangeable and there's a cover that enables wireless charging as well (that's where the three pogo pins on the back come into play). The shells are made of polycarbonate.

Let’s not forget, the Lumia 720 had 2,000 mAh battery – respectable for a 4.3” phone and is 350 mAh more compared to the thicker 820.

The Lumia 720, powered by Windows Phone 8, features Nokia’s exclusive stuffs like the HERE Maps and Nokia Mix Radio. The WP8 store is growing too, with currently 130k apps.

The Nokia Lumia 720 gets the power from a 1GHz dual core Snapdragon S4 processor, which is supported by 512MB of RAM. The Lumia 720 gets 8GB built-in storage, and a memory card slot for up to 64GB more. The free 7GB at SkyDrive deal is in place too.

The Nokia Lumia 720 is the first Windows Phone handset from Nokia to hit the 9mm thickness mark and at 128g it feels great in the hand.

Nokia has still not confirmed the pricing of the Lumia 720, but we expect this to be priced under Rs. 20,000.