A couple of weeks ago, my trusty Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc died on me and I started looking for a new phone. While I wanted to get a smartphone, I did not want to spend a fortune on a contract or the phone itself.
Browsing through pages and pages of ebay and reviews, I thought: This is crazy, there is nothing out there! Ireland can be pretty limited when it comes to choice in the mobile phone sector, especially when it comes to the budget end of things.
Of course, you can buy fancy iPhones or high-end Android phones, but if you’re on a budget and looking for a SIM free phone, there is nothing out there. This is when I first thought about getting a Windows phone. I had used Windows mobile before, in the days when the devices were touch enabled but the operating system wasn’t (the HTC HD2 was a great device though, and I upgraded it to run Android instead) and the experience was truely terrible.
The Nokia Lumia 520
Enter the Lumia 520: This phone seems to tick all the boxes, it’s cheap-ish (for a smartphone: 150 EUR incl. shipping from the UK), SIM free and smart. What can I say, I didn’t expect to like it but I cannot help it: It’s simply a great piece of kit! It’s responsive and a joy to use (the user interface is quite stunning). It does everything I want it to do and more. What really surprised me is how easy and speedy it is, as I didn’t expect too much from it as – in terms of hardware – it lags behind even the cheaper Android offerings, and those tend to be sluggish.
The other great thing about this phone is, that Nokia throw in their excellent navigation software for free! Now, on the 520 it’s limited to your region (in my case to UK & Ireland), but the more expensive Lumias give you free worldwide navigation, but for 15 quid, I can upgrade mine, too. The Nokia photo software does a good job as well. I also like the children’s corner which allows you to let your kids play with the phone without accidentally deleting your contacts or making expensive phone calls.
The one downside is the size of the Microsoft app store. It’s nearly comical to see, that even applications such as Spotify only have 17 reviews (at the time of writing) on it.
Still, the few applications I really wanted were available:
- Spotify
- keepass password manager
- XBMC remote (to remote control my media center)
- Skype
Of course, you can get the staples like Facebook and Twitter as well. The choice is (still) limited but I encourage anyone who’s in the market for a new phone to check it out.