For Nokia, the Lumia 920 may be the focus of attention. In fact, the Lumia 820 released with 920 also has many highlights. For example, the replaceable rear case, removable batteries, and support for SD card expansion storage are all convenient functions of the Lumia 820. Now let's take a look at the detailed evaluation brought by the foreign media.

There is no doubt that the main model of Nokia Windows Phone 8 is their flagship Lumia 920. In addition to its lower price and smaller appearance, the Lumia 820 may be a more attractive device. Several major operators in the United States should launch their own customized machines in the future. The internal components will be the same, but the packaging will be different. The Lumia 820 has a 4.3 inch ClearBlack screen, a replaceable back cover that supports wireless charging, a microSD card, and a removable battery - obviously, The user groups targeted by the Lumia 820 are different. These people like their mobile phones to have more functions, such as removable batteries and expandable SD storage. Therefore, the Lumia 820 provides a user experience different from the Lumia 920.

However, in addition to these advantages, there are still some shortcomings. For example, the 820 screen is smaller and has lower resolution than the 920. And the built-in storage is only 8GB. Will such a mid-level handheld device bring more users to Nokia Lumia series? Can the relatively low pricing attract more users and increase the market share of Windows Phone?

hardware design

appearance

Lumia 820 is a bit heavy, but you can adapt to it soon

From the perspective of modeling, the shape of Lumia 820 is a relatively common flat design. At first glance, it seems that this device is "boring", but if we examine it carefully, we will find that Nokia's design is completely understandable. First of all, the fuselage is wrapped by a detachable shell, but it is very solid. 820 is very comfortable to hold in the hand, and the round corner design will not poke in the hand, which is a good change from the Lumia 800.

After using HTC Windows Phone 8X before, the weight of 820 surprised me very much. Although the 820, which weighs 5.64 ounces (160g), is smaller and lighter than the 920, which weighs 6.52 ounces (182g), the first feeling in the hand is still weighty. Heavier than Lumia 800 and iPhone 5! After several days of use, I adapted to the size and weight of the 820. In fact, I found it very easy to operate with one hand, thanks to the thickness of the body and the small screen. In my opinion, 4.3 inches is the "perfect" screen size for smart phones, but only if the body is not too thick.

Nokia's Lumia 800 and Lumia 920 both have curved screens, while the Lumia 820 has the same screen as the Lumia 900 - a completely flat AMOLED panel. However, the screen glass extends to the side edge of the device, so the 820 does not have a small layer of protrusions in the transition area between the screen and the frame as the 900 does, so it is very comfortable when the fingers slide in from the edge of the body. The completely flat screen makes the machine lack some beauty, but the advantage is that it seems to make the screen less prone to dust and dirt. There are also front camera and three common capacitive buttons of Windows Phone on the front of the fuselage. As previously designed, Nokia still has no physical buttons on the left side of the fuselage, while the right side of the fuselage is equipped with power keys, volume keys, and exclusive camera keys. These buttons are very solid without any looseness. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the body, a USB jack in the middle of the bottom, and a microphone beside it.

The volume of the loudspeaker is "abnormally" high. I use the same black eyed Doudou song and the same channel to play songs. The output decibel of Lumia 820 is always higher than that of HTC 8X. Like other smart phones, the 820 does not perform very well in terms of bass. I have to lower the volume several times because the sound is too loud and noisy. (Nokia does remind on its smart phone that if you play music too loud on your phone and wear headphones to listen, it is likely to cause harm to your body.) So when you turn the volume to 20 (or up to 30), the system will display a message to prompt you, However, it is certain that the 820 does play audio files much louder than an ordinary computer.

It's hard to open the back cover

There is an 8MP camera on the back of the body. If you choose a machine that can be charged wirelessly, the wireless charging module is behind it. There are still some difficulties in opening the rear cover. And the way to open the back cover is not very obvious. I have searched the user manual several times. It is not so easy to find the proper balance between fingers and hands in the steps just described when inserting nails into the side gap of the fuselage and bending the back cover by hand to pry it open. Fortunately, these operations are not often required, because once the back cover is opened, you can insert SIM card, microSD card and replaceable battery. One tip: Do not use the Nano SIM card (the SIM card standard proposed by Apple) and the related SIM card adapter on the 820. Unlike other Windows Phone 8 handheld devices, Nokia uses a mechanism similar to the click and lock mechanism, which has been used to insert the SIM card. It is not generally provided with a card holder, so if you use a SIM card adapter, it is easy to get stuck and cause damage to the device. The battery is also very loose, so you should be very careful when you remove the back cover, because the battery will fall out easily.

screen

It also uses the resolution of the previous generation WP machine, which is somewhat disappointing

Windows Phone 8 system already supports higher resolution, but Nokia has chosen a rather disappointing resolution on Lumia 820, 4.3 inch AMOLED screen, 800 * 480 resolution. (Lumia 920 uses a 4.5-inch arc 1280 * 768 resolution screen.) However, thanks to the saturated and bright colors of the AMOLED screen, The unique color block and the whole background color of the WP system are displayed very bright and bright on the 820 screen, and the black color is really very black (when the AMOLED screen displays black, pixels do not glow - all black). The 800 * 480 resolution means that the system has not fully utilized this 4.3 inch screen, Because the same 4.3 inch screen of the HTC 8X has a resolution of 1280 * 720, which means that more dynamic magnets can be inserted on the 4.3 inch start screen of the 8X. One advantage of the WVGA resolution screen 820 is that when using the old WP7 system APP, the screen will not show black bars. However, as soon as the relevant applications are updated, this situation should change quickly.

I found the screen viewing angle of Lumia 820 is very good. In addition, even if the screen brightness is very low, the colors displayed on the screen are still vivid and bright. The automatic brightness adjustment of the machine works very well in the sun, but it is still difficult to see the screen clearly in the direct sunlight. Surprisingly, 820 did not choose Corning Gorilla Glass! However, it seems a bit early to say that the screen can't stand the daily friction and scraping. When I press the screen hard with my hand, I can really hear a strange clatter.

Another interesting aspect of this screen is the "high sensitivity mode". You can open it in the setting interface, and then you can still control the screen even if you wear gloves. In the current cold weather in London in November, this function is playing perfectly, and I have to say that this unique function is only available on Nokia's Windows Phone at present!

camera

Nokia has improved a lot in camera and software algorithms through its previous experience in Windows Phone. Now Nokia has begun to apply these improvements to some current machines. Lumia 820 also includes a new function of Windows Phone 8 system - allowing developers to expand camera functions. The 8MP pixel rear camera has absorbed the improvement in software optimization, but I still found some small problems. In my tests, I had to wipe the camera frequently to keep it clean to take high-quality photos. This is not just an accidental problem. It reminds me of the same problem I encountered when the Lumia 800 was released.

If the back lens is not cleaned, the photos taken with flash light will easily produce bright spots. Even so, the shooting effect without flash in low light is still very impressive. Although it can't replace your SLR digital camera, the shooting effect is quite good for a smart phone.

Nokia also has a rear camera that supports 1080P video capture. Although 720P is the default video capture setting, it can also be easily switched over and saved. The effect of video recording is similar to that of the smart camera you expect, which is at the same level. Lumia 820 is very good at dealing with video shooting during the day and at night.

Camera photo proof

Software

Among the mobile phones with Windows Phone operating system, the most critical differentiation of Nokia is of course its software. Nokia has developed many exclusive applications for its Windows Phone operating system phones, ranging from some traffic navigation software to image processing software. Windows Phone 8 now supports microSD card and camera application, and Nokia takes full advantage of these two functions on Lumia 820.

The SD card in Windows Phone 8 has been supported at the system level. You don't need to format the SD already in use to insert it directly. Once the system detects that you are using the SD card for the first time, the system will ask you whether you want to use the SD card to store photos, music and videos. After that, the system will automatically adjust the storage location of the above content to the SD card, so it will be very easy to exchange music on the Lumia 820 and Surface RT tablets. SD card support is a very useful function for 820 with only 8GB of built-in memory.

Nokia also added many functions to the camera software of Lumia 820. There is a mode called "Smart Shot", which can easily group the pictures taken. Camera enhancement software with panoramic photography and "CinemaGraph" (adding moving picture effect to pictures) function can also be downloaded from the app store. CinemaGraph allows you to quickly create a GIF dynamic map. This CinemaGraph function is different from that of the CinemaGraph on iOS. The CinemaGraph here uses the camera to capture a moving image of 5 frames per second and allows you to edit the image part, so only one part of the image is moving. The effect is very interesting, especially when there is more than one person in the picture.

In addition to the camera upgrade and support for extended storage, the Nokia Lumia 820 is no different from other WP8 machines in terms of software system. Most of the improvements of Microsoft's latest Windows Phone 8 operating system are at the bottom, for example, the loading speed of applications has been improved. Like the Lumia 920, the 820 has a Qualcomm dual core 1.5GHz processor. The system responds very quickly, and there are no problems when I use the device. Windows Phone 8 also makes the Start screen support smaller tiles. There is also an improved IE10 browser.

The Lumia 820 also has two pre installed applications, Nokia Maps and Nokia Driving, which are not much different from the previous version. Now Nokia Maps has become the default map of Windows Phone 8 system, but this application cannot use the compass of the machine - for iOS and Android systems, the compass can be called by the map. Many of the applications mentioned above are exclusively owned by Nokia and cannot be found in HTC and Samsung's Windows Phone 8 devices.

Windows Phone still lacks high-quality apps
At present, the Windows Phone ecosystem still faces the problem of lacking high-quality applications. Although there are more than 120000 applications in the App Store at present, key applications like Twitter and Facebook (two very popular social networks abroad) are inferior to their corresponding iOS and Android applications. At present, Microsoft is also working hard to improve this situation, but it is not enough for now. A good sign is that the space version of Angry Birds has been launched at the same time as the iOS and Android versions. This is just a thing that everyone knows, but it may also mean that developers gradually pay more attention to the Windows Phone platform.

Battery life and call quality

The Nokia Lumia 820 has a removable 1650mAh battery. Although it is much lower than the 2000mAh battery of Lumia 920, considering the smaller screen size and the more power saving AMOLED screen, there is no major problem in terms of battery life. Nokia claims that it can maintain 8 hours of 3G network talk time and 360 hours of standby time. In my personal test, Lumia 820 can maintain normal use for a day, including Internet access and some daily general use.

Wireless charging is very convenient, but the equipment is a little expensive

You can choose the rear cover with the wireless charging module to charge the Lumia 820, and this rear cover will not significantly increase the thickness and weight of the machine. However, the wireless charging base is still not very cheap.

It can be said that everyone cares about the call quality of their mobile phones. I find that the call quality is OK under various networks, and the sound of the earpiece is loud enough. The received audio quality seems to be better than that of the previous generation of Lumia devices: I thought that the call would be dropped and the data connection would be interrupted in some places, because this often happens when I pass through these areas. As a result, the Lumia 820 can still keep connected, and only a small noise can be heard when switching the BTS. Then on the Lumia 800, the calls are often dropped, so this improvement is very gratifying. Due to the problem of the British 4G network system, I failed to test the working condition of the 4G network on the Lumia 820, but the performance is very stable under the HSPA connection. Since the machine I tested is an international unlocked version, your machine performance may be slightly different.

epilogue

In the press conference held in New York in September this year, Nokia did not really emphasize Lumia 820 much, but mainly introduced their flagship product - Lumia 920. Lumia 820 seems like a forgotten baby. However, the fact is that the 820 may be more attractive to some users, who will care whether the battery can be replaced, whether the microSD card can be used, and whether the rear cover can be replaced with a variety of colors. If you want a Windows Phone 8 phone and don't like the large and heavy Lumia 920820, it may be suitable for you. However, the HTC 8X is similar to the 820 in size and features.

In general, I feel that Nokia has tried different routes in its mid-level products. This company used to have a perfectly sized Lumia 800. Personally, I really think that such a 4-inch or 4.3-inch model would be the choice of many people. The 820's screen and camera are really not as good as the flagship of Nokia WP8 - Lumia 920. Since the contract price of the two is only 50 dollars different, it is really hard to say that it is a wise choice to buy Lumia 820 just to save 50 dollars. (I think the American people are really happy.)

The Lumia 820 is also facing the problem of lack of high-quality applications like all WP8 machines. At present, this situation is only slowly changing. Nokia and HTC have both released good hardware products running Windows Phone 8. It is obvious that Microsoft still needs to work harder to establish its own application ecosystem. Now that Windows Phone 8 has supported local code, I think the quality and quantity of app store software will gradually increase, which will bring overall improvement to the ecosystem. Windows Phone 8 devices can also use some good services provided by Microsoft - SkyDrive, outlook.com, Xbox Live, Xbox Music - but some popular cross platform applications such as Dropbox and Instagram have not yet appeared in the app store.

The Lumia 820 has some good features, including exclusive applications and loud speakers. But if you can accept the weight and large body of the Lumia 920, I still recommend you to buy the 920

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