Yes, we’re fans of Tru. That goes without saying. But we must also admit we have a strange love for anything Nokia.
We may not worship the very ground the company treads, but after a few hours with the Nokia Lumia 710, if you see us parked in front of the Nokia offices on our hands and knees with tears in our eyes, kindly look the other direction and keep walking. Pointing and laughing is not nice. Thank you.
The Lumia 710 (our version is from T-Mobile USA) is arguably the best basic Windows Phone to date. What it lacks in power and scale, it makes up for in dependability and strength.
Key features
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
- Quad-band 3G with 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.7 Mbps HSUPA support
- 3.7″ 16M-color ClearBlack LCD capacitive touchscreen with WVGA resolution
- Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display cover
- 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flash, 720p video recording
- Windows Phone 7.5 OS (Mango)
- 1.4GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8255 chipset, 512MB of RAM
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
- GPS receiver with A-GPS support and free lifetime voice-guided navigation
- Digital compass
- 8GB on-board storage
- Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
- Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack; FM Radio with RDS
- microUSB port
- Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and EDR
- Deep and coherent SNS integration throughout the interface
The Nokia Lumia 710 has a few main disadvantages: No SD Card slot, unimpressive battery life, media having to be “Zuned” (which also means no USB mass storage), and no front-facing camera for video chat (sometimes a must for Tru users who are overseas, especially for long periods).
However, the advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages here. The device itself is solid (what do you expect from a Nokia?). The OS is smooth, which is something Android struggles with unless you have the most powerful smartphone out there. The Windows Phone OS is arguably smoother than iOS, too (but more on the OS later). The hardware is where it needs to be, but a front-facing camera is almost standard nowadays. That’s probably the biggest disadvantage we see aside from the lack of SD Card and mass storage support.
As for the OS, Windows Phone is smooth as mentioned, but if you’re looking for a wide variety of apps, you’re probably looking for something on the Apple or Android side of the aisle. Windows Phone is not quite there yet (but it is improving quickly). Zune is well integrated into the device, but it would be nice if one was able to play videos without having them Zune transcoded. Customization options are there, but lacking compared to Android and Apple. Still, the basic e-mail and messaging works extremely well.
All in all, if you’re looking to travel with a dependable and truly good-looking phone, the Nokia Lumia 710 is your ticket. Unlocked, it could make you love your Tru service even more, and there are surely no objections there!
Nokia offices, here we come.