The sum of opinions: what users say in the test drive Nokia Lumia 1520

Hello friends.
As you may have noticed, test-drives of our devices have been held at Habrahabr for quite a long time. We were the first to speak in such a format since the appearance of the Nokia Lumia 920 on the Russian market. Now, a whole range of Nokia smartphones, including the flagship device with a large screen Lumia 1520, is available for tearing apart by hackers and any other Internet users.


Photo: Kirill Kotlyarenko

To date, the project has accumulated quite a lot of reviews of this device, and we decided to make a brief squeeze of opinions. In order to avoid accusations of the advertising nature of these posts, we remind you that everyone can take a device for a test drive and, having made up their own opinion, can tell about personal experience on the project pages.

To begin with, it is worth noting that after reading the texts, we made two important conclusions for ourselves. The first is that although users expressed a number of complaints about the device (however, most often of an individual nature), Lumia 1520 was generally liked by everyone. The second point is that the Windows Phone 8 platform has ceased to be something outlandish for users compared to last year. This time, users talked more about the characteristics and parameters of the smartphone, but did not describe the experience of the first acquaintance with the smartphone on WP and practically did not compare the OS with other mobile platforms.
')

Photo: victorr

The first impression from users who have taken the device for a test drive can be expressed in one phrase: “ GOD WHAT HE IS BIG ”. Some users found it difficult to get used to the “tablet phone” after a long experience with classic smartphones:
dzarlax

For a while I did not understand how to keep it. I was uncomfortable, and the usual "iPhone" grip did not allow to reach all the necessary keys. Probably 6 "is still too much for me. The positive side of this screen is visible immediately after turning it on, and you are finally convinced of this already when watching videos and sites.

Others were able to find a common language with the form factor of a 6-inch smartphone:
Dmitry Obydenkov

One of the issues to the convenience of using devices was the issue of carrying. I used to wear the phone in the right pocket of jeans, having decided not to change the habit, I spent the next five days with the Lumia 1520 in the same pocket of quite average jeans. The phone feels great in your pocket, but it doesn’t burst and do not burden your pocket without creating noticeable discomforts.
Another important aspect of using the device is the convenience of "grip". Under the convenience of grip, I understand how convenient it is to perform familiar actions such as answering a call, typing, navigating through the menu and system, surfing, reading news feeds, using the camera. After five days, I came to the conclusion that the device requires two-handed control and one-handed operation can only perform some short actions.

Photo: victorr

Having become accustomed to the size of the device, users began to evaluate the technical characteristics of the Lumia 1520, starting, obviously, from the display:

Ilya Lyakh

In this model, a six-inch IPS-matrix of 1920x1080 pixels is installed. As a protective coating for the display, Gorilla Glass 2 with an anti-reflective layer and an oleophobic coating is used. You can adjust the readability, saturation and color temperature using the detailed menu. Thus, the display of this model can be called one of the best among Full HD-screens.

Dmitry Obydenkov

The first time when I got the phone on the street, I could not understand what was happening: the picture was not displayed as usual. Inquiring on the Internet, I found out that it was Assertive Display technology, which allows to increase the contrast of the picture in bright sunshine. And this technology really works, readability in sunlight 1520 is much better than that of the Korean and American flagships!

Photo: Boomburum

The testers did not bypass their attention with a 20 megapixel camera and video recording capabilities:

Stepan Pronin

The camera is a huge plus of this smartphone.
Lumia 1520 has a camera with a resolution of 20.1 megapixels, and this is as much as 5376x3744 pixels.
True, the maximum resolution will not be achieved anyway: you will have to limit yourself to 18.7 MP for photos with a 3: 4 aspect ratio or 16.3 MP for a 16: 9 aspect ratio.

Photo: Boomburum


Photo: Sipan Vardanyan


Photo: KirillAlexandrovich

Dmitry Obydenkov

It is worth paying attention to the video ability, more precisely to the Nokia Rich Recording technology. One can argue for a long time that these are only advertising tricks, but having recently visited a concert from my 925 I received a recording with a very good sound, most phones simply cannot adequately record a loud sound. To record sound in the 1520 already provides four microphones, marketers call it directional stereo sound. Unfortunately, I did not have time to go to any concert in five days, but judging by the records on youtube.com, the quality has become even better.

Dmitry also spoke in detail about Windows Phone and favorite applications:

One of the advantages of Windows Phone is its speed, it turns against expensive devices: on $ 600 smartphones, the system works as fast as on $ 100 smartphones. Perhaps there are differences in the speed of work, but they are minimal. The only thing I was able to point out is almost instant application launch, while less powerful smartphones are a bit more thoughtful in this regard.
One of my favorite apps from Nokia is Projector . It works very simply: open beam.nokia.com in the browser, launch the application, show the QR from the browser to the phone - that's all, you can broadcast the image from your smartphone directly to the browser via the Internet. Personally, this allows me to show Power Point presentations right from the phone, saving me from having to take a laptop with me for fifteen minutes.

Photo: Dmitry Obydenkov

In the home environment, you can use the Media Center application. Just a DLNA player. The device, by the way, supports Wi-Fi ac.

Photo: Dmitry Obydenkov

However, in fairness, it is worth noting that not everyone liked the OS:
dzarlax

This is perhaps the weakest point in the apparatus. By itself, the OS is not bad, there are some rough edges and unusual moments, but in general, you can use it. There is a lack of “notification curtains” for viewing new events and a very inconvenient menu, which is not ordered either alphabetically or categorized.
Third-party software is a special "pain". First of all, there are very few programs. Yes, the main programs are - Twitter, Whatsapp, FB, VK, Telegram, but, for example, Duolingo, where I learn Spanish - could not be found.

To be fair, it is worth noting that in Windows Phone 8.1 a notification screen will appear and many other long-awaited functions, and the number of applications is constantly growing (and many Windows Phone users will confirm this), including by attracting applications from other platforms. And the menu is actually ordered alphabetically, it is strange that dzarlax did not notice this. By the way, for a convenient and personalized categorization of applications, you can use the corporate "app" Folders to collect your favorite applications in separate tiles on the main screen.

In the conclusion of the post we want to add some lyrics from the user KirillAlexandrovich

I entered the subway, squeezed through the turnstiles, and stood on the endless tape of an escalator pulling me underground. A bright yellow corner of a rented Nokia 1520 phone peeking playfully from a pocket of jeans. . No, the point, of course, is not the price, although 20,000 for me for the phone is a lot. The point is the feeling of “detachment” from the surrounding world. As if the phone carries with it a part of its world - bright, yellow, clear, transparent.
Remember, the episode of the "Twinkies", when Mels, dressed up for the first time, rides a bus with the proletariat? Among the common dullness, longing and doom of living out in a communal apartment, there appears one who is ... different. Who thinks differently, lives differently. That is how you feel when you get this nokia in the subway. Not so that our times, of course, were exactly the same, and bright people still come across on the streets, but the general desire for dullness and lowered eyes is evident.

PS: We also want to mention test drives that we did not disassemble into quotations, since it is better to read them entirely:
- Overview of the camera features Lumia 1520 and the post " On the friendship of Nokia Lumia 1520 and Xbox 360 " from the famous Boomburum ;
- Overview of the Lumia 1520 as a device for work from Cyril Kotlyarenko;
- Student review from hacker108 .
As well as other test drives on the project page: habrahabr.ru/special/nokia/lumia/blog