The Microsoft Lumia 640 Review
by Brandon Chester on June 9, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Lumia
- windows phone 8
Still Image Performance
Now that we’ve gotten the basics of the Lumia 640’s camera system and camera software out of the way, we can move on to evaluating the actual image quality. The most relevant phone to compare to will be Motorola’s Moto E, which sells for around the same price but sports only a 5MP rear-facing camera.
The first photo comparison is the standard daylight test scene that I use. The branches of the trees in the frame are a good test of spatial resolution, while the various different textures can be examined to see how the phone handles noise reduction and maintains detail during processing.
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With ample lighting, the Lumia 640 performs very well considering its price. I do find that the Lumia 640’s white balance tends just a tiny bit too far toward yellow in this case, and colors are a bit undersaturated, but the overall image quality is pretty good. When you compare it to the Moto E, it’s clear that the Lumia 640 is much sharper across the entire frame, and ends up maintaining much more detail. A good example is the brick texture of the red building on the left, which is maintained in the Lumia 640’s shot but completely scrubbed away in the Moto E’s photo.
As for comparisons to other 8MP smartphones, the Lumia 640 tends to fall behind when it comes to sharpness. The Nexus 5 with its larger sensor ends up capturing the tiny interlocking branches of the trees with much more sharpness, and maintains the black bars of the furthest gate on the left which have become a grey unresolved area in the Lumia 640’s photo. This doesn’t mean that the Lumia 640 performs poorly relative to its price. On the contrary, its performance in daylight is extremely good for a $129 device.
While even the most inexpensive devices can now produce usable photos when there's good lighting available, low light photos tend to be where devices stumble. To see how the Lumia 640 performs in low light, I've taken photos of the same scene as above but at night. With the sun having set, the only sources of light in the frame are a handful of lamps on buildings and along the red brick road.
In the low light scene, the Lumia 640 actually performs better than I had expected. I would say it actually outperforms the Nexus 5. While it doesn't show as much in the scene as the Nexus 5 due to its exposure, and not near as much as the iPhone 5s, it has very fine noise and good sharpness in the areas that are exposed. The Nexus 5 by comparison shows a small bit of the sky and the leaves of the first tree, but the entire image suffers from distracting chroma noise which ruins much of the detail. I certainly didn't expect this from a 1/4" sensor without OIS, and much of it is thanks to Microsoft's superb image processing. My one complaint is that there's a lot of flare from all of the light sources in the scene, and the lamp on the right is particularly distracting because of it.
As far as smartphones in the $100-150 range go, the Lumia 640 definitely has the best camera I've seen to date. The Moto E simply can't compete with its smaller 5MP sensor, and Microsoft's high quality image processing ends up producing photos that are better than the 13MP ZenFone 2 in many ways, which goes to show how a device's image processing is just as important to image quality as the actual sensor itself.
Video Performance
The other side of a phone's camera quality is how it performs when taking video. Taking videos is also arguably a more intensive test of a device's camera system than taking still photos, as device's image signal processor has only a short time to process images. There's also no way for devices with OIS to use it to enable long exposure times, as the exposure time for each frame can't be any more than 42ms, and usually less.
The Lumia 640 can capture 1080p video at 24, 25, and 30fps. For this test I opted for the 30fps mode, as the higher frame rate comes with less motion blur. The Lumia 640 encodes its 1080p30 video with an average bitrate of 17.6Mbps using the H.264 Main profile.
Video footage from the Lumia 640 ended up being quite decent. The bitrate is just as high as high end smartphones, and the footage isn't really any blurrier or noisier than what you'd get from something like the iPhone 6 at the same resolution and frame rate. My one complaint is that Microsoft's EIS doesn't seem quite as effective as the EIS that I've seen on other smartphones, and as a result the footage is a bit shakier. There are also some fairly dramatic changes in exposure and white balance when changing the target of the shot, and in certain circumstances such as when the camera is being pointed at red flowers it actually ends up making the video look too cold. However, the overall video quality is very good, and is miles ahead of other inexpensive devices that I've looked at recently like the ZenFone 2 and the Moto E.
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gwydionjhr - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
For the kind of user that is buying a $129 smartphone I think Microsoft has put it's priorities in the right place, a good camera and a screen that is readable in all conditions are things that any user will appreciate. I've helped dozens and dozens of normal users with all types of smartphones and I can only shake my head at the number of people paying $70mth to use a $700+ plus device that they only use for texting, email, FB and phone calls.cjs150 - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
This is a cheap phone.It lasts most of a day between charges (not really good enough). It has a decent camera, decent display and presumably syncs really well with MS Outlook (if not what are MS doing!).
Is it slow - yes
Will it run the very latest apps - no.
Is it good enough for 90% of market aged more than 25 - yes. Ultimately on a tech website we forget that most people do not need most of the features. Checking emails, using maps/navigation and the ability to check social media is good enough
Very tempted - but for the battery life
MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
And for all the bagging people are doing on MS for pushing out cheap phones, the strategy has really helped MS gain share outside of US/Europe. India, with its billions of people, might actually be a market to get into, no?Sure, we want premium phones here, but the 1520 and 930 are by no means junk, even this long past launch.
That said, it's a shame WP coverage at Anandtech is so thin. Never reviewed the 1020. Never reviewed the 1520. But hey, let's review the cheap MS phones and then make conclusions about the ecosystem. It's been the problem MS has had all along--solid efforts and unique offerings are essentially shunned by the community. We need more than Apple and Google in this space.
AEGorenberg - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
I have this phone (changed from Note 2 on Sprint) and get an astonishing 2.5 to 3 days on a charge -- with light to moderate use. Also, no dropped calls in the 2 weeks I have owned it. For $129, it works great and I don't even worry about scratches on the case or having to protect it. The main drawback is that the Windows Phone iteration of popular apps are terrible (like Words with Friends).tdrroc - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
I second this comment... I have a 635 - predecessor to this phone - and I can go multiple days without charging. I use GPS for directions and exercise, wifi and LTE antennae for streaming and web access. When I compare my battery life for WP with what I experienced with Android (on a Nexus 4 even)...it's no comparison. WP blows it out of the water. I have a charging cable I bought for my car...never use it.leexgx - Friday, June 12, 2015 - link
i do find windows and blackberry phones Very reliable for LTE and calls (GSM phone)blackberry Q10 i got here if it gets a wiff of 4G (real 4G>LTE for USA peeps) it will use it until it gets to low then drops to 3G (where as android phones just drop when signal is at 20-30% still)
quite sure the windows phone does the same thing it fast changes to LTE if available (but on EE UK 4G is bit Iffy at work and makes phone calls bugger up when you answer the phone, this is network issue not the phone, so tend to leave that phone on 3G max speed)
compared to the android phones i got its like i got New 4G masts installed in my area,, same network in an android phone i have to set it to 3g and back to 3g/4G or airplane mode or wait about 1-3 mines for it to maybe decide to use 4G (if i am on a motorway 4G is unlikely on android phone, but on windows phone or Blackberry very likely)
Arbie - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
"All the other specifications are fairly typical for a phone of this price. 8GB of NAND, 1GB of RAM, and 2.4GHz 802.11n WiFi are all you get at this price."NO! You are also getting microSD!! That means you can install huge amounts of storage and swap content in and out any time. With the good 5" display this thing has even movies will be quite watchable. I have the smaller Lumia 520 and love it for these reasons. And I won't buy a phone without microSD. So I really wonder why you don't even mention it. This is a lot more important than where the logo is printed, don'tcha think?
der - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
Hi im hereDrumsticks - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
I had a lumia 928 for almost two years that I honestly loved. I was never really wanting for anything. I had to get an iPhone 5 for about six months that I honestly wasn't very impressed with.I'm on a lollipop phone now though, and I can definitely tell the difference. Windows phone seems to go through booms and busts of parity. When 8.1 launched, it drew them nearly to feature parity with android or iOS of the day. Fast forward two years of mostly stagnant upgrades, and they're in a bad spot once again. Hopefully Microsoft will get it right some day, but until then I'll be happy to use their services on android
mercblue281 - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
In fairness to windows phone and the lumia 640 - it would be nice if the comparison charts listed the phone price. And more appropriate comparable phones.Owning a 928, 635 and 822 - they do everything newer phones can do. Yes my wife's Icon is a magnificent piece of speedy hardware - however the 640 and other phones shouldn't be frowned upon based on their chipsets and gpu. Windows phone really does perform great on low end hardware.
I think a more intriguing comparison would be the 640 vs the 735 (yes its in MOST of the charts) but also the 920, 820, 635 and 520.
people silly enough to pay $700 for an iPhone or $600 for a galaxy simply don't care that you can accomplish 95% of the same tasks with a $130 Lumia.