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
Battery Life
One thing I distinctly remember about the Samsung Focus is much of an improvement the battery life was compared to the original Galaxy S. Windows Phone 7 was a very well tuned OS, and it managed battery life very well. When the first waves of Windows Phone 8 devices were launched, I heard complaints about battery life, and I was very surprised. The Lumia 930 review here at AnandTech confirmed that there were issues with battery life on at least some Windows Phone 8. However, the Lumia 735 achieved a very respectable battery life in our web browsing test. With both of those results in mind, I was very curious about how the Lumia 640 would fare when it comes to battery life.
As always, our first test is the WiFi web browsing battery life test. Since this Lumia 640 is locked to Cricket Wireless, I'm unable to also test it on LTE, which is unfortunate. However, Qualcomm's radios have evolved to the point where there's only a very small difference the between power usage with a good LTE signal and WiFi.
With a 9.5Wh battery and Snapdragon 400, I had expected the Lumia 640 to last much longer in this test. It shares many components with the Lumia 735, including the SoC, yet the Lumia 735 lasts significantly longer. I can only attribute this to display power usage, and even that seems strange as the Lumia 735 uses an OLED panel which will consume a lot of power when displaying the large white areas of web pages. To ensure there wasn't any sort of issue, I re-ran the battery test and achieved roughly the same result. 8 hours is not the lowest result we've seen, but it's ultimately disappointing when you consider how long other budget devices like the Moto E can last.
In GFXBench's battery test we see that the Lumia 640 sits between the Lumia 735 and the Moto E. However, it should be noted that although these three devices achieve a much longer battery life than other devices, this is a result of their relatively low performance during GFXBench T-Rex HD.
One observation that doesn't show up during out battery tests is idle battery life. During my time with the Lumia 640, I noticed that Windows Phone seems to have an abnormally high battery drain when devices are idle. Even though I was only able to use it on WiFi and had no cellular connection when I wasn't at home, I still found myself having to charge it in the early evening. The Lumia 640's battery life is certainly better than devices like the ZenFone 2 and Lumia 930, but it definitely doesn't compare to the Moto E and the Moto G.
Charge Time
The Lumia 640 ships with a 5V, 0.75A charger. This is a lower wattage than the 5W chargers that ship with most phones, and it's significantly lower than the high power chargers that are now reaching as high as 18W. Something worth noting is that at least with the North American Cricket Wireless version I received, the cord on the charging block is permanently connected, so you can't separate the block and the cable like on most devices.
With its relatively slow charger, the Lumia 640 has a fairly long charge time. It's actually the fastest of our group of low end devices though, with the Moto E being noticeably longer, and the Lumia 735 being substantially longer at 5.57 hours. Not including a super fast charger is obviously done for cost reasons, but I do wish these devices would ship with at least a 5W charger. Thankfully, if you do have 5W charger it will charge the Lumia 640 faster than the one included in the box.
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eanazag - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
I hated Symbian. Buh-bye Symbian.Callum S - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
Nice review. I definitely think that it is a fantastic phone for its price.I can see how the apps situation for some would be a pretty big concern. As mentioned it is mainly Google and local apps that are missed. However at the same time, for those using Microsoft services, I have found it to be significantly better than Android. Exchange, OneDrive, OneNote and MS Office Apps all work beautifully and the ability to pin the live tiles for each to the home screen has saved myself tonnes of time.
That blue glossy case - yep, I would probably want to pass on that too. The matte black version is however also available and in my opinion much better.
I am not too sure about the performance though - especially at the price bracket. After breaking a Nokia 930 I tried to use an old HTC One M7 for a while, before finally buying a Lumia 640, and found the performance of that to be horrible after updating. However perhaps that was due to the HTC sense customisations or something?
My original intention was to use the Lumia 640 until the Lumia 940 with Windows Mobile 10 is released however I am not too sure I'll be able to justify the upgrade now...
Callum S - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
*HTC Sense customisationsWolfpup - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
The HTC stuff may not help, but from my experience Android is just dog slow. I've got a Surface 1 running (almost) real Windows 8, and it runs circles around faster ARM hardware running Android, which is just laughable considering how much better Windows is than Android.Presumably Windows Phone has even lighter system requirements, so... Although who knows about that, given real Windows is probably optimized out the wazoo, while Windows Phone doesn't get as much attention, but still, my Windows Phones all feel fine, while my android stuff running on anything less than the highest end hardware feels slow.
testbug00 - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
Android runs fine when you don't skin it. Moto G/E use A7 quad cores. I believe the original Moto E used a dual core even.And, based on crash reports I've seen, Windows Phone seems to use under 125MB of RAM for the OS.
Daniel Egger - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
Nope, Moto E (2nd gen) runs 4xA53 not A7. Also not to be underestimated the Moto E has a lower screen resolution.mkozakewich - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
In my experience, a proper operating system like Windows or OS X runs a lot faster than some generic, unoptimised version of Linux. I had a netbook with a quick-boot Linux thing, and I could actually turn off my backlight completely when I used it, but my battery would actually drain quicker than when I'd have the screen on in Windows.leexgx - Thursday, June 11, 2015 - link
unlike Android it's a requirement that all apps use GPU acceleration under normal use on windows even on old/new crappy 512mb windows phones run Very consistently (more like IOS iPhone/iPad) with Android your having to use Brute force with faster Flash and CPU (android is only been optimised now in 5.0)testbug00 - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
probably HTC stuff. I have a Moto G (whatever year the original was released in) and it runs Android smoothly. It's a lot weaker than the M7 ;)WorldWithoutMadness - Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - link
Cmon microsoft, just give us sneak preview of 940 already. I'm sick of this badly chosen hardware budget phone.It's not even good enough in super saturated budget phone market in developing country.