Nokia Lumia 710 Review - T-Mobile's Nokia WP7
by Brian Klug on January 5, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Nokia
- Mobile
- WP7
- Lumia 710
Battery Life and Charging
I still believe one of the most important factors for a smartphone is how it fares in battery life testing. We’re going to revamp the entire testing suite in early 2012, but until then, the 710 gets the 2011 treatment like all other devices to date. Those three corners are a series of page loading tests with the display set as close to 200 nits as we can get it on both WiFi, and cellular data (in this case, WCDMA 3G). In the case of Windows Phone, the lack of an analog slider for brightness does force us to use the “HIgh/Medium/Low” presets instead, which can make comparison a challenge. The third corner of our battery life test is a call time test, where we simply place a call between the device under test and another line, and play music at both ends until the battery dies.
Unfortunately, the Lumia 710’s smaller battery doesn’t do it any favors in our battery testing. On cellular data, the Lumia is indeed ahead of the Focus, and right behind the Venue Pro which we also tested on T-Mobile, but still doesn’t last very long by comparison with some of the other major devices. WiFi page loading also shows a strange little departure from the Lumia’s positive performance, though I can’t verify that the Lumia 710 likewise uses a BCM4329. Call time evens out performance between the two Lumias, but I wager again that we’re just seeing the battery size differences between the two at this point.
On a more positive note, the Lumia 710 doesn’t have any of the charging or battery reporting issues that the Lumia 800 had. The 710 charges speedily enough, and doesn’t get stuck in a pre-boot environment - unable to draw current or charge - like I saw the 800 do when deeply discharged. On that note, the 710 also includes the same diagnostics menu which can be accessed by dialing ##634#, and the interesting/realtime current draw display.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
48 Comments
View All Comments
PubFiction - Sunday, January 8, 2012 - link
Nokia may be working on their new core competency. Lots of companies do this same thing and roll just fine. Vizio, Apple to name a few. Do the design then outsource everything else.PubFiction - Sunday, January 8, 2012 - link
I should also add that nokia tried to make symbian work and they failed. They have gone from one of the worlds most recognised phone makers to almost nothing. I mean you can go into any phone provider in the US and I am not sure if you would see any nokia phones.So ya the whole making a competing OS in Europe thing just did not work out for them.
a5cent - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
Symbian was not doomed due to it being developed in Europe. One of the main difficulties was that the developer was essentially a hardware company. Hardware and software development are very different, and requires a different company culture and different management. American hardware companies that attempt software almost always fail as well. Apple is probably the only exception... Apple is probably the worlds only systems company.Spivonious - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
Windows has poor multithreading? What are you talking about? Windows has supported multi-tasking (which is what I assume you mean, since only recently (last 5-10 years) have we gotten CPUs capable of operating more than one thread at a time) since Windows 1.0.WP7 has supported multi-tasking since launch. The API was opened up to 3rd party developers with the 7.5/Mango update.
As an owner of a WP7 phone and a user of iOS, Android, and RIM, I can veritably say that it is the best, most well-designed mobile OS out right now.
Apple doesn't make iPhones either. You may as well get over losing your factory job and realize that in the world economy, you make the product whereever you can get the best deal.
melgross - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
I haven't read past the first page yet, but the weights caught my eye. I don't know if the weight in grams is correct, or the weight in ounces, but there is a discrepancy.Assuming that grams is correct, the weight, in ounces, of the 800 should be 4.41, and the weight of the 710 is pretty close, but is then a bit more at 4.43.
jsv35 - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
Thank you for taking time and doing reviews on Windows Phone, it's always nice to see. I have an android device myself, but have always kind of liked the look of WP7zinfamous - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
Agreed.I don't follow the GPU and general hardware reviews as much as I used to, but the scope of those is what brought me to AT in the first place. I now see that same level of detail now with the phone reviews, and I would never purchase a phone without getting the skinny from AT first.
They have become the best on the web. Even the camera reviews are (were?) just as detailed at one time.
Kudos.
melgross - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
What I found interesting is that while neither the 800 or the 710 performed well, though as expected, the LCD screen of the 710 is MUCH brighter than the AMOLED screen of the 800, both phones performed much better than the extremely dismal performance of the N8, a phone which, for some unexplainable reason, is thought by some to be a super phone. To me, it seems a dud.kyuu - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
While integration/overlap with Windows on the PC and with the Xbox is certainly an interesting proposition and would be a boon, that's not what I (and probably a lot of others) are waiting for in order to jump ship to the Windows Phone platform. I love the WP UI, I love the *idea* (though not execution so far) of the controlled hardware platforms as opposed to Android's uncontrolled, fragmented mess and the singular, completely restricted iPhone platform.What I'm waiting for to jump are:
1) A more modern hardware platform. I understand all the arguments about why WP doesn't *need* a dual-core yadda yadda, but I have no interest in side-grading from my iPhone 4 to a hardware platform with pretty much exactly the same capabilities. I want an *upgrade* for my investment. And besides, when the hardware capability is there, the software that takes advantage of it will follow suit, and I've seen plenty of reports that 3rd-party Silverlight-based software does indeed suffer slowdown. I need at least a dual-core with a reasonably capable GPU.
2) I need an SD-card slot or some other way to increase the available storage. High-end devices with 8, 16, or even 32GB of NAND with no upgradability is simply not sufficient.
3) A quality screen with a pixel density that's at least competitive with what my iPhone 4 has. I don't want to downgrade to a screen that's looks worse.
I'm hoping by the end of this year with WP8 out, attractive hardware will be out so I can jump to the Windows Phone platform and never look back.
a5cent - Friday, January 6, 2012 - link
Excellent! I agree, and wonder how many other people feel similarly. I suspect you almost have to be a software developer to really appreciate the benefits of the controlled hardware platform. Microsoft's ability to guarantee that every WP device owner will get every update is one such benefit. However, other benefits that are more easily appreciated by end users have yet to materialize.I don't know about expandable storage, but we know the other issues will be resolved with WP8.
I'm also holding on to my current phone. I will also go for WP8 if:
a) we get very tight integration between W8 and WP8
b) we get some AAA applications and games directly from MS which make use of WP8 hardware