Nokia Lumia 820

After reviewing the Lumia 920, now it's the turn of its little brother. The Nokia Lumia 820 is the upper-middle range of the Finns, with a different design from the 920 and with some important differences, such as the microSD card or the interchangeable covers. In other respects, both mobiles are identical. NFC connection, Nokia applications or Windows Phone 8 are topics that we already de alt with with the 920 and that in this case work exactly as well, so I will not dwell on them. In general, the Lumia 820 is a phone that I quite liked, although it f alters in the aspects in which the 920 excels: screen and camera.

Breaking with the design of the Lumia

The first thing that stands out when seeing the Lumia 820 is that Nokia has decided to change the design line of the Lumia 800 and 900, and has opted this time for a more square shape, without so much curvature.

Despite the change in shape, the 820 is still just as comfortable to hold in the hand as the 920 . Of course, the smaller size also influences (the screen is smaller and the front is better used). The material of the housings is still polycarbonate, so the maintains the pleasant touch.

"Once again, we find ourselves with the problem of weight. In the hand it&39;s a bit lighter than the 920, but still falls within what we&39;d call a heavy phone. As I already said with the 920, this is not a problem for me: you quickly get used to it."

In terms of finish, the Lumia 820 is perfectly integrated, even despite having interchangeable covers (as we'll see later, this becomes a problem). The screen fits perfectly, as do the top and bottom speakers.

The holes for the connectors are also calculated to fit without any problem. The same with the physical buttons, which despite being in the casing do not lose sensitivity or fixation .

Interchangeable casings and microSD, the points in favor of the Lumia 820

One of the novelties of the 820 are the interchangeable covers, which also give us access to the battery, SIM and microSD. The idea is very good, since with them we can add wireless charging or greater robustness to the phone just by changing it.

That's right: removing a cover from the Lumia 820 is not easy at all. Especially the wireless charging case, they are very tight to the phone and you have to have a lot of skill to remove them at the first time. Refitting them is easier, although care must be taken.

When removing the casing we find the battery and under it, the holes for the SIM and microSD cards. Of course, from there we can also access the screws and disassemble the phone, a good point in favor of the Lumia 820.

As for microSD support in Windows Phone 8, it's practically transparent to the user. We insert the card, turn on the phone and the dialog appears asking us where we want to save the photos and videos. If we want, we can access the card from the computer to save multimedia or install applications.Quite an advantage given the meager 8GB of internal memory of the 820.

The screen, an aspect that Nokia should have taken more care of

Maybe I'm a little biased after getting used to the Lumia 920's screen, but I think Nokia has taken very little care with the 820's panel. First, for the resolution: the 800x480 pixels fall short on the 4.3" screen. A density of 217 ppi is not the best for a phone that claims to be mid-high range.

On the other hand, the AMOLED panel saturates the colors too much, in my opinion. Black is totally black (so much so that it blends in with the rest of the panel), but white isn't exactly white. It's not a bad screen, of course, but not what we'd expect after seeing the 920. It does perform well outdoors, I haven't had too many problems with glare from the sun.

The Nokia Lumia 820 also features Synaptics' super-responsive touchscreen. And, curiously, it works better than its older brother: in this case, I have been able to use it with thick woolen gloves. It even works with the cord in a few cases. In other words, the material influences much more than the thickness when handling it.

And finally, I was also testing the automatic brightness. I'm not a big fan of this type of system, but it seems to me that the Lumia 820 works much better than the rest of the company's phones.

Camera and sound: enough, but not outstanding

Let's go now with the multimedia part. In the camera section, we have a Carl Zeiss lens and an eight megapixel sensor. The performance could be described as sufficient: it doesn't behave badly, better than the 800's camera, but we can't put it as one of the best on the market.In low light it works decently, but don't expect wonders.

The reflections don't sit too well with the lens.

Also, I have found some rather annoying glitches when taking photos outdoors: the lens suffers a lot from reflections. In the photo above, the sunlight barely hit the lens (the phone and the sun were almost lined up), and you can see the result.

As for the front camera, it has enough quality to make video calls and be seen without any problem. About the video, it is not a remarkable aspect of the phone either. It records at 720 and 1080p, which gives us very good image quality, but doesn't perform too well in low light and with barely noticeable stabilization.

The Lumia 820 doesn't fare too badly in low light.

Like the 920, the Lumia 820 doesn't stand out in the sound department. Headphone quality is good, and the speakers are powerful ( although they do distort the sound if the volume is turned up too high). It does fail a lot in the microphone: it barely highlights the treble and distorts the sound too much. Enough for calls, but certainly not great.

Lumia 820 Battery and Wireless Charging

With the special case, the 820 can be charged wirelessly.

The Lumia 820's battery has a capacity of 1650 mAh, enough to last a day without too much trouble. In fact, I think it performs better than my 920, so plus point for the 820.

Although this phone does not have wireless charging, you can add it with one of Nokia's cases. You have to consider whether to buy it or not: as I already said, wireless charging is not as efficient as a cable, and it can be uncomfortable depending on the user.In addition, this special case is thicker and makes the phone heavier.

Personally, I think the phone looks better with normal cases, but it's a matter of taste. What I do value a lot is precisely that we can choose whether or not to have wireless charging with something as simple as a case change.

Nokia Lumia 820 Conclusions

Perhaps because of the critical tone of the analysis it may seem that I don't like the Lumia 820: quite the opposite. It is a very good phone: it does not claim to be the best but it meets expectations. The different design is appreciated, and of course the care that Nokia puts into the integration of the entire terminal (including the casings) deserves an honorable mention.

The phone feels very good, it's nice, fast and fluid (it's Windows Phone, so we couldn't expect anything else). The weak point for me is the screen, which has not quite convinced me.

But the real fault of the Lumia 820 is not the phone itself, but its price. We are facing a phone that is good, yes, but that does not stand out. It is a good phone for the mid-range, but costing 500 euros it will have a very difficult time penetrating the market. The alternatives are the HTC 8X, which you can get for a similar price; or the 920, which provides much more than this phone for a not too big cost difference.