Now I have to admit, when it comes to tech, mobile phones are not the most exciting, interesting products in my opinion. My first phone was a green Nokia that could be used as a brick, if needed, but it did have snake on it which is the best mobile game by far! However, when Microsoft asked if I wanted to test one of their Lumia phones, I was quite excited. I've seen all of the adverts for the Lumia phones and they look really unique and fun to use.
I have the *Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE (£129.99, sim free) in the orange shade; one half of me loves the colour as it is just so bright and summery, however another half of me thinks it's a little too young for me, if that makes sense! The phone is available in blue, white and black, I would have personally picked the white phone and it would be one of the best options, along with black, with regards to taking photos. In terms of what you get for the price, I think this phone is a great deal; if you want an up to date and easy to use phone at a reasonable price then the Lumia 640 if definitely a good option, in my opinion. However for me personally there are a couple of flaws.
Design, Menu + Using The Phone
Overall I love the general look of the phone; I also love the layout of the main menu and just how colourful and vibrant the phone is. However the one negative is the back colour of the phone which does become an issue when taking photos and for me personally the phone is too big to hold easily in one hand while taking photos, playing a game or typing, for example, although I do have tiny hands!
The menu is a unique aspect of this phone, it is bright, colourful and easy to navigate. I love the colourful square menu, it is quick to navigate through when you get used to the layout. However it is quick to scroll through, it is easy to find what you want and there is also a full list menu of all the apps/options.
The keyboard is an aspect that I personally don't like, I find the keys are little too small/thin for my chubby little fingers but I also don't like the keyboard on my iPhone either! Using the internet/wifi, apps and Cortana is quick and easy; Cortana is the Microsoft version of Siri and unlike Siri it is pretty useful and I think if I had this phone in the long term then it would be something I would use often.
Camera/Video
The Lumia 640 LTE has a HD 0.9MP wide angle front facing camera with flash which isn't great but the main back facing camera is 8MP which is much better! The camera is so quick and easy to use. It has some amazing settings too where you can change the brightness, focus, sensitivity and shutter speed all before you take a photo - how amazing is that! The ability to change the brightness comes in so useful in poorly lit areas or just because of the dull, rainy English weather! Also when you take a photo, the phone makes it into a 1 to 2 second video so you have a little clip for each photo but you can also upload them to social media as a photo, not a video - but I thought it was a unique feature.
The one aspect that annoys me when taking photos is that the orange back cover can change the colour of items I'm trying to photograph - hopefully you can see what I mean with the photos above. For example, I took a few photos of an orange blossom plant we have and on occasion the reflection of the orange back cover would make the white flowers look pink/orange on the screen and in photographs which isn't great. Also in direct sun the screen brightness isn't high enough for me to view the screen well.
Photo sharing isn't great as I don't usually use Microsoft products and I didn't want to share directly to social media; also the phone wouldn't send a photo via bluetooth to my iMac, I have no idea why, maybe I was doing something wrong. So I had to share photos by going onto my gmail and emailing them to myself which wasn't the quickest option. Also when uploading photos directly to instagram, the quality wasn't fantastic.
Apps/Games/Store
For some reason, my two hotmail accounts wouldn't work with this phone - I didn't receive the verification email/code so I had to create a new Microsoft account/email for me to download apps and use the phone properly. The first app I downloaded is Whats App as it's the way I text on my regular phone and it worked as normal and I also downloaded Instagram which is quite different to the Apple version. The Instagram Beta layout is a little different and I don't like it so much but it quick to share photos; I've uploaded a couple of photos that I took with the Lumia 640 on my instagram if you want to see the photo quality. After creating a new account, downloading apps and games was quick and easy, the games graphics were great on the 5 inch screen and there are a lot of games in the store to choose from including some pretty fantastic free ones.
Charging/Battery
The phone came with an american charger, I don't know if this comes with all Lumia phones but thankfully we had an american adapter. The phone doesn't take long to charge up and I find that it does hold it's charge really well; I find that my iPhone looses charge quicker than the Lumia 640. I'm really impressed with the battery life and charing time!
Overall
On the whole I have mixed opinions of this phone, there are some aspects that I LOVE such as the overall design, colourful menu, charge/battery life and the unique photos which have a clip attached, if that makes sense! However, there are also aspects that I have issues with such as the size of the phone, thin letter keys, reduced photo quality when uploaded to social media and the orange back cover which can change the colour of items you are trying to photograph. In terms of moving your contacts from a previous phone, there is a 'transfer my data' option which would be really useful. When the price is taken into consideration it is a fairly good deal on the whole, in my opinion! Overall rating: ★★★☆☆, 3/5.
Do you have this phone or any of the Microsoft Lumia phones? What do you think of the Lumia 640?
