review Nokia Lumia 1520

Nokia Lumia 1520 review: the best Windows Phone device yet

Summary

The Lumia 1520 offers a Windows Phone experience unlike any we've seen before. With its top-notch hardware, fantastic imaging and constantly improving firmware, this is by far our favorite WP8 device.

Windows Phone has never looked this good. The latest update to Microsoft's mobile operating system, known as Update 3, added support for 1080p displays, large smartphone screens and state-of-the-art processors. And now, these features are finally showing up on actual hardware. The first device to tick off all these boxes is the Nokia Lumia 1520, a 6-inch flagship with all of the trimmings we've been waiting to see on a Windows Phone device for three years now.

Because high-end Windows Phones have been limited to whatever specs Microsoft officially supports, we've felt that Nokia's flagships didn't differ enough in specs from the lowest-end Lumias to justify the enormous price difference. At least, they didn't until now. The Lumia 1520 is the first top-of-the-line Windows Phone device that brings the best possible components. So, what's WP8 like on hardware that isn't behind the times? Let's find out.

Hardware

The design language of the Nokia Lumia series has changed little since the introduction of the first device, the Lumia 800, more than two years ago. The 1520 has the same type of build as most other Lumia flagships (one exception being the 925), which is to say it's fashioned out of unibody polycarbonate plastic. Just like many of its predecessors, it's an incredibly solid device, and that's even more important with the 1520 than with earlier models.

Why? Because it's a 6-inch beast of a phone, and if you're not careful, you might drop it. At 162.8 x 85.4 x 8.7mm, it's thinner than the 5.9-inch HTC One Max, which makes the 1520 a bit more comfortable to hold. Still, it's wider, taller and a hair thicker than the 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 3 -- not to mention heavier, at 7.27 ounces (206g). Thanks to the 1520's thin, curved sides, you can get a decent grip on the phone simply by wrapping your fingers around the device, but this has an unfortunate side effect. Whereas the Lumia 1020 has rounded edges, the 1520's sides are sharper, making it difficult for the tips of your fingers to actually rest comfortably on them. This is especially troublesome when you're trying to take pictures with the 1520 and you feel like you have nothing to grip when you want a more stable shot.

Our review unit was a white AT&T model, but you can also get it in black, yellow or red. With the exception of the glossy red version, the Lumia 1520 sports a matte finish quite similar to the white Nexus 5. It's smooth on the back and sides and doesn't involve any special material or texture. Again, this is nothing new for Nokia's Lumia phones, but it feels a bit more slippery here because it's less comfortable to hold.

Taking a look at the back of the phone, you'll see the 20-megapixel rear camera atop a hump that looks precisely like the one on the Lumia 925. Above that is a dual-LED flash module and multiple mics. A speaker grille and three silver pogo pins are on the bottom of the back, the latter of which will come in handy for the optional wireless charging cover that you'll be able to buy separately.

Before moving on, let's double back to one particular hardware feature that hasn't received much attention: the multiple mics located just above the camera on the back of the 1520. Nokia's included four microphones for directional stereo recordings. The idea here is to do a better job of capturing sound coming from objects in front of your camera -- people, pets, perhaps a band at a concert -- while rejecting noises picked up from other directions. We'll discuss more about how it fares in the section on video performance.

On the left side, you'll find a microSD reader, supporting cards up to 64GB, as well as a nano-SIM slot (this SIM is the same size as the Moto X andiPhone 5/5s, so it's smaller than the standard). To the right is the Lumia-standard trio of volume, power and two-stage camera shutter buttons, all of which are difficult to press because they're nearly flush with the phone's body. There's also a 3.5mm headphone jack on top and a micro-USB port on the bottom.Now, onto the front. The usual suite of capacitive Windows Phone navigation keys lines the bottom, while an earpiece, front-facing camera and carrier logo (AT&T in this case) sit up top. From a distance, the glass appears to be draped over the display so that there's no interruption between it and the rest of the phone's body, but upon closer inspection you'll see that there's a small gap between the glass and the polycarbonate.

The gap itself isn't such a big deal, but something else about the glass gave us pause: It's fitted with Gorilla Glass 2, the version of Corning's scratch-resistant glass that came out last year. The Lumia 1020, on the other hand, uses Gorilla Glass 3, which does a considerably better job protecting the screen. While this won't be a dealbreaker for most, we've already noticed various scratches on the corners and edges of the screen, and that's after just a few days of use. Basically, this means that you'll want to avoid putting the device in your pocket or purse alongside pointy items.

At the time of this writing, the Lumia 1520 has only been announced on one US carrier, but it's widely available in other parts of the world. There are three different model numbers, each offering compatibility with different networks. Each variant has quad-band GSM/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900) and at least four HSPA+ bands (850/900/1900/2100), but AT&T's model (the RM-938) comes with a fifth band for AWS, technically making it compatible with T-Mobile's HSPA+ network. Only two of the models come with LTE: the RM-937, which features compatibility with five bands (800/900/1800/2100/2600), and the RM-938, which offers support for a different set of five bands (2, 4, 5, 7, 17). Those mainly serve AT&T and T-Mobile in the US. (Update: We didn't clearly state another pair of differences on the AT&T version versus the global units. The AT&T option only comes with 16GB internal storage and wireless charging requires an optional cover, whereas the global models are 32GB and have the capability built-in.)

Display

High-resolution smartphone displays come a dime a dozen, but this is unchartered territory for Windows Phone devices. Nokia's recent flagships have featured beautiful ClearBlack screens, so we were excited to see that the Lumia 1520 brings a similar panel, just one with more pixels. The Lumia 1520 sports a 6-inch ClearBlack IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, which means you're looking at a pixel density of 368 pixels per inch. The 1520 still isn't quite as pixel-dense as the Galaxy Note 3, which offers the same resolution in a screen that's 0.3 inch smaller, but let's focus on the actual quality rather than minuscule differences in pixel density.

To cut straight to the point, we love the 1520's display. It offers vibrant colors for an LCD and has brighter whites than the AMOLED panel on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, although its darker shades aren't quite as deep. The viewing angles are better than on almost every other phone. In fact, even if we weren't impressed by anything else on the display, we'd still rave about how easy it is to ready in direct sunlight.

Still, what if your eyes have completely different color preferences from ours? Perhaps you're a fan of warmer displays and hold colder ones in complete disdain, or maybe you simply can't stand colors so saturated that they look cartoony. It's cases like these where the high-end Lumias come with a competitive advantage: You can actually adjust the color profile yourself by changing both the temperature and saturation. As it happens, we rarely felt the need to make any adjustments, but it's worth noting there aren't many smartphones offering this option. As an aside, the 1520's capacitive touchscreen is also sensitive enough that you can use it with gloves on, but this has been included on the last few Lumias and is nothing new with the 1520.

Software

With each new generation of Windows Phone, the OS becomes more and more enticing. An increasing number of major developers are now starting to give WP8 a closer look, and as a result, the ecosystem is starting to feel more mature. Companies that were once hesitant to pour resources into Microsoft's OS are now jumping on board: Pandora, Instagram, Vine, Path, Tumblr and many other heavy hitters now either have apps in the Windows Phone Store or have at least committed to releasing something in the near future.

In addition to offering support for 1080p displays, larger smartphone screens and Snapdragon 800 chipsets, the third update to Windows Phone 8 came with a few software enhancements as well. Included in the list of new features is Driving Mode, which keeps distractions to a minimum while you're on the road. The update also brings the ability to lock screen orientation, as well as assign ringtones to text messages and other notifications. You can also tap on an open app in the app switcher to get rid of programs running in the background.

As a way of doing its part to grow the Windows Phone ecosystem, Nokia bundles together its own software and firmware updates alongside Microsoft's and then rolls them out to several Lumia models. (Nokia's Amber update, for instance, was first seen on the Lumia 1020 earlier this summer and rolled out to other Lumias afterward.) The latest package, which comes pre-installed on the Lumia 1520, is called the Black update.

Camera

The Nokia Lumia 1020 made waves with its 41-megapixel camera, which featured some new imaging technologies that even put some point-and-shoots to shame. After such a fantastic introduction, what's the best way to follow up? Well, something tells us that the real follow-up to the 1020 is yet to come, as the 1520's shooter is actually a downgrade. But we can't really blame Nokia for this: It clearly had to cut some corners in order to make room for some of the 1520's other new features mentioned earlier, and if a 20-megapixel camera counts as "cutting corners," you know that Nokia's certainly doing something right.

We won't do another recap of how Nokia's PureView technology works -- we spent a considerable amount of time discussing the nitty-gritty details in our review of the Lumia 1020, so add that to your essential reading list -- but let's dig into what makes this particular version of the PureView special. Just like the 1020, the 1520 offers oversampling options, but due to the lower resolution, you'll get a high-res image taken at 19 megapixels along with a 5MP lower-res shot, which will come in handy for uploading your photos to Instagram, Facebook or whatever service you want. By the way, the higher-res image can also be taken in RAW format, which you can switch to in the settings (Nokia refers to it as DNG, or digital negative). Nokia also claims that since the 1020 came out, it's improved many of the imaging-capture algorithms involved in snapping shots.

The 1520's lens uses an aperture of f/2.4, compared to the 1020's f/2.2; it has a sensor size of 1/2.5 inch, which is significantly smaller than the 1020's 1/1.5; it features optical image stabilization (OIS) and offers a focal length of 26mm, which is the same on both. Finally, the 1520 matches the 1020 with a max ISO of 4000.

Thank youuu

.