The Nokia Lumia 520 was the fifth Windows Phone 8 handset from the Finnish
firm and it slots into the very bottom end of the range, just below the Nokia
Lumia 620.
And we do mean just below – the specs of the 520 and 620 are remarkably
similar, meaning that Nokia's main competition at the bottom end of the market
is itself. There's also the mid-level Lumia 625 that Nokia released last
November and the newer Lumia 630 and Lumia 635.
Otherwise, its biggest rival is the Huawei Ascend W1 – a low-end handset that
we're rather fond of.
Of course if you look beyond Windows Phone there's a whole host of Android
competitors, chief of which is the superb Motorola Moto G – a smartphone that
pretty much redefined what a 'budget' handset could be.
There are other options to, of course, such as the ZTE Blade Q Mini or the
HTC Desire 610, which was announced at MWC 2014 in Barcelona.
But here's something that may have a bearing on whether you buy the Lumia 520
– the phone is now the world's top-selling Windows Phone 8 handset, thanks to
its impressive specs and low-end price.
What's more, it was the third best-selling phone in the UK in December 2013
according to Jim Belfiore, the VP of operating systems at Microsoft.
This little handset has also just been on the receiving end of Nokia's Lumia
Black system update that adds some extra functionality to the device as well as
some new features to play with. More on that later.
The Nokia Lumia 520 has a fairly generous 4-inch, 480 x 800 display and is
powered by a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and 512MB of RAM.
That may not sound like much but the power matches the Lumia 620, and we had
few qualms about the performance of that phone given its price. The
screen is
actually slightly bigger than that of the Nokia Lumia 620, which only has a
3.8-inch display.
You can now pick the Nokia Lumia 520 up from £99.95 SIM free or from £69.99
if you buy it locked on a PAYG deal, making it incredibly affordable.
That means a decent saving for those who don't mind committing to a network.
It's cheaper than the Nokia Lumia 625 too.
At first glance it's certainly an impressive handset for the price, easily
competing with the similarly priced Ascend W1 and potentially rendering the
Nokia Lumia 620 redundant.
In fact, given that it has similar specs, a bigger screen and a better
battery, you might be wondering why the Lumia 520 is considered lower-end than
the 620.
Well, there are a few reasons. First off, the Nokia Lumia 520 doesn't have
NFC. It also doesn't have a camera flash or a front-facing camera, plus there's
no compass built into it. And while the screen is slightly bigger, it still has
the same resolution, resulting in a marginally lower ppi.
But we don't consider any of them to be deal breakers, and depending on how
you plan to use the phone they may well be things you can happily live with -
especially for £70.
Like all recent Nokia handsets there's a lot of colour in the Nokia Lumia
520. It shares the look of other Lumia devices, with a single piece of smooth
plastic covering the back and sides of the phone.
That shell is available in black or white, but the bright shades of yellow,
blue and red on offer will appeal if you like it loud.
If nothing else, it makes Nokia handsets stand out from the crowd. Regardless
of the colour, it's quite a nice looking phone in other ways, with an angular,
rectangular design more in line with the higher end Nokia Lumia 920 than the
curved edges of its closest relations – the Nokia Lumia 620 and 625.
It's certainly a more distinctive (and I'd argue classier) look than that of
the Lumia 620 – which is odd considering the Lumia 520 is supposed to be the
more basic option.
It's also slimmer and lighter than the Lumia 620, at a fairly sleek 9.9mm and
124g. At 119.9x64mm it is longer and wider than the Lumia 620, but that's
understandable given that it's also got a slightly bigger screen.
I like the feel of it too. The plastic casing seems almost warm, making it
nice to hold, and it's not as slippery as it might look – so getting a firm grip
on the handset is no problem.
The almost jagged corners can dig into your hand a little when held in
certain positions, but it's at worst slightly uncomfortable and easily avoided
by adjusting your grip.
The front of the Nokia Lumia 520 is mostly screen as you'd expect and at
4-inches it's a decent size for a low-price handset. The pixel density of 233
pixels per inch also isn't bad at all for the money you're paying. Sure, it's
dwarfed by the likes of the 469ppi HTC One, but it's also many times
cheaper.
A huge plus is the ability to use gloves with the screen too – being able to
type in the cold weather is becoming a really common ability on phones, but I'm
impressed Nokia managed it on such a cheap handset.
Unlike some handsets, the screen here isn't edge-to-edge: there's a black
border running the entire way around it. At the sides this border is fairly
narrow, but it becomes quite wide at the top to make room for the earpiece and a
Nokia logo. It's even wider at the bottom, because that's where you'll find the
start, back and search softkeys.
The back of the handset is almost featureless, with just a small Nokia logo
in the centre, the 5MP camera lens near the top and a tiny loudspeaker near the
bottom.
The right edge of the handset houses all of the phone's physical buttons,
with a volume rocker at the top, a power button near the middle and a camera
button near the bottom. The layout works well, with the buttons spaced far
enough to prevent confusion.
The left edge is devoid of any features, ports or buttons at all. The top is
home only to a 3.5mm headphone port on the left-hand side.
The bottom edge has a micro USB port in the centre, which is used for
charging or connecting the Nokia Lumia 520 to a computer.
The back cover is easy to remove – you simply use your nails to peel it away
at each corner. The cover itself feels reasonably sturdy, so I don't see it
snapping even if you take it on and off a lot.
Once that has been removed, you'll have access to the 1430 mAh battery (which
interestingly, is bigger than the 1300 mAh battery found in the Nokia Lumia
620).
Underneath the battery there are two slots – one for a micro SIM card and one
for a microSD card. The Nokia Lumia 520 supports up to 64GB cards, which comes
in very handy for bulking up the storage from the fairly limiting 8GB of onboard
memory.
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