Nokia Lumia 1520: Windows Phone Goes Big, but Not Brilliant

What's This?

By Pete Pachal2013-11-18 05:55:39 -0800

It's easy to dismiss the Nokia Lumia 1520 as ridiculous. After all, the first Windows Phone phablet didn't settle for an ample, large or even huge screen. It went full-on colossal at a 6 inches diagonal. It just feels bizarre to call this device a smartphone.

That's why you really need to avoid thinking of the new Lumia as a phone to appreciate its virtues. There's a reason many users — especially those in parts of Asia — are flocking to large-screen smartphones, and it's not because they look incredibly hip holding a tiny TV to their faces. In 2013, a smartphone is your primary window into your entire digital existence, and the larger that window, the more powerful that connection is.

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That said, there's a finite limit on how large a device can be and still be considered mobile. For most, the Lumia 1520 will be beyond that line. It's one of the most un-pocketable phones I've ever used, often slipping out of my pants pocket while I was sitting on a couch.

When I wore jeans, it filled out my front pocket completely, pushing against the skin of my leg. And I'm 6-foot-4; I suspect shorter people in tight clothing would find it impossible to sit down with the Lumia 1520 in a pants pocket.

Giving Phablets a Hand

Even if you carry the Lumia 1520 around in a handbag, the form factor gets in the way. As with all phablets, operating the device with one hand is a challenge, and Nokia doesn't give you much help in the way of optional shifted keyboards or repositioned buttons (à la the Samsung Galaxy Note) to make it any easier.

On top of that, the phone is just plain hard to hang on to. Nokia opted for the same glossy finish from previous Lumias for the phone's backside, which looks absolutely gorgeous, but also makes the phone a little slippery. That's okay if you have a confident grip on the device, but the 1520's extreme size often stood in the way of that. I must have fumbled and even dropped it at least a half-dozen times while I was trying to snap a picture.

Photo taking was a little awkward partly because Nokia encourages you to take pictures with the dedicated camera shutter button that resides near where your index finger would rest when you hold the phone in landscape mode. However, if you push down at the wrong place — and sometimes even at the right one — your fingers may slip on the glossy-smooth edge, which is curved.

You can mitigate the slippage somewhat with Nokia's optional case, which folds over to become a stand, similar to Apple's iPad Smart Covers. The only problem is that it's a horrible design: When folded, the case does an extremely poor job of holding the phone up, and your fingernails will suffer every time you try to pop the phone in and out of it. Avoid.

Plus-Size Windows Phone

Nokia made a good choice with the dedicated camera button. The 1520's screen isn't just big; it's also full HD (1,920 x 1,080) resolution. Photos — especially the ones you take with the phone's 20-megapixel camera — look stunning on the display. This device was clearly designed to show off media, and it has enough photo-capturing tech on board to qualify for Nokia's PureView label.

In addition to all those pixels, the device has a powerful engine to drive them: a 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB of RAM. On paper, the Nokia Lumia 1520 is the largest, most powerful smartphone to ever carry the Windows Phone banner.

In practice, I felt the hardware delivered the goods, but the software sometimes lagged behind. Windows Phone recently had a big update that introduced support for much of the tech on board the 1520. And it definitely got those tent-pole features right, but it's the details that sometimes falter.

For starters, I got a persistent error when trying the sync my Mashable Google Apps account. The 1520 told me it didn't have enough memory to fully sync the account, which would lead to delivery delays and the inability to view messages in folders other than the inbox. Since my iPhone 4S, with two-year-old hardware, handles the account with no issues, I find it hard to believe a state-of-the-art phablet would run out of memory doing such a fundamental smartphone task.

I then ran into a problem with Facebook. When I tried to share a photo to the service from my gallery, Facebook didn't appear in the share list. I eventually discovered that, although I'd already downloaded and logged into the app, the gallery wouldn't actually let me share to Facebook without officially adding it as an account in Settings.

I found this very odd since third-party services like Twitter and Flickr appeared in the list without signing in via settings (Twitter appears twice, confusingly), and that goes double since Microsoft actually builds the Facebook app for Windows Phone. This may seem like a minor issue, but really, who other than a power user is going to think to sign into Facebook twice, in two different places, to fully connect their phone to the service?

There were other annoyances — you can't copy and paste the information in the "About Phone" page, for example — and while none of them was particularly disastrous, they're generally indicative of a platform in need of a little more polish.

At least Windows Phone has gotten a nice surge of developer interest lately. Now that it's overtaken BlackBerry to become the world's third-place mobile ecosystem, many high-profile apps are flocking to Windows Phone, including Vine, which debuted in the Windows Store last week. Instagram and Path are coming, too, although exact dates haven't been announced.

Nonetheless, I still long for the day Windows Phone gets so big that Google can no longer ignore it. As a voracious user of Google's services, I was disappointed to find no official apps for Maps, Gmail, Hangouts and others. There is a Google search app, but it's about as bare-bones as it gets.

For the apps that are present, few yet take full advantage of the Lumia 1520's large display. Twitter, for example, simply looks like the regular Windows Phone app, just zoomed. Nothing against zooming — the text in many apps, such as Evernote, is sharp and easier to skim. Switching to the built-in email app, however, shows what they're lacking, using the increased real estate to fit more messages on the screen.

Image Improvement

One app that definitely does use that screen is the camera. Or should I say apps: Similar to the Lumia 1020, the 1520 provides two different camera apps: A basic one for snapping quick pics, and a full-featured Nokia Camera app, complete with manual controls, for really tailoring your shots.

I question the need for two separate apps, and it's another feature that will steer this device to power users only. The Nokia Cam is pretty great, though — I particularly like how the controls slide in as virtual dials from the right, sort of like the Samsung Galaxy Camera.

During a quick hop to Atlantic City, I captured various pics under different lighting conditions with the 1520. I was taken aback by the level of detail I could get in good light and even in bad lighting with stationary subjects — I could pick out ridges in a sand castle I shot at night on the beach.

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However, The 1520 camera didn't do much more about motion blur than any other cellphone camera when I snapped some photos of a party later in the evening. But with the Nokia Camera I was able to make my own compromises by changing shutter speed and ISO. My shots might have been grainier and dimmer, but at least they weren't fuzzy.

The camera's flash helped in low light, but it also occasionally hit people with red eye. And even with the flash, you're not immune to motion blur.

The Lumia 1520 is also the first phone to include Nokia's Storyteller feature. I really don't get this app. It appears to be a convenient way to organize photos by date and location (swipe feature: you can swipe through pics with a map in the background), but the name seems to imply something greater. As an actual storytelling feature, I much prefer HTC's auto-generated Zoe videos based on events.

The Biggest Lumia

Nokia doubled down on the phablet by cranking the Lumia 1520 to 6 inches. It was a bold move, and that screen really lets its camera abilities shine.

But as far as enhancing your overall experience, Nokia's XXL Lumia doesn't make the most out of its extra pixels to make the sacrifice in usability worth the trade. At this point in Windows Phone's evolution, I'd recommend going with a more pocketable smartphone and supplementing that with a small-screen Windows 8.1 tablet like the Acer Iconia W4 if you want to take things to the next level.

A year from now, things may look different, however, so I wouldn't count the biggie-size Windows Phone out yet. Once developers start to take full advantage of the larger Lumia's canvas, the phone could evolve from ambitious gadget to a true everything device. Until then, there's still a lot more that separates the Lumia 1520 from a tablet than a couple of consonants.

The Lowdown

What's Good

What's Bad

Bottom Line

The Nokia Lumia 1520 has an excellent screen and the tech to back it up, but the experience will leave you wanting.

Images: Mashable, Nina Frazier Hansen

Topics: Lumia, Lumia 1520, Mobile, Nokia, Nokia Lumia 1520, phablet, reviews, Tech, Windows Phone