Nokia Lumia 1320 Review, A budget Windows 8 smartphones

First Impressions

Nokia’s double-pronged attack on the 6-inch smartphone market is a bold, and slightly confused move. While the Nokia Lumia 1520 dazzles, the cheaper Lumia 1320 is solid without setting the world alight. The cheaper price point will appease too many, but the lower resolution screen and considerably worse camera will always exasperate with holders.

Design

The Nokia Lumia 1320’s design fits in with the phone’s lower price and reduced specs. That is not to say it looks bad, though. On the contrary, the phone remains pretty streamlined and sleek, with the two piece body available in a range of colours. The 6-inch Nokia Lumia 1320 is the mid-range sibling of the Nokia Lumia 1520, and a rival to the HTC One Max. It forgoes headline-grabbing specs in favour of a more affordable price.  However, the Nokia Lumia 1320 design has a distinctly budget air to it. The phone looks like an oversized Nokia Lumia 620, with round corners giving it a softer, more casual appearance than most high-end Lumias.

Screen Quality

Although missing out on the 1080p Full HD display of its big brother the Lumia 1520, the Nokia Lumia 1320’s screen is still reasonably impressive. Yes, in a phone of this size a Full HD panel is preferable, but the 6-inch 720p HD display is still fairly sharp. Video looks worse than it does on the Lumia 1520, but when scrolling through the Windows Phone menus, the 1320’s screen appears sharp and detailed enough. With a Gorilla Glass 3 top coating, the screen is tough as well as visually appealing.  The relatively low 245 pixels-per-inch image density is noticeable elsewhere, though.

Pixel Resolution

A 1,280 x 720 pixel resolution is nothing to be sniffed at, but it does leave the Lumia 1320 at a major disadvantage when compared with the likes of the similarly-sized HTC One Max or Samsung Galaxy Note 3. Nokia’s ClearBlack display technology has helped enhance the colours of the IPS panel, with bright, vibrant, rich hues sitting alongside deep blacks.

Performance and Software

In a similar vein to the phone’s screen, the Nokia Lumia 1320’s performance is reduced, but not completely diminished by, the move back to a dual-core CPU. The Windows Phone platform has to date managed comfortably without quad-core processors, but the quad-core Lumia 1520 changed that. The Lumia 1320 has a 1.7GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and 1GB of RAM. As we have come to expect from many Lumia phones, this combination is perfectly satisfying without ever setting the world alight. Launching and running applications left us with no concerns about power shortage, with the dual-core CPU skipping through all tasks with easy. During our brief time with the phone, though, the Nokia Lumia 1320’s performance was marred by one major glitch that crashed the phone.

Battery

Despite the less power hungry components, the Nokia Lumia 1320’s battery is the same size as the 1520’s. The huge 3400mAh Lithium-Ion brick is said to offer 21 hour talk time, so should more than ample see you through a day or two’s use.

Another area where Nokia has cut corners is the phone’s internal storage. There’s just 8GB on board, but this can be expanded via microSD up to 64GB.

Colors

The phone comes in bright orange, yellow, white and black colours.

Chunky weight

At just 9.8mm thick and 220g in weight, the Nokia Lumia 1320 is not hugely chunky or heavy considering its size. The phone’s rounded edges and plastic body sit comfortably in the hand, although the cheaper materials do feel a little less grippy. The Lumia 1320 will cost less than half its big brother, but has a more moderate dual-core CPU and a 720p display, rather than a 1080p one. Its key Features are 6-inch 720p HD display; 5-megapixel camera and 1.7GHz dual-core processor. It is priced at £299.99.

Disappointing

A noticeable step back from the 1520, the Nokia Lumia 1320’s camera is a bit of a disappointment. It’s one of the phone’s main drawbacks. Dropping from a 20-megapixel PureView offering to a standard 5-megapixel snapper, the difference is extremely noticeable.