Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black

 Brand Nokia | Model: A00008995

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Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black

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Nokia Lumia 820 Handset Windows Phone Sim free Black A00008995 Phones Mobile Phones

5.0 out of 5 stars What a beautiful smartphone!, 15 Jan 2013

By 

Gavin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Red (Electronics)

After having had the 820 a few days now, I must say I am very, very impressed with it. Setup up was extremely easy and the first thing I noticed was all the Nokia exclusive apps which add so much to the phone! - offline Sat Nav, Nokia Music and the various photo editors to name a few. This is one of the things that sets the Lumia apart from other windows phones - Nokia's own apps are simply outstanding!

On to the phone itself, really slick design, no rough edges and feels great to hold. Not heavy enough to be noticeable, but then again, not too light that it feels fragile. Having a micro sd slot is also a massive advantage, allowing you to store as much music/videos etc. as you want really. I've currently got a 32gb card in but it most likely supports 64gb as well. Expanding the storage through cards will also save you a fortune compared to other phones (iPhone 5 for example, astronomical increases for the bigger memory). A few of the reviews have mentioned how hard it is to take the back cover off, initially I agreed with them. However a quick youtube search brings up a short Nokia video on how to take the back off - if you do it properly its very easy.
Also, you would never know the back was removable when it is on, feels as if its a part of the phone.

Although the screen isn't HD like the Lumia 920, I really don't notice it much. The colour depth is great and when under sunlight, everything is still very clear.

As for windows phone 8, I absolutely love it! Its more of an evolution of WP7.5 so I'm very used to the layout and design of everything (used to have an HD7). The bonus is the features you keep on finding here and there and also, the apps designed specifically for WP8 are fantastic - the BBC news app in particular is outstanding. The best bit about the OS is that everything just works perfectly. When I got the phone, all I had to do was put in my windows live account and facebook account, the phone did the rest - contacts, people, mail, messages all synced in immediately. In my opinion the OS is great, a breath of fresh air from android/iOS and a very well thought out interface.

Another standout feature is the camera which I am very impressed with. Its an 8mp carl zeiss lens, which is all very well but that doesn't tell you much about image quality. Nokia have always been renown for their cameras - the clarity, warmth and colour in the pictures is really good - likewise, the low light performance is exceptional, with the right settings on it picks up loads of light. For a phone camera it is very, very good.

Last thing I wanted to mention was the price, I picked mine up brand new for £325 off of eBay - albeit without the wireless charging cover and plate. At that price the phone was a brilliant buy - it gives the iPhone a very good run for its money in most areas and comes in at half the price! The main thing I was stuck between before buying was whether to go for the Lumia 920. Its currently selling at around £520ish new. For the sake of an HD screen 0.2 inches bigger than the 820 and the wireless charging I don't know how you could justify the £200 extra. Don't forget as well, you won't get that all important micro sd on the 920.

So there we are, the 820 is a fantastic all round smartphone at a great price - can't recommend it enough!

4.0 out of 5 stars Nokia lumia 820, 14 Jan 2013

By 

K. R. Allan "kirsty" (bristol uk) - See all my reviews

(REAL NAME)
  

This review is from: Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black (Electronics)

this is such a beautiful phone. It is lovely to hold. It just feels right. Well crafted as you would expect of Nokia. The camera is fantastic and is accessible physical button on the side of the phone so easy to use in a hurry. No need to unlock, open software ect. I love the slickness of the windows environment. It works. Not cluttered or complicated. When you link contacts with facebook and e mail all the information is stored in contacts so you can message, e mail, phone direct from there. If you haven't tried a windows try it out. It is very easy and very slick. HOWEVER windows 8 (and 7) are unable to run any BBC content. The app is not compatible but never mind you can just go to the website and not the app. No, windows 8 will not run BBC content at all. Sadly this was a deal breaker for me and I sent it back but having tried an galaxy s2 and found it annoying I may go back to the lumia and hope things change,

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Phone overall!!, 14 Jan 2013

By 

simos - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black (Electronics)

Great phone, i have no problems at all, the only bad think is the low life battery. I would recommended windows phone 8 is great i am waiting the upgrades for fixing the bugs

0 of 6 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Can it really be as bad as this?, 13 Jan 2013

By 

lukudav "lukudav" (Somewhere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black (Electronics)

I was forced to take ownership of an 820 when my teenage daughter was about to throw it at me in frustration. I have more patience than her but I now feel the same.

Other reviewers have noted a "tight back cover". This is putting it mildly. My daughter broke three of her fingernails trying to get the cover off. I was better than this, only breaking two. After 20 minutes of following the Nokia instructions, referred to by a 5-star reviewer above, I decided that I really couldn't care less if the damn thing broke. So I used as much force as necessary, and it came off just before the limits of elasticity were exceeded. My right hand's little finger was sore for about an hour after that, but hey I could put an SD card in. Progress.

I wish now that I had broken the thing in two and dumped it in the bin. Windows Phone 8 is so immature that it makes my heart bleed. I used to like Nokia and my wife still has an ancient one that she swears by (rather than at). I have spent many happy hours looking for the most basic of apps (what I call applications, like Miranda's Mum). You would think that Nokia, having produced an app that counts your minutes/text/data usage, would have it working on the Lumia 820. Ha ha ... NO. When you ultimately find the app it politely tells you that it won't install on "your device". Whooppe doo - teenage daughter/Facebbok/at college/contract/dad paying = megabills. No thank you.

Call Orange or Nokia? Again, hilarity unless you want to wait 20 minutes plus. Email Orange ... again ha ha ha as they are "revising our email system" and dump your email. A nice online community? WP8 is too immature to have one (I am used to Ubuntu and the fabulous help nice people give.)

For goodness sake, you can't even map a drive letter to the device when you plug it into a Windows PC. I know lots of people think they are doing something when they are pointing and clicking (or swiping and tapping) but I prefer to set off batch files and go and have a cup of coffee.

If this is WP8 then it's Microsoft/Nokia's suicide note. Quite frankly, they were late to the party and the people already there have had all the booze and paired off. Unless you want frustration (and broken nails) I would stay clear.

But one star as the case is clearly strong (one has to be generous in these times of austerity.)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Smartphone so far, (for me)., 8 Jan 2013

By 

Keith - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black (Electronics)

After having had an iphone 4s, (smashed after falling 2ft from my shirt pocket)! and using the really awkward Sony Xperia T for a while, this Nokia smartphone is fantastic. It's made well, feels solid, operates smoothly and the windows OS is great. I love the live tiles.

Really impressed how easy it made setting up wireless and email, all automatic and without 'work arounds'.

The camera is really good too. The Sony Xperia had a 13 mega pixel camera but the Lumia 820 takes better pictures.

Battery lasts all day, sound quality is good, and the Nokia live radio gives you free streamed music. Definately the best put together phone out there.

All the apps I had on my iphone have been available in the Nokia or Windows apps store.

Finally delivery was fantastic and as advertised.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A brand new start, 6 Jan 2013

By 

Kaspars - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black (Electronics)

Good phone with good specification. WP 8 is way more better than WP 7.5. There are some features and settings missing tha I would like to be improved or added. I hope that soon MS will realease an update solving those problems.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nokia Lumia 820: a real Goldilocks Phone, 1 Jan 2013

By 

Michael Doyle (England) - See all my reviews

(REAL NAME)
  

This review is from: Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black (Electronics)

I've had this running on O2 for a few days now, having previously owned an HTC Titan Windows 7.5 phone. For me, the 820 is a real Goldilocks Phone - everything about it is just right. Handling, slick WP8 interface, perfect fit in the hand, reassuring solid feel - it's all there. The Micro SD card expansion slot is a real rarity in modern phones. I've fitted a 64Gb Micro SD card for storing video, photos & music; add that to the 8Gb RAM already onboard (plus 7Gb SkyDrive), and it leaves more expensive phones (including the iPhone) in the dust for onboard storage capacity. The sun shone today (hooray!) and I tested the legibility of the 4.3" screen in direct sunlight - it's the best I've ever seen, with excellent contrast.
What about apps? MS-Office is built in, as is a superb suite of Nokia Apps. And there's a rapidly growing range of apps in the WP8 marketplace. The only one I miss is the genuine version of Scrabble, which is only available on iOS in the UK due to licensing restrictions.
An unreserved 5 stars for an excellent piece of consumer technology.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nokia is back, now market it in 2013 and fight the iPhone and S3, 31 Dec 2012

By 

andrewdeerpark - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black (Electronics)

Purchased the Lumia 820 simfree as a Christmas present for my wife and she has not been disappointed it's a wonderful piece of kit.

I already have a Lumia 800 (this is what the Lumia 800 should have been) so I had a lot of experience setting up her phone right. So before the Christmas day I had setup an outlook account (Microsoft account) dropped her gmail into it, got a micro SIM off the local phone shop and added in an 8GB Micro SD card to the package.

The phone was setup on the Three Ireland phone network. The initial setup goes through a few wizards like the Microsoft account setup, contacts transfer via Bluetooth from her old N8 and wi-fi setup, all worked flawlessy.Had to wait about 2 hours for the new micro sim to kick into the Three Ireland network when it came we were up and running.

We then tested a few things like call quality: excellent, MMS picture sending again worked first time without any settings modification. As did mobile internet access, again no input of any settings was required.

As with the Lumia 800 the facebook integration under people hub is absolutely brilliant to the point of addiction. Also nokia drive turn by turn sat nav is top drawer and works in offline mode handy when roaming.

The windows 8 interface is really sweet being fast and fluid. Added in a few apps and they were all really brilliant. People complain about the lack of apps however this has not been an issue so far and there is more on the way.

The Lumia 820 is bigger and heavier than the 800 also the screen is much better as is the speed of the device. You really notice the snapdragon processor and 1GB of ram versus the Lumia 800 though it's no slouch either. The phone feels right in one hand it's solid with a removable cover that is a bit tricky to get off but has really decent quality to it.
The phone has 2 camera's the main one is really excellent with brilliant photos even in low light indoors. Again sharing on facebook and uploading to skydrive is so easy.
The internet browser is excellent being fast to render web pages and pinch and zoom plus playing video links seamlessly, the mobile youtube site works flawlessly.
My one gripe is the battery which you have to charge every night, however it being removable this might be upgraded in the future. . I have had no quality issues with the phone what so ever, like one reviewer here so obviously his device is faulty

I bought this phone from 3 choices, the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3 and Lumia 820. Having seen all the others I am very happy with my choice. The Lumia innovates more than the iPhone 5 has better built quality than both and allowing a Micro SD card means the phone is upgradeable. I encourage others who left Nokia because of some very bad products (N97 comes to mind) to reconsider you will not be disappointed

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Not quite..., 29 Dec 2012

By 

tommyfaf - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black (Electronics)

Hi, this is not meant to be a full review, it is an account of my experience with the 820 and it might answer some questions and help you to make a decision on whether to go for this phone or not.

For the last 5 years I have had iphones but have always wanted a reason to go back to nokia as they served me so well for so many years, the pinicale, for me, being the 6230i. After reading about the nokia in detail before its release, I thought that the 820 might be the return to glory for Nokia (and Windows). The 920 did not interest me as size wise the 820 was about as big as I wanted to go.

The 820 does feel really good in the hand, its a solid, quality feeling phone. The menus are fluid and look fantastic in either black on white or white on black (up to you), and once you personalize the home screen to your taste, it really is a very aesthetically pleasing experience.

I titled this review "not quite" as it is fairly close to ticking all the boxes for me but there are a few aspects that had me questioning whether me and the 820 would live happily ever after. I do not consider myself to be a "heavy user", I do a bit of internet surfing, talk on my phone for may be an hour during the day and I text quite a lot. To be fair though, I was messing around on the phone quite a lot, so this would obviously use more power than "normal" use, but I was struggling to make it through "a day" ie I was taking it off charge at about 7am and having to charge it again by about 7pm. In comparison, my 2 year old iphone 4 would easily make it through to charging when I go to bed at 11pm, so to me, the battery life on the 820 was not quite as good as what I am used to. Solution: buy a second battery and swap over when you need to.

One thing that I didnt understand is that there is no option to adjust the volume for the alarm clock. It is set to about 60% of total volume which is pretty loud. This may not bother some people but I like to be woken up gently, not fog horned out of bed! It just seems strange that in this day and age there is no option to adjust it. Solution: download an app that allows you to choose a song from your music collection and allow you to set the volume of your choice. Note: phone must be locked from inside the app without exiting or you will be fog horned!

A feature I really like on the iphones is being able to write an sms to one person without sending it, then writing one to someone else, then being able to go back to the first one, edit it some more and then send it. There is no draft function on Windows 8, if you are half way through a message, come out of messaging then go in to it again, your message will not be there. Apparently there is an update coming to allow the saving of drafts. After a search on the forums, someone posted that by using the "back" button you can retrieve partially written messages which I found very helpful.

At times, the touch screen didnt feel quite as reponsive as the iphone and I found my fingers were "wheel spinning" on the screen.

Again, little things, there didnt seem to be any "select all" option for text so you have to manually select everything which can take time. There is no volume adjust on the hands free headphones, again why not?

Some of this may sound picky but when you are used to having these features and then you dont, you start to wonder why you moved away in the first place. In the end I took the 820 back and went for iphone 4s which I am very pleased with.

There is so much potential here and if the issues that I have outlined dont bother you, Im sure you will love the 820. My advice is read some reviews have a play with one if you can.

Hope this helps :-)

1 of 18 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Painful to use, 27 Dec 2012

By 

CRAIG GEORGE PETTITT - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nokia Lumia 820 Sim-free Windows Smartphone - Black (Electronics)

Having owned Nokia's for 10+ years until they dropped the ball a few years ago letting Apple and Android shoot past them i was excited to see how Nokia would bring themselves back in to the game, I have owned the iPhone 3gs, 4 and 4s also Android Samsung s2 and s3 I decided to give Nokia another chance.....WHAT A HUGE MISTAKE
The phone is unattractive compared to the iPhone and Samsung, the operating system is sluggish and crashes to the point i belived the phone must be faulty. I was very unhappy and returned the product only to be told "that is how it is meant to be" OMG when i think back to the Nokia 7650 which was a joy to own and ahead of anything else on the market how could they have let this happen. While Symbian was a great system in its day it was never devolved enough and Nokia should have embraced android at the same time Samsung did. It makes me sad to see Nokia stuffing its products with such rubbish when the others in the market are so far ahead.

Come on Nokia unless you want to be owned by Microsoft in the coming years build a decent android phone and get back in the game!!

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