Nokia Lumia 520 - the first affordable smartphone, equipped with a 4-inch super-sensitive display that allows you to tap and scroll even with your fingernails, ignition keys or tight gloves. Hidden under the case is a 1GHz dual-core processor and 512MB of RAM. Built-in 8 GB memory and support for microSD cards up to 64 GB will allow you to carry even more entertainment content with you.

According to ZOOM.Cnews readers
Nokia Lumia 520 :

Lightweight, beautiful, functional, affordable, has a good camera, ergonomic, has capacious battery, can become a replacement for the player, can act as a GPS-receiver.

CHARACTERISTICS

light

Beautiful

Functional

Affordable

Has a good camera

Ergonomic

Has a powerful battery

Can be a replacement for the player

Can act as a GPS receiver

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MAIN SPECIFICATIONS

Food

Battery capacity: 1430 mAh Battery: removable Talk time: 14.7 hours Music time: 61 hours

Additional Information

Announce date: 2013-02-26 Package contents: phone, AC-20 charger, Nokia BL-5J battery, Nokia CA-189CD charging data cable, Nokia stereo headset WH-108, manual

General characteristics

Type: smartphone Weight: 124 g Control: touch buttons Operating system: MS Windows phone 8 Case type: classic Number of SIM cards: 1 Dimensions (WxHxD): 64x119.9x9.9 mm SIM card type: micro SIM

Screen

Screen type: color IPS, 16.78 million colors, touchscreen Type of touch screen: multitouch, capacitive Diagonal: 4 inch. Image size: 800x480 Pixels per inch (PPI): 233 Automatic screen rotation: yes

Multimedia features

Camera: 5 megapixels, 2592x1936 Camera functions: autofocus, digital Zoom 4x Movie recording: Yes (MP4) Max. video resolution: 1280x720 Audio: MP3, AAC, WMA, FM radio Headphone jack: 3.5 mm Max. video frame rate: 30fps

Connection

Interfaces: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, USB Standard: GSM 900/1800/1900, 3G Satellite navigation: GPS/GLONASS A-GPS system: yes

Memory and processor

Processor: Qualcomm MSM8227, 1000 MHz Number of processor cores: 2 Built-in memory: 8 GB random access memory: 512 MB Memory card support: microSD (TransFlash), up to 64 GB Video processor: Adreno 305 Memory card slot: yes, up to 64 GB

Other features

Control: voice dialing, voice control Sensors: ambient light, proximity Speakerphone (built-in speaker): yes Airplane mode: yes Profile A2DP: yes Main technical characteristics

Peculiarities
Type of	smartphone
Operating system	MS Windows Phone
Version	8
Frequency	1000 MHz
RAM	512 MB
Flash memory	8192 MB
Screen
Diagonal	4.0 "
Permission	800x480
Color reproduction	16 million colors
Digital camera
Camera	49920
Food
Working time	9 h
Standby time	360 h
Dimensions and weight
Width	64 mm
Height	120 mm
Depth	9.9 mm
The weight	124 gr.

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Windows Phone is an operating system that is installed only on Microsoft products. It was this company that took over the assets of the well-known and popular Nokia brand. Although the interest of buyers in this product began to decline rapidly, the manufacturer still launched a series of mobile phones called Lumia on the market. Surprisingly, it quickly sold out, and in considerable circulation. Therefore, these devices can be safely considered a kind of trump card of Finnish products.

According to most buyers, the available option is Nokia phone Lumia 520. If you pay attention to its hardware, you can see that it fully complies with modern requirements. It is impossible not to notice that the interest of users is also attracted by Windows Phone 8. What are the features of this smartphone model? What features will delight buyers of the Lumia 520? The answers to these questions, and more, the reader can find in this article.

Packing and scope of delivery

At first glance at the box in which the smartphone is transported, you can predict its attitude to the budget segment. The design of the packaging container looks inharmonious. The designers obviously went too far with the image of the phone, providing it from different angles. It was this that introduced a certain imbalance into the design of the box. Of course, on the packaging there is information about the brand and the name of the model. The main color remains the same - blue, and the text is printed in white. The back panel provides IMEI and WLAN data, as well as the firmware that is used on the Nokia Lumia 520. detailed information about the gadget is included. The warranty card is printed on last pages this booklet. What else will the buyer find inside the box? You should immediately pay attention to an important point - an entry-level device. For this reason, it makes no sense to count on a unique set of components, the manufacturer has collected everything you need in the kit. The kit includes a USB cable (CA-189CD), which is designed to connect the device to a PC and other equipment. Without fail, the smartphone is equipped with a BL-5J battery and a charger (AC-20). Also included is a WH-108 headset.

A little later, we will discuss what emotions such a package aroused, and what it lacks, according to buyers.

Design

Externally, the Nokia Lumia 520 is not much different from other devices in this line. The manufacturer has introduced many color options on the market. For connoisseurs of the classics, there are copies with a black and white case. For those who prefer bright colors, red, blue or yellow are suitable. It is important to understand that the variety of colors is carried out only at the expense of the rear panel. It is made of soft-touch plastic. The material itself is quite high quality. Scratches and mechanical damage on the surface are practically not formed. However, according to most owners, to preserve the primary appearance, you still need to use a cover. As for the soiled surface of the back cover, everything will depend on the color. The black version picks up fingerprints the most. The most practical case turned out to be white.

Now let's look at the design features of the Nokia Lumia 520 smartphone, the characteristics of which are presented in this article. The front panel is designed quite typically. Most of it is taken up by the screen. Under it there is a touch control panel consisting of three buttons. They use the commonly used notation: windows icon, magnifier (search), and arrow (back). Only the speaker used for calls and the Nokia logo are displayed above the screen. On the right side there are mechanical buttons. There are three of them: volume swing, camera control, blocking. Wired headphones can be connected via the audio jack located on the top end. There is a USB port on the bottom. The left side face is completely free from functional elements. The back cover served as a platform for removing the camera lens. It is typically located in the upper part of the case. The login is printed along the cover. There is a speaker output hole in the lower right corner. By the way, we note that it emits a rather loud sound.

Nokia Lumia 520: screen characteristics

Considering the characteristics of the screen, do not forget that the model was released in 2013. Naturally, the indicators will not be very high level. The choice of the display was also influenced by the device belonging to the class of inexpensive devices. So, a screen made in compliance with IPS technology is installed on the smartphone. Its 4-inch size fully corresponds to the resolution of 800 × 480 px.

What can you say about the image quality? Colors don't look bright enough. According to the owners, the contrast level is too small. Many users have noticed that black does not appear naturally. It appears gray on the screen.

Multi-touch is able to recognize up to five touches made at the same time. But in fact, after the third phone starts to get confused. This can be safely called a significant disadvantage. Note that adjusting the Nokia Lumia 520 (screen calibration) does not solve the problem.

As a protection, the manufacturer used special glass. The film is not provided in the factory. There is no oleophobic type coating, which greatly upsets the owners, since a lot of fingerprints quickly accumulate on the screen.

CPU - Hardware

Few people were surprised to learn that the manufacturer installed a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor on the Nokia Lumia 520. The characteristics of the S4 MSM8227 model will consist of rather modest indicators. It is based on two cores. The chipset will not be able to cope with most modern tasks. These are resource intensive applications. However, if you use the phone for its intended purpose, then problems will not arise. Computing modules of the processor are capable of overclocking up to 1 GHz when the load increases.

An entry-level video card, Adreno 305, was chosen as a graphics accelerator. Its characteristics are also low, but they will be enough for simple toys.

Memory

What do I need to save applications on Nokia Lumia 520? Of course, the storage of built-in memory. You can also use the potential of an external drive. In this model, the manufacturer has chosen 8 GB of integrated memory, which is complemented by a microSDHC flash drive. The maximum capacity is 64 GB.

But what do the sizes of RAM mean? This characteristic affects the performance of applications. In the Lumia 520 model, it is only 512 MB. This is no longer enough to work with modern software.

Pictures for memory. Camera Feature

Only one camera is available in Nokia Lumia 520. The optical performance is limited by the capabilities of the 5-megapixel matrix. There is no flash. The developers have provided a fourfold zoom. It, of course, allows you to increase the area in the picture, but the quality is greatly degraded. Photos can be taken in the maximum resolution, which is 2592 × 1944 px. Video mode operates at 30 frames. Shooting is carried out in low quality - 720p (1280 × 720).

autonomy

When choosing a smartphone, it is very important to pay attention to the characteristics of the battery. Every buyer knows that Finnish products have always had a long battery life. Is the Lumia 520 an exception?

The developers installed a battery made using modern lithium-ion technology on the gadget. Its resource is 1430 mAh. The manufacturer claims that charging the Nokia Lumia 520 to 100% will take about 2-2.5 hours.

Now consider the characteristics of autonomy. According to the information in the instructions, the device will last 10 hours (3G) and 15 hours (2G) in talk mode. Putting the phone in standby mode, you can count on 15 days of work. Under the condition of medium load, the user will charge the battery no more than once every 48 hours.

Platform and interface

The advantage of this device is the operating system. The phone runs on its original OS - Windows Phone. It has many undeniable advantages. First of all, it differs stable job. Compared to Android, Windows Background is much more reliable. Many applications have been developed for this operating system. However, they all operate on 32-bit computing. But in defense of this phone, let's say that in 2013 there were no devices running on a 64-bit system.

The platform performance is excellent. That is why many users choose Nokia Lumia 520. Errors are not peculiar to the device. The smartphone supports all modern standards. These include Wi-Fi, GSM and 3G networks, bluetooth, GPS navigation and A-GPS.

The main screen is decorated with rectangular tiles. It is proportionately adjusted to the size of the display. All important functions are in quick access: calls, contacts, Internet browser and others.

Finally, the most affordable Windows 8 smartphone has arrived. Nokia Lumia 520 in Ukraine can be bought for about 1600 hryvnia, while you get the same platform and chipset as the more expensive Nokia Lumia 720.

Specifications Nokia Lumia 520

Nokia Lumia 520
Operating system	Microsoft Windows Phone 8
Display	4 inches, 480x800 pixels (pixel density ~235 ppi), multi-touch, 16 million colors
CPU	dual-core Qualcomm MSM8227 1 GHz, Adreno 305 video
RAM	512 MB
Flash memory	8 GB + microSD card slot
Camera	5 MP, 2592x1944 pixels, geotagging
Wireless technologies	Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0+A2DP
Interfaces	micro-USB, headphone output 3.5 mm
Connection	2G 850/900/1800/1900, 3G 850/900/1900/2100
Navigation	GPS, GLONASS
Battery	lithium-ion, 1430 mAh, removable
Dimensions and weight	120x64x10 mm, 128 grams

Contents of delivery

Smartphone, removable battery, USB cord, charger, headset, user manual.

Appearance and design

Small, neat, with rather sharp corners and a slightly rounded back, the Nokia Lumia 520 is a typical new-generation Windows smartphone. Devices on this platform have found their own style: both of the most popular manufacturers of such smartphones prefer this shape, and also bright colors. The Lumia 520 is no exception. It is available in yellow, red, black and white interchangeable rear panels. We got a "girly" white for testing, and before we held in our hands a red one, also mostly designed for a female audience.

The smartphone is somewhat shorter and narrower than its older neighbor in the line, Lumia 720, whose review you could read. At the same time, the Lumia 520 is about a millimeter thicker, which is why it does not seem as elegant as its older brother.

But unlike the latter, it has a removable rear and battery, and, in addition, to change the SIM card, you do not need to use a special paperclip-like key, which I personally have already got. Here, the communication card is securely hidden under a removable cover, not far from the microSD slot. To insert the card, you will have to remove the battery.

The removable socket, by the way, is not very easy to detach, for this you need a strong nail. The back itself is thin, easily bending. However, in its grooves it is attached well. In general, the assembly is quite decent for a “state employee”, there were no noticeable gaps, as well as inappropriate squeaks.

Together with iPhone 4s

On the right side is the volume rocker, then the power button and, finally, at the very bottom - the camera button. In my mind, reach for her with your thumb right hand not very convenient, but with the left grip - somewhat more natural.

At the bottom is a microUSB connector, at the top is a minijack for a headset. The whiteness (in our case) of the rear surface of the smartphone is diluted only by the camera eye without a flash, the company logo, as well as a small speaker, which still closes when placed on a plane. Three touch buttons are highlighted in white on the dark body. They are not highlighted, but this does not create a problem.

Display

Nokia Lumia 720 and 520

The screen of the Nokia Lumia 720 smartphone is undoubtedly worthy of respect. It is unlikely that I will be very mistaken in calling it the best among all smartphones. price category up to 3000 hryvnia (12000 rubles). In the youngest Lumia 520, everything is not so rosy, but this is quite natural. Still, the smartphone costs much less. Nevertheless, despite the price of 1600 hryvnia, the manufacturer gave the smartphone an IPS-matrix (say, Lumia 620 does not have such a luxury).

The viewing angles here are wide, but if you look at the display from the side, the image is readable, but the main color still darkens. In addition, on bright days especially the replacement of glare. The resolution of the four-inch screen is 800x480 pixels, like 620 or 720. Someone will say that this is not enough, I will say that it is enough. The picture is quite pleasant, although not as bright and saturated as the Lumia 720, protective glass Gorilla Glass 2 is not here, as is True Black, that is, black is somewhat gray. But the contrast ratio is high here (910:1). And yet - an excellent ultra-sensitive sensor that allows you to wield a smartphone with gloves. The display understands up to 5 simultaneous touches - more than enough for 4 inches diagonally.

Together with iPhone 4s

Camera

The results of the five-megapixel camera module cannot be called "stellar": the colors are pale, the detail in low light is poor, there is no flash. But still, again, I will not be too lazy to focus on the price of the device. For a budget smartphone, the camera is quite good. As in the older model, the “Smart Photo” functions are implemented here (several frames are taken in a row, then you can select a face for each participant in a group photo from any of the frames and merge them), “Animated Photo” (the selected piece of the picture “moves”) and "Panorama".

And the camera is recording this video

System and performance

In fact, the processor and memory are the same as in other nearby Nokia Lumia - 620 and 720. This is a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 with MSM8227 chipset and Adreno 305 graphics accelerator with a frequency of 1 GHz. But the amount of RAM is only 512 MB, which, however, was much more surprising in the Lumia 720 and was its most significant drawback. The low amount of RAM means that some 3D games on the smartphone will not run. For example, the notorious Temple Run. For everything else - "social programs", FullHD-movies and the vast majority of games, performance is enough for the eyes. Not to mention the free-flying interface of Windows 8. Since the hardware specifications are the same, the results in synthetic tests for the Lumia 520 are similar to the 720 model. Package preinstalled apps here is about the same as in other models. I would like to once again note the successful navigation programs, but for details refer to the Nokia Lumia 720 review. Here I also note the excellent synchronization of calendars, mail and other things: the tasks entered in the calendar during the testing of the Lumia 720 appeared on the Lumia 520 thanks to the common Microsoft ID: the calendar happily reminded me that I had an intention to run on Fridays. The sound in the smartphone is average, but in no case do not use the bundled headset, it is more than disgusting.

autonomy

The Lumia 520 has a 1430 mAh removable battery. This is less than the Lumia 720 (2000 mAh), but the bright screen "eats" more energy there. However, the older model slightly outperforms the younger one in terms of battery life. In normal smartphone mode (camera, calls, SMS, player, mail, surfing) the device works for 1.5 days, plays video - a little less than 6 hours.

In the dry matter

In my opinion, Nokia Lumia 520 - great smartphone, in its price category - one of the best in terms of implementation quality and capabilities. On the iron side, these capabilities are somewhat limited by 512 MB of RAM: some three-dimensional games are simply not available for this smartphone and even its colleagues with the same problem. On the other hand, the smartphone is limited by a small number of useful programs in the Windows Market. I was jarred, for example, by the lack of a normal video player in which I could connect subtitles or switch audio track. The shortcomings are compensated by the fast balanced operation of the smartphone, an ultra-sensitive screen sensor, an excellent navigation system and simply high ergonomics for very little money.

4 reasons to buy Nokia Lumia 520:

• The most affordable smartphone on Windows 8;
• Well-functioning navigation system;
• Nice case with good assembly and interchangeable panels;
• Sensitive IPS display.

3 reasons not to buy Nokia Lumia 520:

• Windows Phone 8: not everything desired applications, some are paid;
• Lack of a front camera;
• 512 MB of RAM, not all toys will work.

The fate of former smartphone market leaders Nokia and Microsoft remains the subject of much online battle and speculation. Despite various prophecies about the imminent death and futility of their modern mobile products (of course, we are talking about Lumia smartphones and Windows Phone OS), both companies continue to develop and demonstrate new developments. Of course, there is an opinion that Microsoft, with its resources, is able to keep even deeply unprofitable technologies and products afloat for a long time, but as a counterargument, it is worth noting that even the resources of such a huge corporation are not unlimited, and it can admit its mistakes, as it was with devices Zune and Kin. Afloat Windows Phone primarily supports the desire of Microsoft to create its own ecosystem in the likeness of Apple, with a "triad" smartphone-tablet-laptop (desktop computer), which, in addition to the obvious benefits of selling applications, music and other content, will lure and keep in its user boundaries. Such an example, again, was set by Apple when iPhone buyers then purchased iPads and eventually migrated from PCs to Mac OS X devices.

Nokia's benefit from using exclusively Windows Phone in its top devices is not so obvious. Almost immediately after the news of the conclusion of a strategic partnership with Microsoft, statements of short-sightedness and requests or even demands to release more Android devices began to be heard against the company. It's hard to say what exactly made Nokia refuse to join the Android smartphone community: perhaps close ties Nokia manuals and Microsoft, perhaps some special terms of the license agreement and access to OS development, perhaps the desire to "not be like everyone else", or perhaps all together at once. To what extent this strategy turned out to be correct, only time will be able to answer, but now the position of the Finnish company is very unstable: if in the market of conventional mobile phones in 2012 Nokia took second place in terms of the number of devices sold, then in the increasingly popular and profitable segment of smartphones, the company continues to lose positions after the discontinuation of the release of devices with Symbian. Based on Gartner's report, Windows Phone's share of the mobile OS market is growing, but at too slow a pace to have a positive impact on the fate of such a "monosystem" manufacturer, which Nokia has become of its own free will.

Another mistake of Nokia, according to many fans of this company, was the focus on the release of premium devices and smartphones in the middle price segment. For a long time, almost two years, if you wanted to buy a Lumia device and get acquainted with the new Microsoft/Nokia platform, you had to part with a significant amount of money, acquiring a powerful device with excellent hardware stuffing, but limited in terms of software. It is clear that there were few people who wanted to experiment for a decent amount of money. Finally realizing that the Nokia Asha platform in budget segment Lumia smartphones are not a replacement, the Finnish company announced several mid-range devices at once. One of them was the Nokia Lumia 520 smartphone, whose price - 135 euros at the time of the announcement - simultaneously made it the cheapest smartphone in the entire Lumia line and spurred public attention. Finally, a worthy rival to numerous budget Android devices and a worthy candidate for an easy acquaintance with Windows Phone 8 from the financial side should have appeared on the market.

In reality, when the communicator appeared on store shelves, its price, of course, was not as attractive as in the announcement. However, the smartphone still remains the most affordable device of the Lumia family.

Contents of delivery

Mobile Nokia computer The Lumia 520 comes in a small box, traditional for the company, made of extremely thick cardboard. In addition to the image of a smartphone in various colors, the packaging contains only license information and information about the configuration. You won’t be able to find out anything about the characteristics of a smartphone by picking up its packaging in the store - apparently, the developers decided that if you paid attention to the Lumia device, then you already know the details about its filling or you don’t need this information.

In general, the Nokia Lumia 520 bundle is standard for a budget smartphone - nothing superfluous, only the essentials: a charger, a Micro-USB cable, a wired stereo headset, a battery and documentation.

Characteristics

Since the Nokia Lumia 520 is the most cheap smartphone in the Lumia line, the developers removed from it everything that, in their opinion, was superfluous. In addition, they were faced with the task of separating the models 520 and 620 as noticeably as possible, the implementation of which, obviously, also had a negative impact on the characteristics of the hero of the review.

So what are the features of the Nokia Lumia 520?

• SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8227, 1.0 GHz, 2 Krait cores
• GPU Adreno 305
• Operating system Microsoft Windows Phone 8
• Touchscreen 4″, IPS, 800×480, capacitive (high sensitivity), multi-touch
• Random access memory (RAM) 512 MB
• Internal memory 8 GB, card slot microSD memory HC
• Communication 2G GSM 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz, 3G WCDMA 850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz
• Data transmission GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, HSUPA (up to 21.1 Mbps)
• Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (2.4GHz)
• A-GPS, Glonass, gyroscope, orientation sensor, accelerometer, proximity sensor
• Cameras: 5 MP (autofocus)
• Battery 1430 mAh
• Dimensions 119.9×64×9.9 mm
• Weight 124 g

In terms of platform, the Lumia 520, 620 and 720 models are pretty much the same. They are built on the same Qualcomm MSM8227 SoC, which includes two Krait computing cores with a maximum operating frequency of 1 GHz, and a core for working with Adreno 305 graphics. You can learn more about Qualcomm processors in general and about this single-chip system in particular. from our special material.

The amount of RAM in these smartphones is also the same - a modest 512 MB by today's standards. Modest, of course, if we compare head-on devices based on different operating systems, which is fundamentally wrong. Apparently, the Windows Phone 8 OS itself and applications for it consume less memory than Android and its programs, because according to independent utilities, the Nokia Lumia 520 has 395 MB of RAM available.

There are also no differences in the amount of built-in flash memory in Lumia 520, 620 and 720. In all smartphones, it is exactly 8 GB, in the case of Nokia Lumia 520, 5.2 GB of it is available to the user, of which a significant part will be occupied by built-in applications. Expand your music, photo, and video storage with removable microSDXC memory cards up to 64GB. Also, the owner of the smartphone is provided with 7 GB for data in cloud service Microsoft SkyDrive.

Actually, the similarities between the Lumia 520 and its older sisters end on the hardware stuffing, the Lumia 520 is significantly inferior to them in other key parameters.

The Lumia 520 has an IPS matrix with a resolution of 800x480 pixels, like most Lumias, but the display itself lacks a polarizing filter, it does not support ClearBlack technology, there is no Gorilla Glass protective glass and there is no oleophobic coating. Thank you for leaving support for screen touch recognition while wearing gloves.

The developers of the Lumia 520 left only one camera, depriving it of any flash. In terms of basic photo and video capabilities, it is almost as good as the cameras of more expensive smartphones.

The battery of the hero of the review does not have a large capacity and size, the amount of stored energy is 1430 mAh. But it, unlike the batteries of others mobile devices Nokia, removable.

A comparison of the basic specifications of various Nokia smartphones is shown in the following table.

	Nokia Lumia 520	Nokia Lumia 720	Nokia Lumia 920	Nokia Lumia 820	Nokia Lumia 620	Huawei Ascend W1
Screen	4" IPS	4.3" IPS	4.5" IPS	4.3″ AMOLED	3.8" IPS	4.0" IPS
Permission	800×480, 233 ppi	800×480, 217 ppi	1280×768, 332 ppi	800×480, 217 ppi	800×480, 246ppi	800×480, 233 ppi
SoC		Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 @1GHz (2 cores, ARMv7 Krait)		Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 @1.5GHz (2 cores, ARMv7 Krait)	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 @1GHz (2 cores, ARMv7 Krait)	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 @1.2GHz (2 cores, ARMv7 Krait)
RAM	512 MB	512 MB	1 GB	1 GB	512 MB	512 MB
Flash memory	8 GB	8 GB	32 GB	8 GB	8 GB	4 GB
Memory card support	microSD	microSD	No	microSD	microSD	microSD
Operating system	Windows Phone 8	Windows Phone 8	Windows Phone 8	Windows Phone 8	Windows Phone 8	Windows Phone 8
SIM format*	Micro SIM	Micro SIM	Micro SIM	Micro SIM	Micro SIM	Mini-SIM
Communications	2G/3G, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth	2G/3G, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth, NFC		2G/3G/4G, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, NFC	2G/3G, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, NFC	2G/3G, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth
Battery	removable, 1430 mAh	non-removable, 2000 mAh	non-removable, 2000 mAh	removable, 1650 mAh	removable, 1300 mAh	removable, 1950 mAh
cameras	rear (5 MP; video - 720p)	rear (6.7 MP; video - 720p), front (1.2 MP)		rear (8.7 MP; video - 1080p), front (1.2 MP)		rear (5 MP; video - 720p), front (0.3 MP)
Dimensions	120×64×9.9mm, 124g	128×68×9 mm, 128 g	130×71×10.7mm, 185g	124×69×9.9mm, 160g	115×61×11 mm, 127 g	125×64×10.2mm, 130g
Price**	7990 rub.	RUB 13,990	RUB 19,990	RUB 15,990	9990 rub.	9990 rub.

* the most common SIM card formats are described in a separate article
** the cost is given at the time of writing the article, for Nokia models - the recommended price, for Huawei - average

Design and appearance

In my subjective opinion, Nokia Lumia 520 is a very nice smartphone. Perhaps it's my personal preferences for an angular-rectangular design or the optimal, again in my opinion, proportions and dimensions of the device and cute multi-colored back covers made of soft-touch plastic (several colors available). The 520th model looks more advantageous even than the “soapy” 620th. All these are personal impressions, now let's move on to the facts.

The Nokia Lumia 520 does not fall under the category of ultra-thin and ultra-light communicators neither in terms of size, nor in thickness, nor in weight. However, this is not expected from a budget device. On the other hand, the communicator is comfortable to hold and operate with one hand - the thumb easily covers the area of ​​a small screen by today's standards, and thick rounded "rubberized" edges of the back cover-boat provide a secure grip. In general, the body design of the hero of the review is one of the most optimal in terms of the reliability of the position of the smartphone in the hand and its control, only sharp corners sometimes dig into the palm if taken incorrectly.

There are no serious complaints about the design and build quality of the Nokia Lumia 520. The smartphone itself fits securely into the shell of the lid; a creak is observed only if you press hard on its center; there are no backlashes and large gaps between the parts. There are also a few minor design flaws: dust collects in the speaker hole, the hardware buttons hang a little in the grooves, the touch keys are not backlit and often work from false touches when working with a smartphone inaccurately.

On the front panel of the smartphone, in addition to the display, touch keys and speaker, there is a microphone, light and proximity sensors.

It is difficult to remove the communicator from the lid without long nails: you have to contrive and put pressure on the camera lens to move the case. If you pick up its edge near the phone speaker with your fingernail, then detaching the cover is quick and painless. The reverse installation of the smartphone case into the shell cover does not cause any special problems.

Only by removing the battery cover, you can access the battery, as well as Micro-SIM and microSD cards. You cannot replace them without turning off the power of the device and disconnecting the battery. It's funny, but a rectangular piece of rubber is glued on the back of the cover, which should ensure the strength of the smartphone's structure and prevent the back panel from bending. Judging by the presence of the mentioned small creaks, he copes with his task only with a C grade. The role of the second stop for the cover is played by a rubber frame around the main speaker of the smartphone.

For all connectors, the main speaker and the camera lens, technological holes are provided in the battery compartment cover. Hardware keys are presented in the form of plastic repeaters attached to it. There is no protection for the camera lens, but it is slightly recessed relative to the level of the rear panel - so, unlike many other smartphones, the Nokia Lumia 520 does not lean on it when it is “on its back”.

The left side of the Nokia Lumia 520 is empty, on the right side there are three hardware keys: a double one for volume control, power and camera control. All of them have embossed comfortable shape and a clear press, but the last parameter is strongly affected by the correct installation of the cover: with a slight shift and skew, the buttons stop being pressed distinctly.

At the top end of the body of the review hero is a 3.5 mm headphone jack. On the bottom is a Micro-USB connector.

Generally, appearance and the design of the Nokia Lumia 520 is not bad. Of course, they cannot be compared with the outstanding technological solutions made of glass and aluminum of devices of the highest price range, but for a budget smartphone, the hero of the review looks and is built quite well.

Software

Smartphone Nokia Lumia 520 running operating system Windows systems Phone 8. Since Microsoft still prohibits any intervention in the appearance of the system, all the few devices with this OS have a standard graphical interface. Changes made by the manufacturer of a particular smartphone model are limited to the addition of a third-party software and disabling certain hardware-related functions and settings.

Nokia devices, in addition to the eminent manufacturer, are also attracted by the abundance of proprietary software developed by this company. First of all, we are talking about navigation services, united under the general name Here: Drive, Maps and Transit. Here Maps allows you to view maps online and offline, search for a specific address and organizations, get directions - in general, everything that Google Maps and Yandex.Maps can do. Here Transit, as the name implies, allows you to plot the route of a trip by public transport. Here Drive is a convenient car navigator. These programs, of course, have their advantages and disadvantages: the first one includes the ability to download maps of almost all countries on Earth for free, the second one has a slightly confusing interface. Previously, they also lacked support for a traffic monitoring service, but in latest versions applications accounting for traffic jams appeared. It should also be noted that free maps of any region can only be used in Here Maps and Here Transit, and in Here Drive there is a restriction on maps only of the region where the SIM card inserted into the smartphone comes from. AT full version programs, Here Drive +, there is no such restriction, the update costs 664 rubles.

Music Nokia+ is a multimedia combination of free streaming radio (with the ability to listen to your favorite tracks offline for a monthly subscription) and a regular digital music store. The approach, in general, is clear, there are more and more such applications and services now, however, the Nokia application combines two approaches at once: one from iTunes, the other from Yandex.Music.

Nokia Care- a program-collection of tips on using the capabilities of a smartphone and its maintenance. Nokia Live Photos- a kind of application for "revitalizing" photos and showing them to friends on social networks. Nokia Panorama allows you to take panoramic pictures using the camera built into your smartphone.

Nokia Ringtone Maker can create and set as a ringtone any non-DRM protected music track from the device's memory. Nokia Top Applications simply provides a list of interesting, from the point of view of the developers of the service, programs from the Windows Phone Store. Nokia Smart Photo helps to choose the most successful frame from a series of pictures taken by the program itself.

This concludes the list of additional Nokia software. There are several more tabs in the smartphone settings dedicated to accounts in the company's services, pairing with branded accessories and contacting support with reviews, but it doesn't make much sense to dwell on all of them. It also makes no sense to pay attention to MTS programs and services that are installed in the memory of this particular instance of Nokia Lumia 520. The smartphone was purchased at the store of this operator, since it was originally sold only there, and most of the functions mentioned are tied to the SIM card of this company.

Display and sound

The screen is exactly what the developers of Nokia Lumia 520 seriously saved on. On paper, everything looks great: IPS-matrix, diagonal 4 inches, resolution 800 × 480 pixels, density 233 pixels per inch, 16 million colors. But in practice, the display of the hero of the review is mediocre, no more.

The black color on the Nokia Lumia 520 screen looks gray, all smartphone owners have noticed this, and nothing can be done about it. The display of the hero of the review is not able to show the real black color. The absence of polarizing and anti-reflective filters, as well as ClearBlack technology, also has a negative effect when working with a smartphone in bright ambient light conditions - it becomes difficult to see anything on the Nokia Lumia 520 screen. It's good that color inversion is practically not observed.

The touch sensor recognizes up to five simultaneous signals, but the quality of its work is not very good - after the third touch it starts to get confused.

The protective glass of the display, not Gorilla Glass, gets very dirty when working with a smartphone, the lack of an oleophobic coating affects. If you do not wipe it, fingerprints cover the entire screen very quickly.

The brightness of the display backlight is controlled by the operating system based on the readings from the ambient light sensor. The backlight power level can also be indirectly set manually, there are three brightness settings in total.

Alexey Kudryavtsev, editor of the "Monitors" and "Projectors and TV" sections, conducted a detailed examination of the screen using measuring instruments.

The screen of the smartphone is covered with a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface and, judging by the reflection of objects in it, it does not have an anti-glare filter (or it is very weak). Reflection in the screen is tripled, which suggests the presence of an air gap between the surface of the matrix and the outer glass. On the outer surface of the screen, apparently, there is still a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating, but in this case it is not very effective - the finger slides poorly on the screen surface. Still, fingerprints from such a screen are removed more easily, and appear on it at a slower rate than in the case of ordinary glass.

With manual brightness control (three fixed levels are available) and with a white field displayed in full screen, the maximum brightness value was about 310 cd / m², the average - 200, the minimum - 80. These three levels are more or less suitable for comfortable daytime work on the street, in a well-lit room and in the dark. Although, of course, the maximum brightness value is not very high. Note that in the settings of the screen parameters there is a checkbox that turns on a special mode to increase readability in the sun, but we did not find any visible or detectable effect from turning on this mode (neither in the dark, nor in a lit room, nor in the sun) - in the same way , as in the case of previous Nokia smartphones with the same option. Either the company has introduced this option so that the user is aware of the allegedly improved readability in the sun and can even “turn it on”, or the effect is so insignificant that there is no real improvement (or there always is).

The automatic brightness control works according to the light sensor (it is located to the right of the logo on the front panel). In automatic mode, when the ambient light conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. You can make adjustments to the operation of this function by first selecting the brightness level. Next, we present the screen brightness values ​​(when displaying a white field in full screen) for three values ​​of the selected brightness (for levels short, average and high). In complete darkness in automatic mode, the brightness decreases to 10, 12 and 15 cd / m² respectively (dim, but readable), in an artificially lit office it is set to 125, 160 and 190 cd / m² (acceptable), in a brightly lit environment (corresponding to daytime outdoor lighting, but without direct sunlight) rises to 270, 380 and 380 cd/m² (the last two values ​​are even higher than with manual installation high brightness). As a result, this function works more or less adequately. Brightness adjustment is carried out using pulse-width modulation (rectangular pulses with 100% amplitude) with a frequency of 326 Hz. This is a fairly high frequency, so when working with a smartphone, backlight flickering at low brightness is not visible, but if desired, this flickering can be detected, for example, by quickly waving a pencil in front of a white field on the screen.

This screen has an IPS type matrix. The micrograph shows a typical IPS sub-pixel structure:

The screen has very good viewing angles without hue inversion and without significant color shift even at large deviations of the gaze from the perpendicular to the screen. True, as it seemed to us, the brightness of the white field drops more strongly with deviation, and the shift in the shade of gray colors is greater than in the case of a typical screen of a modern smartphone with an IPS matrix. The black field, when deviated diagonally, is strongly highlighted and acquires a purple hue. When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is good. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 30ms (17ms on + 13ms off). The transition between grayscale 25% and 75% (according to the numerical value of the color) and back in total takes 42 ms. Contrast typical for IPS is 666:1. The gamma curve constructed from 32 points did not reveal a blockage either in the highlights or in the shadows, and the exponent of the approximating power function is 2.38, which is slightly higher than the standard value of 2.2, while the real gamma curve deviates little from the power dependence:

Perhaps there is a dynamic adjustment of the brightness of the backlight in accordance with the nature of the displayed image. This is confirmed by the fact that the ratio of the brightness of the white field to the brightness of the black field is 800:1, which is greater than the contrast value given above. As a result, the resulting dependence of brightness on hue (gamma curve) may not correspond to the gamma curve of a static image, since the measurements were carried out with sequential grayscale output on the entire screen.

The color gamut is slightly narrower than sRGB. However, important reference points - green color and skin tones (between the green and red vertices of the coverage triangle) - are close to the sRGB borders, so in general, images on the screen have saturation close to natural.

Apparently, the matrix filters mix the components together. The spectra confirm this:

This technique allows you to increase the brightness of the screen with the same energy consumption for backlighting. The balance of shades on the gray scale is good, since the color temperature is not much higher than the standard 6500 K, and the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (delta E) is less than 10, which is considered acceptable for a consumer device. At the same time, the variation in color temperature and delta E is small, which also has a positive effect on the visual perception of color balance. (The dark areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since the color balance does not matter much there, and the measurement error of color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

The color balance and the work of automatic adjustment of the screen brightness do not cause complaints - unlike the other characteristics of the screen, which are typical for a budget solution, that is, not outstanding. Well, at least the IPS matrix.

The main speaker of the Nokia Lumia 520 is loud and good quality sound, but it is very easy to muffle it by covering the corresponding hole on the back of the smartphone with your finger. The phone speaker also left a positive impression: the volume and clarity of the sound allow you to successfully communicate with the interlocutor even in a relatively noisy place. There were no complaints from the other side of the telephone line, which means that the microphone of the Nokia Lumia 520 also does its job well.

The Nokia Lumia 520 has a very powerful and high-quality headphone output. Paired with good headphones, the hero of the review is able to provide comfortable listening to music in almost any conditions, you just need to remember about his negative impact by ear, if you try to compete with the external noise in the subway. The bundled headset deserves only a satisfactory rating. Inconspicuous in appearance, with only one microphone and no call answer key, it provides acceptable quality sound playback. There are no squeaks, rasps or hisses across the entire power range, but the sound itself looks a little too flat: high frequencies it's hard to hear, and the low ones merge into a rumble.

It's a shame that the Nokia Lumia 520 doesn't have a built-in FM radio.

Wireless interfaces and communication

Despite its budget, Nokia Lumia 520 has all the most popular modern means of communication. In its holder there are: 2G and 3G cellular communication with HSPA + support, Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11b / g / n, Bluetooth 3.0 and a combined A-GPS / Glonass receiver. The hero of the review is distinguished from the older models by the lack of support for LTE and NFC.

There were no problems with the operation of the cellular communication module. The smartphone quickly connected to the network and provided reliable communication in various conditions. Data transfer via mobile network mainly limited by its capabilities, not by the capabilities of the device. Checking the connection speed in the field of the Moscow region showed a good result. It's funny, but sometimes instead of the "H" icon, the smartphone showed an unusual "4G" icon - it's clear that there is no LTE in the Nokia Lumia 520, and outside of Moscow it is only sporadically found. Apparently, the operating system simply perceived the HSPA + signal in this way.

Connection to home network 802.11n with TP-Link TL-WR1043N router as base station also passed without incident. The network connection speed in this case was limited only by the bandwidth of the communication channel with the provider. According to subjective impressions, the quality of Wi-Fi signal reception in Nokia Lumia 520 is better than in many other communicators. So, the hero of the review successfully discovered the network and connected to it where samsung galaxy S2 didn't find anything.

Bluetooth file transfer speed between MacBook Pro 2009 and Nokia Lumia 520 was 1.6 Mbps. Unfortunately, the hero of the review does not have a Bluetooth modem profile, so you can distribute mobile traffic only by organizing a point WiFi access. Pairing a smartphone with a Sony MW1 wireless headset initially caused both devices to freeze. After the reboot, their connection was restored and it became possible to use the headset both for listening to music and for making phone calls. The functionality of the headset, however, remained on basic level: The track titles on her screen were displayed normally, but instead of the names from the smartphone address book, only numbers were displayed.

The work of the A-GPS/Glonass receiver did not cause any complaints. Both built-in navigation applications and third-party applications quickly determined the location of the device, and the connection was stable in the future.

Camera

The Nokia Lumia 520 has a single camera with a resolution of 5 megapixels. It has an autofocus system but no flash.

It is most convenient to control shooting using a separate hardware key located on the right side of the smartphone case. The interface of the camera control program is very concise, on the main screen there are only icons for shooting modes and calling settings. The list of settings itself is very short, it contains only the basic basic parameters.

The camera and control program start up fairly quickly, but the process of taking a picture is somewhat slow due to the thoughtfulness of the autofocus system. But once you specify the focus area by touching the screen, you don’t have to worry about “shutter release”: the camera itself will try to focus and immediately take a picture.

The maximum image resolution of the Nokia Lumia 520 camera is 2592×1936 pixels. Video recording is carried out with a resolution of 720p and a frequency of 30 frames per second, the recording format is MPEG-4, AVC / LC-AAC. The quality of photos and videos, in a subjective view, is not bad for a budget smartphone.

Battery life

It is difficult to expect outstanding battery life from a device whose battery has a capacity of only 1430 mAh. Nevertheless, the inside of the Nokia Lumia 520 is not exactly the most powerful, and the smartphone developers clearly tried to squeeze extra minutes of work out of their hardware and software platform - what is the separate tab in the device settings responsible for enabling and configuring the power saving mode. To make the results more honest and objective, this mode was disabled in all our traditional tests, since it could not seriously affect music playback, and reducing the brightness of the backlight in the reading test e-book contradicts our methodology for measuring battery life. So, without beating around the bush, here are the test results.

When playing music, the screen of the smartphone was turned off, when reading, the brightness was set to 100 cd / m², and a 720p video in MP4 (H.264 / AAC) was used. As you can see, the results were by no means the worst. They almost completely coincided with the performance of the Nokia Lumia 720, which is built on the same platform as the hero of the review, and this despite the latter's smaller battery. Surely the small diagonal of the display had a positive effect.

Overall, in battery life tests Windows platform Phone 8 and SoC Qualcomm MSM8227 performed well. In terms of activity time away from power sources, Nokia Lumia 520 is on par with devices such as "long-playing" android smartphones based on the MediaTek platform, and provides its owner with an acceptable level of mobility.

The battery of the hero of the review is charged very quickly, in just over a couple of hours - thanks to the complete charger with a charging current of 0.75 A.

Performance

Perhaps this is the most uninteresting part of any review of a smartphone based on Windows Phone 8 at the moment. It is uninteresting for several reasons. The first is the small number of devices with this OS on board and the extreme similarity of their hardware characteristics: in fact, all current Windows backgrounds are based on several SoCs and differ only in display resolution. The second reason is the pointlessness of comparing devices with different operating systems, since only cross-platform browser tests can give a more or less relevant result, which depend only on the "raw" performance of the processor and the optimization of the JavaScript engine in a particular mobile browser. Truly relevant and convenient benchmark programs for comparing devices on different operating systems have not yet been created.

Be that as it may, we will rely on the existing toolkit. Since Nokia Lumia 520, 620 and 720 are practically twin brothers in terms of hardware, serious differences in the results of their tests there is nowhere to appear. It is unlikely that Nokia engineers could consciously or unconsciously worsen the platform of the hero of the review, and without such errors, there is nothing to have at least some influence on the final scores.

	Nokia Lumia 520 (2×1.0 GHz, Adreno 305)	Nokia Lumia 720 (2×1.0 GHz, Adreno 305)	Nokia Lumia 920 (2×1.5 GHz, Adreno 225)	Huawei Ascend W1 (2×1.0 GHz, Adreno 305)
AnTuTu	7746	6490	10903	9455
MultiBench 2 CPU	11,465	11,635	17,748	N/A
MultiBench 2 Graphics	33,249	31,047	37,873	N/A
phonemark	604	556	943	774
WP Bench Free	178,91	177,98	229,84	214,25

However, as it turned out, in most tests, Nokia Lumia 520 even outperformed its older brother, Nokia Lumia 720. It’s hard to say what could be the reason for the priority of a budget smartphone on the same hardware platform - perhaps, in the case of the AnTuTu test, it lies in the fact that that the Nokia Lumia 720 did not pass graphics processing speed measurements.

This is where the scores of Nokia Lumia 520 and 720 almost coincided, which once again proves the direct dependence of these tests on processor performance.20565

The hardware performance of the Nokia Lumia 520 smartphone is quite enough for games. Angry Birds, Asphalt 7, Assassin's Creed, NFS: Hot Pursuit - they all started up normally and worked after being installed in the memory of the review hero. Despite rumors that some games have limited support for devices with 512 MB of RAM, we did not have a chance to encounter them during testing.

In general, the performance of the Nokia Lumia 520 is not at all budget - by the standards of devices with Windows Phone 8, of course. Everything that a mid-range smartphone, such as the Nokia Lumia 720, can offer, is also in the current hero of the review.

Video playback

The built-in video player in the Nokia Lumia 520, as in the case of the Nokia Lumia 720, refused to play videos enclosed in media containers incomprehensible to it. The codecs themselves are known to him: after all, it is worth resaving the video to MP4 format - and the hero of the review plays the film in H.264 / AAC format with a resolution of up to 1080p without any problems.

We did not find an MHL interface in this smartphone, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, using a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see Method for testing video signal playback and display devices. Version 1), we checked how the video is displayed on the screen of the smartphone itself. Screenshots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped to determine the nature of the output frames of video files with various parameters: resolution (1280 by 720 (720p) and 1920 by 1080 (1080p) pixels) and frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 fps) varied. With). In tests, we used a regular video player. The test results are summarized in the table:

File	Uniformity	Passes
Screen
watch-1920x1080-60p.mp4	not playable
watch-1920x1080-50p.mp4	not playable
watch-1920x1080-30p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1920x1080-25p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1920x1080-24p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1280x720-60p.mp4	not playable
watch-1280x720-50p.mp4	Good	No
watch-1280x720-30p.mp4	Good	No
watch-1280x720-25p.mp4	Good	No
watch-1280x720-24p.mp4	Good	No

Note: if both columns "Uniformity" and "Gap" are set to "green", this means that when watching movies, most likely, either artifacts caused by uneven interleaving and dropping frames will not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect viewing comfort. "Red" marks indicate possible problems associated with the playback of the respective files.

The intervals between frames (or groups of frames) alternate more or less evenly, but files with 50 fps (720p and 1080p) and 60 fps (1080p) are not played. The 720p file at 60 fps starts playing briskly, and does it well, but only for the first few seconds, and then the playback turns into a slideshow. Strange but true: in general, 1080p files play slightly better than 720p. The displayed range of brightness exactly corresponds to the standard range of video - in the shadows and in the highlights, all gradations of shades are displayed (for video in the range of 16-235).

Impressions and conclusions

Since Nokia Lumia 520 is the cheapest smartphone with Windows Phone 8, we had to make allowances for this circumstance throughout the review: this function is not there, they worsened it, something was excluded there - but for such money ... Yes, the low price of the smartphone makes it comparable to other devices on Windows Phone 8 is very simple. The main conclusion is this: if you want to get acquainted with the modern Microsoft mobile operating system and its ecosystem, your choice is Nokia Lumia 520. In my opinion, you do not need to overpay for more expensive models in this case.

If you just need good smartphone on Windows Phone 8, then the choice should also be stopped on the Nokia Lumia 520, because in terms of its basic features, hardware, performance and battery life, it is in no way inferior to the 620 and 720 models, and the Lumia 820 and 920 models cost quite different money. In fact, the hero of the review has only two serious drawbacks: a mediocre display, as well as missing front-camera and LED flash.

The hero of the review also looks worthy in comparison with the total mass of budget smartphones, including the legion of Chinese devices. Firstly, now it can be purchased almost at the price originally announced by Nokia - a little less than $ 200, which puts it on a par with the Chinese on Android. Secondly, the hardware stuffing of Nokia Lumia 520 is practically the best that the segment of smartphones on Windows Phone can give for the most modest money. Of course, Chinese devices with Full HD displays and quad-core processors will look more interesting on paper and in the hand, but only until something starts to freeze, crash or fall off in them. Nokia still provides some kind of workmanship, and Windows Phone 8 itself is very undemanding to resources, it works smoothly and quickly.

As for the Microsoft mobile platform, it has only two serious drawbacks; fatal or not, only time will tell. The first of these is still a significant lag behind Apple and Google in filling their own app store. The situation with ordinary popular programs is slowly being corrected, from my own minimum of necessary software, I could not find only a normal offline dictionary, such as Lingvo, and a navigation program with support for a traffic tracking service, such as Yandex.Navigator. And Lingvo's Windows Store There is a Phone Store, and it costs the same money as under iOS, but for dictionary search it requires a network connection, and if you have access to the Internet and a browser, then why a separate and paid program? To create Yandex.Navigator, its developers need some access to low-level programming interfaces, which Microsoft refuses to provide. Why he them - it is not clear; regular Yandex.Maps and Here Drive work like that. Thus, the main problems of the current Windows Phone Store are the lack of several programs that are really necessary in everyday life, whose developers are in no hurry to do anything to make them appear, and an extremely meager, almost poor selection of entertainment applications and especially games. While iOS continues to port classic games and create great new ones, Windows Phone 8 is left with a few popular games from other platforms (the arrival of Angry Birds was a real event), Microsoft-owned games and a wide variety of but equally uninteresting arcade games and puzzles by independent developers. A sad and strange situation, given the support of the popular DirectX in Windows Phone.

The second serious drawback is the continued division of memory into internal, which is suitable for installing programs, and external (for example, on microSD card), which can only save music, photos, and videos. Of course, 8 GB of internal memory is a lot by the standards of Android, but by the standards of Windows Phone 8 it is very small: it becomes clogged with applications and their data very quickly, and as a result, a comical situation arises when inner memory has come to an end, and tens of gigabytes are free on the memory card.

Despite the improvement in the interface and capabilities of the operating system, it still has many minor flaws and errors - I will list just a few. Disconnecting the battery resets the date, time, and volume settings. The voice mail phone number specified in the MTS cannot be changed (more precisely, it is possible, but to no avail). The phone management program displays a list of recent calls at startup instead of a phone keypad, and to see it, you need to put your finger on a very small icon. The built-in Yandex search system does not work well: either it refuses to update the search results list, or it does not update its own widgets, instead of redirecting to the site, it displays a list right in the same window, and, most importantly, it does not look for anything in the memory of the smartphone itself - not contacts, no programs, no files. Why does such a search need a separate key on the device case?

Many things that you get used to when using other smartphones are not in Windows Phone 8 at all. No convenient indicators of module operation wireless communication, there is no way to quickly turn them on or off without digging into the settings (here the Battery program provides significant help). The same “dialer” program cannot search for entries in the contact list either by the first digits of the number or by alphanumeric representation (3 for DEF, 4 for GHI, and so on). The list of such small but unpleasant things is endless; Perhaps I will focus on these few, which especially interfered with long work with a smartphone.

Now for the good stuff: the cumbersome Zune as the only desktop sync program has been replaced by just "Windows Phone for Desktop" in PC and Mac flavors. The functionality implemented in the program is quite good, for example, it can synchronize the contents of the smartphone's memory with iTunes - something that the owners of Android devices, apparently, will never see out of the box. There is also a second connection option - as an MTP device with direct access to the microSD card and some directories of the smartphone's main memory.

In general, Windows Phone has room to develop, the system has already come a long way from the deplorable state of the original Windows Phone 7, and you should not stop at half of it. The platform has potential, no one will deny it. With the release of Nokia Lumia 520, it has become much easier and cheaper to evaluate all the features and disadvantages of Windows Phone 8.

Content:

This year, several inexpensive models were presented and put on sale, Nokia Lumia 520 is just one of them. For the Russian buyer, the name Nokia still means a lot, and a lot of buyers will want to get an affordable gadget that has everything you need. Choosing now for a smartphone with "squares" on the desktop, you will have to put up with the lack of variety of modern games, problems with multimedia players. But at the same time, it should be noted that the platform is developing and significant progress has been made over the past two years. In addition, the eighth generation of smartphones, which appeared after the models on Windows Phone 7.5 and 7.8, offers more features. Now there is support for memory cards, performance has improved, there are a lot of improvements in order to take a fresh look at these models.

Nokia Lumia 520 sells for 7 thousand rubles, the smartphone is not the cheapest of the WP8 devices. However, if you don’t want to buy gadgets from Alcatel or Huawei, but you need products from a well-known manufacturer, then it makes sense to turn your attention to the Nokia Lumia 520.

Equipment:

• smartphone


• Nokia stereo headset WH-108


• battery


• USB cable Nokia CA-190CD


• charger Nokia AC-50


• short instruction

Design

Copying of own developments continues, Nokia smartphones are very similar to each other and differ for the most part only in size. Such a policy is now observed in many manufacturers, so everyone is free to evaluate it in their own way.

I think this is more of a plus than a minus. Nokia has a careful approach to design, trying to create beautiful and comfortable things, so the nice shape of the Nokia Lumia 520 should appeal to most.

I got a device of bright red color, youth coloring should get accustomed to the target audience, of course, less flashy colors are also sold: white, black, blue, red and yellow.

The dimensions of the phone are as follows: 120x64x10 mm, weight 124 g. As you can see, the average values ​​are normal for its class. All controls are located in convenient places, it is easy to reach them, everything is at hand.

Below are three standard touch keys.

Above the screen is a proximity and light sensor, as well as a speaker.

There is nothing on the left, on the right there are three buttons: volume control, screen lock and a key for shooting.

The connectors are located at different ends: at the top there is a 3.5 mm headphone jack, at the bottom there is a microUSB port.

Removable back panel Made of matte plastic, it is not slippery, the smartphone feels good in the hand. The coating is wear-resistant, it should not be scratched over time. The lid is held tightly, fixed securely, but over time, a creak may appear. Inside, a foam pad is glued to the plastic, which plays the role of an additional shock absorber, but this does not save.

Inside lies the battery, two slots are provided on the side: one for microSIM, the second for microSD.

Display

The screen diagonal is 4 inches, the resolution is 480x800 pixels, the dot density is 235 PPI. The capacitive sensor supports 5-point multi-touch and also responds to the touch of gloved fingers.

As with many budget solutions, there is no oleophobic coating, so there may be some inconvenience when you have to clean the surface.

IPS-matrix with good color reproduction, the display is bright, but the data is not readable outdoors. In this model, Nokia saved and deprived the smartphone of an additional layer. But there are all the necessary sensors: light sensor, proximity, orientation.

Filling

The smartphone is equipped with a modern dual-core 1 GHz Qualcomm MSM8227 processor, 512 MB of RAM and 8 GB of internal memory. Adreno 305 is responsible for the graphics. By the standards of Android devices, the specifications are modest, but for a WP solution this is enough for fast work without glitches. So the smartphone looks promising in this regard, no one will complain about sudden brakes. Unfortunately, some games do not start here, so the situation with resource-intensive applications is not very good here. If you want to play, it is better to look at smartphones where 1 GB of RAM is available.

Own memory of 8 GB plus 7 GB in the "cloud" SkyDrive and a slot for microSD, which normally works with volumes up to 64 GB inclusive.

Interface

The lock screen can have any image set by the user. Here you can see information about the time and date. At the bottom of the event line, icons of new messages or calls will be displayed, if such were left without the user's attention. Now it is possible to display additional data, for example, there will be notifications from clients from social networks or the weather.

On the desktop, tiles-icons are placed at will. Their size is adjusted, now you can choose from three different formats, up to 4 labels are immediately added to one row, and not 2, as it was before.

The menu lists in alphabetical order all the programs installed on your phone. This includes both standard applications and those subsequently added by the device owner. For the design of the menu, two background options are offered: black or white, as well as a rich palette of multi-colored themes that allow you to quickly change the look of your smartphone.

Contacts

The phone book is divided into three sections. The first one shows all the names that are in the device's memory. The second displays the ones that were used most often, these are the most popular contacts. The last column will combine news from social networks. For example, Twitter or Facebook.

A new user receives a first name, last name, patronymic, place of work, pseudonym, address, picture. He is assigned several phone numbers different types: mobile, home, work, organization, pager, fax. Three types of e-mail are specified. Additional fields are set for the contact. This is the address, website, birthday, note, anniversary, loved one, children, office location, position. As a ringtone, you can set not only one of the files in the phone's memory, but also any other.

The search menu will help you find the right person. The phone allows you to create user groups. They will be separately highlighted before the general list of names. By adding users to each group, you can follow the life of friends, see their messages, pictures. Of course, it is permissible to write a letter, SMS or call them from here. The "Rooms" function has appeared, which should be considered an example of a classic group of contacts, but with expanded functionality: it is easy to communicate with a limited circle of people, exchanging pictures, calendar entries or notes. Moreover, this group includes not only users of WP-smartphones, but also owners of other devices.

Calls

The telephone part is divided into four groups: the call log itself, dialing, phone book and search. The device does not know how to remember the partition that was last used. Thus, to dial a number, you will always need to perform an extra action associated with the transition from the call list to the virtual keyboard.

Latin characters are displayed on the virtual keyboard, but they will not help when dialing a number. There is no automatic selection of suitable numbers here. The call list is organized very simply. Here, a long string of numbers is the entire history of calls. It doesn't matter if the numbers were the same or not. The phone does not know how to combine the same type of calls.

Messages

Correspondence is formed in the form of two sections. The first consists of correspondence in the form of SMS and MMS, the other - of Facebook contacts. Messages are displayed in a column. If you open the correspondence window, messages will appear, which are divided into blocks. At the same time, incoming and sent SMS differ from each other in shades, which makes it easier to read. In addition, the date and time of receipt of the message, the number or name of the person with whom the communication is taking place are marked here.

You can choose between portrait or landscape mode. In both cases, about half of the screen is allocated for the keyboard. A separate key is available to change the input language. Another special button stores a lot of emoticons in memory. Copying and pasting of text is supported.

Email

A mailbox setup wizard is available that works with popular mail services, so Gmail, Yandex or Mail.ru users will not have any problems. Each account is assigned a name, the mailbox check interval is configured: push mode, every 15, 30 or 60 minutes. You can also check mail manually. The period for loading correspondence is set, the signature text is included, which will be displayed on the sent letter. The mailbox offers several headings-categories: all, unread, follow-up, important. The name of the sender is highlighted in large type, the content of the letter is in small text below. To the right is the time or date of receipt. New letters are highlighted in bright color.

Calendar

The device offers a choice of several ways to display information. This is a day scheduled by the hour, a list of planned events or tasks displayed in a separate column. In addition, all data is displayed in the form of a regular monthly plan. At the same time, it is important to note that something will be written in some squares, but it will not be possible to see it. The device allows you to use several calendars at the same time, each of them is highlighted in a different color. In the settings, you can change it by selecting one of the options.

Browser

The browser allows you to keep up to six windows open at the same time. The resource loading speed is high, and the application itself is pleasing. It is fast, scrolling through even voluminous sites occurs without delay. Unfortunately, the browser does not know how to adapt the scaled font to the screen borders. You have to move around the page to see the hidden text.

The address bar is at the bottom, right under the fingers, which is very convenient. An icon for reloading the page is provided on the left, an additional menu opens on the right. This includes the history of visited pages and bookmarks. The necessary resources can be added immediately to the desktop. In the application settings, you can disable the saving of cookies, select the browsing mode. This item allows you to activate the mobile or full version. The application is available in landscape or porter mode, the search for the right words on the page works.

Music

The phone supports .m4a, m4b, .mp3, .wma formats. The section with music and video is combined into a common group. This also includes podcasts, but there is no radio in this model. Another tab shows history. The last list will show the new data that has been added to the phone. In each of the categories, except for the first, covers of files are displayed, all this looks very nice. The Music section will offer a list of files that are sorted by name depending on the selected criteria. The following options are offered: artists, albums, songs, playlists, genres. If you click on one of the letters, you can use the quick search function among the data.

The repeat mode is turned on for all songs or only for one. There is a mixed playback mode. Also, the composition you like can be marked separately. If you press the volume control button, a small menu will open, which will display information about the track and buttons for moving between songs. It is also available when the screen is locked, which is convenient.

Nokia Music

This is a kind of duplicate of the built-in player, however, in addition to the usual music playback function, there is another one here: the use of playlists that are created based on the Nokia Music Store. You can not only purchase licensed content, but also listen to songs, but you will need a good Internet connection.

Video

The advantages of the updated software include extended support for codecs, so the smartphone will show many films after simply copying the data to its memory. There are three player control keys, as well as a scroll bar that helps you quickly navigate through the movie. At the same time, it is impossible to say that the phone is capable of playing everything in a row. Often, many videos have to be converted before being dropped on the phone, as was the case in the days of mandatory use of the Zune.

Camera

The smartphone has a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus. Shooting is started not only from the menu, but also with the help of a dedicated button on the side. You need to press and hold your finger for five seconds, after which you can take pictures. Two-position button, comfortable. You can shoot by touching the display with your finger while setting the focus point. A great opportunity is to start shooting in locked mode, this allows you not to waste extra time, but immediately start taking pictures.

Settings:

Shooting mode: auto, close-up, night mode, night portrait, sports.

ISO: auto, 100, 200, 400, 800.

White balance: auto, cloudy, day, fluorescent, incandescent.

The camera in a smartphone is no different in its capabilities to classmates, the pictures are of mediocre quality, a typical mid-range solution.

Gallery Pictures from the camera and other images fall into the general section. Pictures are sorted by albums, dates and people. Pictures from Facebook get here if you add your account to your smartphone. Viewing data is implemented simply and conveniently. The screen displays a matrix of folders or icons contained in it 2x3 or 4x5, respectively. If you select the desired object, it will open on the display. You can change the scale of the picture with multi-touch or double-click. Any image can be set as lock screen wallpaper, sent via MMS, e-mail, post to Facebook or Twitter, or upload to SkyDrive. Also, the image is added to the number of favorites, opened using an editing program. The picture can also be transferred using applications, for example, uploaded to Twitter through an additional client. The face recognition feature allows you to tag people in your photos. The photos can then be uploaded to Facebook. An application for editing pictures is built in, it will allow you to apply various effects. There was a function of simultaneous selection of several pictures, now it has become much more convenient to transfer files. Applications Watch Several alarms are stored in memory. Each of them is given a signal time, a repeat mode by day of the week. You can choose from melodies from the device's memory. In addition, you can give the alarm a name. The calculator offers all the necessary functions for making calculations. If you turn the device on its side, an additional settings menu will open. Office The section includes applications that work with Word, Excel, Power Point and One Note. Accordingly, these are programs for text documents, spreadsheets, presentations and notes. The device allows not only to view data on the screen, but to create new files of these types or edit existing ones. There are a lot of settings, it is unlikely that someone will manually create a large presentation, but make adjustments to Text Document will be convenient. The document can be emailed, uploaded to SkyDrive, or uploaded to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. Navigation Nokia smartphone buyers get excellent HERE Maps and HERE Drive navigation. Maps with excellent detail, street names in Russian. And it is worth noting that there is also a numbering of houses. Several terrain display modes are supported: map-scheme, satellite and scheme indicating public transport. It is convenient to lay traffic routes here, maps are also available offline. The path from one point to another is calculated both by car and by public transport or on foot. At the same time, key points are indicated, you can pre-evaluate the entire upcoming road. 2D and 3D modes are implemented, and the interface is displayed in dark colors in order to make it more convenient to use navigation in the dark. Can be downloaded desired cards terrain, as well as a package with voice prompts. If you wish, you can take your smartphone with you to any country in the world and use it even offline, which is very convenient. Score Each application is provided with screenshots and a picture-icon. The price is indicated, while it is given in the currency of the state, information about which is indicated in the account. The rating of the program, reviews, its size is displayed. If you wish, you can download a demo version and try it. It is inconvenient that the smartphone does not have a separate list of purchased software, such an opportunity is not enough. Connections The smartphone supports GSM850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100 frequencies, has GPS, A-GPS and GLONASS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n works well, reception is confident, network passwords are saved. In this case, the screen lock causes a disconnection from the Wi-Fi network. Bluetooth 3.0 with EDR allows you to listen to music on wireless headphones. The smartphone can work as a network access point for other devices. In addition, DLNA support has appeared. The big advantage of the new smartphones is the free copying of data, which eliminates the need to work with the Zune. Smartphone is now defined as external drive, content is copied easily and quickly, which users have missed so much before. Working hours The battery capacity is 1430 mAh. Nokia claims up to 14.8 hours of talk time, up to 360 hours of standby time, 61 hours of music playback. Typically, a smartphone works for about 1.5-2 days with an average load, but with intensive use it can be discharged in one day. Conclusion First of all, I want to compare Nokia Lumia 520 c. Only negative emotions remained from the latter, while this model turned out to be much more successful. There is a much better screen here, performance has improved, the filling has become more powerful, a slot for a memory card has been added. If you want to save money, then the Lumia 520 will be an adequate solution in terms of price and quality ratio: Windows Phone 8 for moderate money, as well as good set useful programs. Devices from Huawei and Alcatel are less famous when other WP8 phones from Nokia are more expensive. © Alexander Pobyvanets, Test Lab Date of publication of the article - June 18, 2013