Microsoft Lumia 640XL Review

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2015), Microsoft announced two new Windows Phones, the Lumia 640 and Lumia 640XL. Both these devices were announced in India few days back. We already reviewed the Lumia 640 which is priced lower than the 640XL. The Lumia 640XL comes with 5.7 inch HD display and is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Quad Core processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage.

It also comes with a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front facing camera for selfies and video. It runs the latest Windows Phone 8.1 Lumia denim update and is upgradable to Windows 10. So how does the Lumia 640XL perform in the mid range segment? Lets find out in the detailed review.

Design and Build:

Design wise, the Lumia 640XL has the same design language as that of 640 and also Lumia 630 released last year. It is a good looking device although it might not be the most attractive one out there. The sides of the device have flat panel and so is the rear panel. There is a slight curvature on the real panel towards the edges giving a better grip on the phone. With Lumia 640, the Cyan color makes a comeback to the Lumia series. While the black variant has matte finish, other colors have glossy finishing and feels good in hands. The material quality is also very good, typical of any other Lumia device.

The phone has power and volume keys on the right side and they have been given black color. The 3.5mm audio jack is on the top and the microUSB charging slot at the bottom. The front panel houses the 5.7 inch IPS LCD HD display, 5MP front camera and the usual set of sensors. Similar to recent budget and mid range Lumia devices, the phone comes with on screen navigational buttons.

The rear panel has the 13MP camera and LED flash along with Microsoft logo at the center. The speaker unit is located to the side of the camera.  Overall, the phone feels solid in hands with great build quality, but it is not recommended for users with small hands. Using the device one-handed might not be possible.

Display:

The Lumia 640XL sports a 5.7 inch HD display with a resolution of 1280 X 720P and has a pixel density of 259ppi. There is sunlight readability enhancements and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. But unlike Lumia 730, the Super sensitive touch is missing on the device. But the display on the Lumia 640 supports glance screen. The display is pretty decent, but not the quality of Lumia 640 as the pixels per inch is lower here. The phone also features ClearBlack technology which makes the display superior to the competition.

The IPS LCD display has good viewing angles as well and there was no change in colors when viewing at an angle. The touch response is also good on the 5.7 inch display. Similar to other mid range and budget Lumia devices, the 640XL also comes with on screen navigational buttons which can be minimized.

Software and Performance:

Lumia 640 comes with Windows Phone 8.1 out of the box along with the Lumia Denim update which is the latest software from the company. With 8.1 update, Microsoft has added lots of new features and the most prominent one is the notification center. Apart from this, there are other customization options in the start screen along with storage sense, Wi-Fi Sense, Data sense, VPN support and many more features.

With Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft has bridged the gap between Android and WP in terms of feature set. The phone also features the update 2 which has some minor changes when compared to previous version.

You can also customize the start screen with background images and also has the ability to manage one more tile. Additional tools like data sense allows you to keep control on your data usage. The storage sense app is very handy to manage the storage and set the default location for saving photos, videos, apps and more on the phone.

The device runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Quad core chipset with 1GB of RAM. The performance is really good with no lag or issues. The touch response is also really good and we never had any issues. The gaming performance of the device is also good, with pretty decent graphic quality and not too much of heating while playing the games. The phone also comes with 8GB internal storage and this can be expanded to 128GB via microSD card. With Windows Phone 8.1, you can install apps on the SD card which is very useful feature missing on many Android phones in this category.

This is also dual SIM Windows Phone and Microsoft has added a dedicated section for managing dual SIM. You can have two tiles on the start screen for two SIM cards and also link it to make it into one tile. The phone has an onscreen buttons and you can also customize the background color for the navigation bar. You can also minimize the navigational buttons and auto hide them similar to Lumia 730. The phone does not feature NFC which was found on Lumia 730.

The call quality on the device was really good and we didn’t have any issues with the signal strength. The speaker volume is pretty decent and good if you listen to songs.

Camera:

Lumia 640 comes with a 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a front facing 5MP camera. While the camera is better than Lumia 730 in terms of MP, there are two thing missing in Lumia 640, one is Zeiss optics and second is dedicated microphone for the camera. The phone ships with the new Lumia camera app which is now default camera app on Windows Phone.

The camera was tested on various light conditions. The daylight captures were pretty good and the colors have come great on most occasions. There is also good amount of detailing available in the photo and the 13MP shooter does a good job in daylight photos. The close-up shots were also good and there was no issue with focussing and here again the colors have come closer to natural colors.

Now coming on to low light photography, this is where the camera does not really impress. The Lumia cameras have known for great low light ability and the Lumia 730 was a perfect example, but the Lumia 640XL does not have great quality in low light images although they are slightly better than the Lumia 640 with a 8MP camera. The images look noisy and the details are very poor. But with adequate artificial lights, the captures were decent, but again they looked dull. The flash was also not really the best in terms of quality. The phone also supports 1080p video recording which is again decent quality.  Front facing 5MP camera is pretty good and have good colors as well. It is pretty good for selfies and the Lumia Selfie app comes handy. Here are some of the photos taken with the device.

Daylight:

Low Light and with Flash:

Front camera:

Battery Life:

The phone comes with a 3000mAh battery which is good capacity considering Windows Phones are not really a battery hog. We tested the battery performance with various aspects including social networking, emails and other apps running in the background and the performance was pretty good. You can easily get more than 1.5 days of battery life with average usage. The battery on Lumia 640XL refuses to die and the performance is similar to Lumia 1320 phablet which also had great performance.

With Windows Phone 8.1 latest update, you can also see the battery consumption by each app and close them in case any app is taken up more battery.

Verdict:

So priced at Rs 15799 is the Lumia 640XL value for money? Today, the competition in the mid range and budget category is very tough with lot of players offering better specs and features than the Lumia 640XL at a lower price point. One of the big disappointments of Lumia 640XL is the pricing. But the strong points of Lumia 640XL is the excellent build, decent camera and terrific battery life and more importantly excellent service network across the country which is probably missing on many online only players. Unless you are looking for a phablet, we would suggest the Lumia 640 or Lumia 730 priced lower and comes with similar specs.