Microsoft Lumia 540 (Dual SIM) Review

After announcing Lumia 640 (review) and Lumia 640XL (review) at the Mobile World Congress 2015, Microsoft announced yet another mid range Lumia device, the Lumia 540 Dual SIM which is probably the successor of Lumia 535. The phone comes with upgraded specs when compared to the Lumia 535. The Lumia 540 features a 5 inch HD display and is powered by Snapdragon 200 Quad core processor with 1GB RAM and there is 8GB internal storage. The phone runs latest Windows Phone 8.1 update 2.

There is also an upgraded 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a front facing 5MP camera. Here is the detailed review of Lumia 540 Dual SIM

Design and Build

Design wise, the Lumia 540 is a fairly good looking device although it might not be the most attractive one out there. There are lot of design similarities with the Lumia 640 and it is tough to identify them. The edges 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. We have the black variant which has a matte finish similar to 640 and 640XL. 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 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 8MP camera and LED flash along with Microsoft logo at the center. The speaker unit is located at the bottom. Overall, the phone feels solid in hands with great build quality.

Display:

The Lumia 540 sports a 5 inch HD display with a resolution of 1280 X 720P and has a pixel density of 294ppi. Unlike the Lumia 640, the 540 does not come with Corning Gorilla glass protection on the display and the sunlight readability enhancements are also missing on the device. The display is pretty good and colors are also decent. The readability is very good. 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 inch display. Similar to other mid range and budget Lumia devices, the 540 also comes with on screen navigational buttons which can be minimized. The super sensitive touch is also missing on the device.

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 200 Quad core chipset with 1GB of RAM. The performance is pretty good with no lag or issues, but we would say it is high time Microsoft stopped making devices with the out-dated Snapdragon 200 chipset and adopt the 410 chipset with 4G LTE. The touch response is 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.

Related Watching: Lumia 540 Gaming Review

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.

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 540 comes with a 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a front facing 5MP camera. While the camera has the same specs as that of Lumia 640, there is a difference in performance. 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 decent and the colors have come great on most occasions. The photos were not really sharp and there was some amount of noise even in daylight captures. 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, the performance was again just average. While the photo quality was slightly better than many other Android phones with 8MP camera, the competition in this category is pretty stiff with 13MP shooters. But with adequate artificial lights, the captures were decent, but again they looked dull. The flash was decent and does a good job lighting the object. The video recording was very poor as it can record only videos in 480p and this is not a recommended camera for video recording. The front 5MP camera was pretty good for selfies and video calls and with the selfie app you can get good photos. Here are some of the photos taken with the device.

Daylight photos:

Low Light Images:

Battery Life:

The phone comes with a 2200mAh battery which is decent capacity considering Windows Phones are not really a battery hog. The capacity is lower than what was offered on Lumia 640. 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 a day of usage on the Lumia 540 battery with average usage.

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:

Priced at Rs 10199 (official pricing), we feel the Lumia 540 is over priced considering Lumia 640 is available for Rs 9999. While there is no big difference in software and performance when compared to Lumia 640, the camera, battery life and added features like Gorilla Glass 3, Glance screen etc are supported on Lumia 640. If you are looking for a mid range Windows Phone, we would definitely suggest Lumia 640 with better processor unless you are too concerned about selfies.