NEW DELHI: The Lumia 640 has a one-piece back panel, a smooth plastic finish, rounded corners, and is available in a range of bright and eye-catching colours. It certainly stands out more than most budget-friendly handsets.
The Lumia 640 is larger than some of its stablemates with a 5-inch screen, but it’s also sleeker than the likes of the Lumia 630/635 at 8.8mm thick. All these factors mean that the handset feels good to hold and is comfortable to use single-handed.
One of the most impressive aspects of the Lumia 640 is its screen. And considering that’s what you spend most of your time looking at, that’s quite the boon. The Lumia 640 features a 5-inch 720 x 1280-resolution (294ppi) IPS LCD screen. It’s big and bright, and colours are rich.
The Lumia 640 is powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor along with 1GB RAM. That may not sound all that impressive on paper, but in practice it makes light work of most processes and everything ticks along nicely.
There’s 8GB internal storage, which is expandable via microSD card by up to 128GB. One of the main selling points of the Lumia 640 is the year’s free Office 365 subscription. This comes with a whopping 1TB of OneDrive storage, so you should have more than enough room for all your files, photos, apps, and entertainment one way or another.
Speaking of photos, the camera is an improvement over the Lumia 630. It has an 8 megapixel lens with the addition of an LED flash, while it’s capable of recording video at 1080p. The front-facing camera is suited for making video calls over Skype, which comes pre-installed.
One of the criticisms levelled at the Windows Phone operating system is its app selection. Microsoft is taking steps to make it easier for app developers to port their app. It recently unveiled a set of tools that will allow Android developers to quickly compile the code for their apps for Windows Phone devices.
The Windows Store could be jam-packed with new and exciting apps in no time at all. In the meantime, you should be able to find apps to keep you entertained.
With the inclusion of a one-year subscription to Office 365, you’re getting plenty of bang for your buck. The budget-friendly tag might worry some, but the Microsoft’s Lumia 640 is a great device that outperforms its price tag.
