Nokia Lumia 730: A complete Windows Phone experience

Nokia the mighty mobile company, leader in tech innovation for so long, with a history older than the country it belongs to, finally bowed out of mobile business, by selling its hardware division to Microsoft, the same Microsoft which a while back was considered as a dinosaur and which will not be able to survive the Apples and the Googles, but since Satya Nadella took over Microsoft is creating ripples in tech industry by making some bold decisions, takeovers, Windows 10, HOLOLENS, still it needs to be seen if Microsoft can really turn the tide in its favour by its latest decisions. But today is the time for hands on and review of Lumia 730, one of the last two Lumias with Nokia branding, Microsoft has already started launching Lumias with MS branding 535 being the first and now 640 and 640 XL announced at MWC this year, more on those elater  now let’s start with the task in hand.

Design, Controls & Screen :

Nokia started Lumia line with Lumia 800 which was inspired from iconic N9, and till date it can be seen Lumias following that great design language, Lumia 730 design follows in the footsteps of Lumia 920 and 1520, the side edges are round, with top and bottom part of the phone  are flat, some may complain about the edges but for me it was never an issue, 730 resembles 1520 so much so that you can call it mini Lumia 1520. Lumia 730 measures 134.7 by 68.5mm, with a sleek waist of 8.7mm. 730 is really a joy to hold in hand, whoever from my friend circle has taken my 730 into hands has really been impressed with light weight and sleekness. The phone weighs 130gm, and it’s really impressive of Nokia to push for lower weights. Even Lumia 830 with a polycarbonate and metal frame weighs 150gm. In the starting of time for Windows Phone, Microsoft had strict guidelines regarding hardware of mobile, hardware keys for volume, power and camera and capacitive buttons for back, windows and search key, but with advent of Windows Phone 8.1 Microsoft relaxed some of those guidelines, so on Lumia 730 Nokia has done away with camera hardware key, and capacitive controls on front, in place of capacitive controls on screen controls are given which can be hidden or summoned with just a flick upwards. I have been using 730 for around 4 months and these on screen controls are no issue to me, coming from Lumia 820 with capacitive controls, the only thing I missed is the camera key, I really liked the camera key working as shortcut for camera and also while clicking pics, it felt like a real deal, but a missing camera button is not a deal breaker for many, in fact Android & iOS users except Sony’s one would have never experienced a camera key for taking pics on their smartphones, so this is not an issue. I purchased a grey Lumia 730, there are three more colour options Orange, Green and White. The back cover sits tightly over the phone body and there are no gaps between the screen and cover, so the phone seems like uni body phone, but since its Nokia you can believe it’s not, Nokia from the time of 3310 has been giving customers the options to change their back shells and customize, and 730 is no different, you can change whole look of phone just by changing the back cover, I am going for a green one in a few days, but I wish Nokia has released few more Lumia Colours like Yellow, Cyan and my favourite Red from Lumia 920, but still you have the options for customization of your phone. 730 comes with a 4.7” AMOLED screen, 720X1280, with 316ppi which is really good, but biggest feature missing from Nokia in this Lumia is cool Glance Screen which I am really missing since it gives so much extra including the clock, notifications. Viewing angles are really great on 730 and since it’s a AMOLED screen contrast is great. 730 also has Nokia ClearBlack technology.

Battery & Connectivity Suits :

Lumia 730 comes with standard Li-Ion battery of 2200mAh capacity, which Nokia rated to 17hr of 3G talktime and 600 hrs of standby time. There are many tech sites which have done battery tests and you can find results all around the internet. My actual findings are pretty good for this phone, I have taken out almost one and half days without charging, my normal usage includes twitter, facebook, what’s app, calling, internet surfing. On connectivity side Lumia 730 is pretty loaded, dual band Wi-fi a/b/g/n with DLAN and Wi-Fi Hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0 with support for file transfer, FM Radio.

Camera & Selfie :

730 picks up the back camera from its predecessor 720, with 6.7MP Zeiss optics, with autofocus and LED flash, as with 720 the camera here works really good, it doesn’t have Nokia’s PureView or OIS but it does have f/1.9, which does give some good low light photos, overall camera photos from Lumia 730 are good, not great like 930’s or 830’s, but still photos are decent and we are talking about a mid-range smartphone. Main talking point for 730 was the front camera, a 5MP wide angle front camera for Selfie lovers. Lumia 730 was the first Lumia phone with such a huge camera at front; also it includes 1080p recording so really good effort from Nokia. Lumia Selfie app is pre-installed on phone and it does have some really nice tricks up its sleeve, you can even use back camera for taking Selfie with the help of Selfie app.

Internals & Real Life Performance :

Lumia 730 comes with Quad Core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400,Adreno 305, 1GB RAM & 8GB internal memory with support for SD Card up to 128GB. The processor configuration may not excite power hungry people, but with Windows Phone 8.1 running 730 provides a very fluid and fast experience. During my usage with the phone I have not found any issues of phone getting any lag or stutter. It has been a very pleasant ride with 730 so far, unlike 720 which had some quirks due to its limited 512MB RAM, 730 has zipped past those issues of some 1GB requiring games.

Final Words :

Lumia 730 along with 830 is one of last two phones with Nokia branding, and it is really a delight to use, having some pretty good aces up its sleeve in terms of selfie camera, upgraded RAM which sometimes haunted the very good 720. The design is as always good, and this time Nokia threw in a very sleek waistline and light weight. As Windows Phone 8.1 is maturing these phones will hold on to their fort. Microsoft is already moving towards Windows 10 for phone, and as seen in recent news it will be called Windows 10 Mobile(hopefully), 730s and 830s will live on and serve better, since they too are on upgrade path for Windows 10, in fact these two are one of the few devices which can get Windows 10 Technical Preview for Phones. I have already got that on my Lumia 730, and will be writing up about my experience with Windows 10 TP for Phone next time.

The Good	The Bad	The Ugly
Design, Camera, Screen.	Missing Glance Screen	General public perception regarding Windows Phone