Microsoft Lumia five hundred thirty five review, Accomplished Reviews
Microsoft Lumia 535
Page one of TwoMicrosoft Lumia five hundred thirty five review
Microsoft's Lumia five hundred thirty five is well-built, but poor battery life and a fussy touchscreen makes it frustrating to use
Processor: Quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200, Screen Size: 5in, Screen resolution: 960×540, Rear camera: 5-megapixel, Storage: 8GB, Wireless data: 3G, Size: 140x72x8.8mm, Weight: 146g, Operating system: Windows Phone 8.1
One of the best things about Nokia’s Lumia phones was how well each one treated the Windows Phone 8.1 operating system. The budget handsets were particularly amazing, as even the £90 Lumia five hundred thirty with its meagre 512MB of RAM felt consistently smoother and more responsive than many similarly priced Android phones. Sadly, the very first Lumia phone to arrive without any Nokia branding brings this legacy to a grinding halt.
On paper, the Lumia five hundred thirty five should be a fraction quicker than the smaller Lumia 530, as it now has 1GB of RAM accompanying its quad-core, 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon two hundred processor. This certainly seemed to be the case in our web browsing benchmarks, with the Lumia five hundred thirty five ending in 1,258ms compared to the Lumia 530’s 1,453ms.
In practice, tho’, Microsoft somehow seems to have cracked its own operating system, as the five hundred thirty five is noticeably jerky when swiping inbetween menus. When we very first reviewed the handset in January, it also regularly failed to register taps while typing and using the onscreen menu buttons. Even worse, we found pinching-to-zoom while web browsing nigh on unlikely, as it almost always selected a link instead or made the entire page wobble as it determined whether to scroll or zoom. It’s the very first Windows Phone we’ve ever found truly frustrating to use, and we can’t fairly believe how much it pales in comparison to previous Nokia efforts.
Fortunately, Microsoft seems to have an issued a software update to fix this problem since January, as the touchscreen is now much more responsive and we didn’t have any problems scrolling up and down and tapping various app buttons. Pinch-zooming has also been improved, but it’s still not totally ideal. For example, there were numerous occasions when it didn’t work the way we desired it to, and even when it did it would often begin scrolling instead when we zoomed back out. These fixes are certainly an improvement, but there’s still a long way to go before it can match the speed and responsiveness of Nokia’s cheap Lumia handsets.
The phone’s battery life is identically terrible. In our continuous movie playback test, the Lumia 535’s 1,905mAh battery lasted just seven hours and ten minutes with screen brightness set to the medium profile setting. That’s the worst battery score we’ve seen from a Lumia phone this year. Admittedly, the Lumia five hundred thirty only lasted another seventy five minutes under the same conditions, and that has a much smaller screen eating up less power, but if the £100 Lumia 630’s 1,830mAh battery can manage just over twelve hours, then we’d expect the Lumia five hundred thirty five to last around ten hours at the very least.
That said, the Lumia 535’s 5in 960×540 display is much brighter than almost every other Lumia phone we’ve tested this year, bar the Lumia 830. With a peak brightness of 427.69cd/m2, this will draw more power regardless of which of the phone’s three brightness profiles you choose, but at least it means the phone is effortless to use when you’re outside.
A high brightness level also means washed-out blacks, tho’, as our black level measurement of 0.44cd/m2 meant that text and the black menu background looked noticeably grey compared to the phone’s jet black bezels. Text was still legible, thanks in part to the decent contrast ratio of 960:1, but the little 960×540 resolution means that desktop sites are fairly a strain on the eyes when you’re fully zoomed out.
One thing the five hundred thirty five does have in its favour is a reasonably accurate screen, as our colour calibrator displayed it was displaying 83.Five per cent of the sRGB colour gamut. This isn’t fantastic, as we now regularly see at least ninety per cent from budget Android phones, but it’s at least in keeping with the Lumia six hundred thirty and surpasses the Lumia 530’s 67.1 per cent score by fairly some margin.
Microsoft Lumia five hundred thirty five review, Experienced Reviews
Microsoft Lumia 535
Page one of TwoMicrosoft Lumia five hundred thirty five review
Microsoft's Lumia five hundred thirty five is well-built, but poor battery life and a fussy touchscreen makes it frustrating to use
Processor: Quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200, Screen Size: 5in, Screen resolution: 960×540, Rear camera: 5-megapixel, Storage: 8GB, Wireless data: 3G, Size: 140x72x8.8mm, Weight: 146g, Operating system: Windows Phone 8.1
One of the best things about Nokia’s Lumia phones was how well each one treated the Windows Phone 8.1 operating system. The budget handsets were particularly astounding, as even the £90 Lumia five hundred thirty with its meagre 512MB of RAM felt consistently smoother and more responsive than many similarly priced Android phones. Sadly, the very first Lumia phone to arrive without any Nokia branding brings this legacy to a grinding halt.
On paper, the Lumia five hundred thirty five should be a fraction swifter than the smaller Lumia 530, as it now has 1GB of RAM accompanying its quad-core, 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon two hundred processor. This certainly seemed to be the case in our web browsing benchmarks, with the Lumia five hundred thirty five completing in 1,258ms compared to the Lumia 530’s 1,453ms.
In practice, however, Microsoft somehow seems to have violated its own operating system, as the five hundred thirty five is noticeably jerky when swiping inbetween menus. When we very first reviewed the handset in January, it also regularly failed to register taps while typing and using the onscreen menu buttons. Even worse, we found pinching-to-zoom while web browsing nigh on unlikely, as it almost always selected a link instead or made the entire page wobble as it determined whether to scroll or zoom. It’s the very first Windows Phone we’ve ever found truly frustrating to use, and we can’t fairly believe how much it pales in comparison to previous Nokia efforts.
Fortunately, Microsoft seems to have an issued a software update to fix this problem since January, as the touchscreen is now much more responsive and we didn’t have any problems scrolling up and down and tapping various app buttons. Pinch-zooming has also been improved, but it’s still not fully flawless. For example, there were numerous occasions when it didn’t work the way we wished it to, and even when it did it would often begin scrolling instead when we zoomed back out. These fixes are certainly an improvement, but there’s still a long way to go before it can match the speed and responsiveness of Nokia’s cheap Lumia handsets.
The phone’s battery life is identically terrible. In our continuous movie playback test, the Lumia 535’s 1,905mAh battery lasted just seven hours and ten minutes with screen brightness set to the medium profile setting. That’s the worst battery score we’ve seen from a Lumia phone this year. Admittedly, the Lumia five hundred thirty only lasted another seventy five minutes under the same conditions, and that has a much smaller screen eating up less power, but if the £100 Lumia 630’s 1,830mAh battery can manage just over twelve hours, then we’d expect the Lumia five hundred thirty five to last around ten hours at the very least.
That said, the Lumia 535’s 5in 960×540 display is much brighter than almost every other Lumia phone we’ve tested this year, bar the Lumia 830. With a peak brightness of 427.69cd/m2, this will draw more power regardless of which of the phone’s three brightness profiles you choose, but at least it means the phone is effortless to use when you’re outside.
A high brightness level also means washed-out blacks, however, as our black level measurement of 0.44cd/m2 meant that text and the black menu background looked noticeably grey compared to the phone’s jet black bezels. Text was still legible, thanks in part to the decent contrast ratio of 960:1, but the lil’ 960×540 resolution means that desktop sites are fairly a strain on the eyes when you’re fully zoomed out.
One thing the five hundred thirty five does have in its favour is a reasonably accurate screen, as our colour calibrator showcased it was displaying 83.Five per cent of the sRGB colour gamut. This isn’t fantastic, as we now regularly see at least ninety per cent from budget Android phones, but it’s at least in keeping with the Lumia six hundred thirty and surpasses the Lumia 530’s 67.1 per cent score by fairly some margin.