Nokia has been granted an injunction by the Amsterdam district court regarding the high-amplitude microphones that HTC’s new flagship smartphone, the HTC One, uses. According to Nokia, the HTC One uses the same microphone that’s used inside of Nokia’s Lumia smartphone line-up. Nokia provides a picture that shows that the microphone inside of the HTC One is the same microphone used in the Nokia Lumia 720.
The only thing that sets the two microphones apart is one digit. The Nokia Lumia 720′s number is 307, while the HTC One is 302. Nokia spoke with Windows Phone Central and stated that the numbers represent the manufacturing date of the microphones, and that the TD V1.4 label refers to Nokia’s exclusive code for the component. Nokia says that this isn’t a a patent issue with HTC, but a violation of the non-disclosure agreement between Nokia and the microphone’s manufacturer, ST Electronics.
Nokia sought an injunction against the HTC One because it says that HTC had no license to use the components. HTC issued an official statement regarding the injunction stating that it was disappointed in the decision and that it is “considering whether it will have any impact on our business” and that it “will explore alternative solutions immediately.” HTC is relying on its HTC One to save it from financial ruin, and this complication with Nokia, among its other complications with Nokia, isn’t making things easy on the company.
Last month, Nokia was granted a patent injunction in Germany against HTC over its power saving technology. The patent was over “Reduction of Power Consumption in a Mobile Station.” Luckily for HTC, the patent only affects 3 of its phones, the HTC Wildfire S, HTC Desire S, and HTC Rhyme, which are no longer imported into Germany. Hopefully HTC and Nokia are able to resolve these issues sooner rather than later. We’ll keep you posted if any new information comes up. Also, be sure to check out our reviews for both the HTC One and Nokia Lumia 720.
Nokia’s Lumia range is, depending on those you ask, either getting crowded or becoming more flexible, with the new Lumia 720 slotting in-between the 620 and the older 820. With its 4.3-inch screen adding up to a pocket-friendly size, the Lumia 720 makes a strong argument for the Windows Phone midrange. Still, we’ve already praised the Lumia 620 for punching above its station, so does the 720 really carve out enough of a difference to make it worth consideration? Read on for the full review.
Hardware
Nokia’s familial design language is clear in the Lumia 720, and it’s one of the more pleasing handsets to look at and hold in the company’s range. Narrower sides but wider top and bottom bezels make for a phone that’s slimmer but longer than the Lumia 820 it most closely resembles, though the 720 shaves 0.9 mm off the depth (taking it down to 9 mm).
There’s a compromise involved in that, though, which is that while wireless charging is an option, it’s not baked into the Lumia 720 natively. Instead, you have to slot the phone into a secondary skin, which makes contact with a row of pin-connectors running along the lower section of the rear. Then, it’s compatible with any Qi-compliant wireless charger, including Nokia’s own accessories; unfortunately, Nokia didn’t have the adapter shell available for us to test.
Bare, it’s a sturdy unibody with a smooth, matte finish; the red of our review unit is particularly fetching, but Nokia will also offer the 720 in white, cyan, yellow, and black. A Micro SIM-tray on the upper edge means Nokia can keep the back cover fixed – which also means no removable battery – while on the right side there’s the usual volume rocker, power/lock key, and camera shortcut. A microUSB port is on the bottom edge, and finally another pop-out tray on the left for a microSD card slot (to add to the 8GB of internal storage).
Nokia has been pushing two screen technologies of late, Clear Black for better contrast and outdoor usability, and increased sensitivity for the touchscreen meaning it will work even when you’re wearing gloves. Both are present on the Lumia 720′s 4.3-inch panel, a bright and colorful screen let down only by its mediocre resolution. At WVGA, rather than 720p, you miss out on the smoothness we’ve seen on other, more expensive phones. Admittedly, the effect is diluted somewhat by the smaller size overall, but we’d still loved to have seen an HD screen.
Inside, Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon S4 chip holds court, paired with 512MB of memory. Nokia may have omitted wireless charging, but you still get quadband 21.1Mbps HSDPA, quadband GSM/EDGE, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi b/g/n, and NFC. Above the display there’s a 1.3-megapixel camera with a wide-angle f/2.4 lens, while a 6.7-megapixel camera with f/1.9 Carl Zeiss optics is on the back, next to an LED flash. The latter will record 720p HD video, though not Full HD.
Software and Performance
Windows Phone 8 hasn’t deviated from what we last saw on a new Nokia, and so it’s all becoming familiar territory for both the firm and its users. The OS is undeniably approachable for first-time smartphone buyers, and while it doesn’t have widgets in the traditional sense, the Live Tiles system – where each of the resizable blocks can cycle through recent updates, media previews, upcoming events, new messages, and other information – can, with a little investment in setup time, be surprisingly rewarding. If you want to fill the homescreen with a grid of contact shortcuts, you can, or alternatively you can replicate an iOS-style layout with simple app buttons.
On top of that, Nokia throws in its own value-add, the growing suite of exclusive apps and services which the Finnish firm hopes will coax you away not only from Android or iPhone, but from other Windows Phone OEMs like HTC. Most notable are HERE Maps, HERE Drive, and Nokia Music, though there are a few tweaks along the way.
HERE Maps, for instance, now gets LiveSight and HERE Transit baked in, integrating the previously standalone City Lens and Nokia Transit technology within the one core app. LiveSight allows you to hold the Lumia 720 up and look “through” it at points of interest overlaid on top of a real-world view from the camera. It’s useful, particularly being able to zoom past buildings and see what’s behind them, if you’re in a new area, and the Nokia’s processor has no issues keeping up as you physically spin around to pan the camera.
HERE Transit, meanwhile, shifts the incredibly useful public transportation guidance into the core HERE Maps app, where it belonged all along. Nokia says it now has timetable data for more than 670 cities in 50 countries worldwide, with the ability to pin specific routes to the Windows Phone homescreen (and see, on a Live Tile, the next upcoming journey time).
What you don’t get is HERE Drive+, with global offline navigation. Instead, those in the UK will get UK and Ireland maps with offline support, but have to pay extra if they want navigation data for elsewhere in the world.
Nokia Music, meanwhile, continues to offer a compelling alternative for those shy of Spotify’s monthly subscription fee. Sign-up free, it offers 100 Mix Radio playlists that Nokia updates weekly, picking from a catalog of 22m tracks, the ability to create your own custom playlists triggered from an original “seed” track, and support for a limited number of offline playlists. The Nokia Music+ subscription service – an in-app upgrade – unlocks unlimited offline playback, as well as higher-quality audio on WiFi connections, and unlimited track-skips.
Last year we criticized Nokia’s Lumia 610 for coming to market with 256MB of RAM when the latest apps were calling for double that. The Lumia 720 makes a similar mistake – less serious initially, but likely to be no less frustrating over the course of a two-year agreement – with its 512MB looking short-sighted when apps demanding at least 1GB are starting to arrive in the Windows Phone Store.
Camera
Nokia’s 6.7-megapixel camera for the Lumia 720 uses a custom sensor and the company’s favorite Carl Zeiss optics, though falls short of PureView branding. Nonetheless, it’s a capable shooter, particularly in the sort of low-light settings we’ve praised PureView devices for previously.
So, you don’t get optical image stabilization, but you do get a camera that doesn’t lose its nerve when it comes to scenes with mixed bright and dark areas. There, the Lumia 720 leans toward maintaining detail in the low-light patches – though that can leave brighter scenes over-exposed – with results that belie the mid-range positioning of the phone. The LED flash is satisfactory, but we found we could often leave it switched off and rely on the camera’s inherent light-grabbing skills.
On the flip side, both photos and video (recorded at 720p maximum on both front and back cameras) have a tendency to introduce glare and lens-flare when you’re in brighter environments. Otherwise, video from the Lumia 720 looks solid, and the continuous auto-focus does a reasonable job at keeping your subject clear.
Our interest in front-facing cameras usually begins and ends with the odd Skype video call, but Nokia has made a specific play for those particularly keen to take self-portraits. As well as being equipped with a wide-angle lens, to fit more people in-shot, the Lumia 720 supports the new, wretchedly-named Glam Me app, which automatically enhances your selfies. Brightness, skin smoothness, blemishes and more are all ironed out, tweaked, and generally finessed; alternatively, you can apply one of several filters, with Instagram-like textures and color tones.
Phone and Battery Life
Nokia’s legacy for decent call quality continues with the Lumia 720, though the relevance of voice calls alone is perhaps questionable these days. Instead, we can’t help but feel that omitting LTE support was a missed opportunity.
The Lumia 720′s battery may be non-removable, but at 2,000 mAh it’s oversized for a 4.3-inch phone. That pays obvious dividends for runtimes: Nokia quotes up to 13.4hrs of talk time or up to 520hrs of standby (both on 3G), or alternatively 79hrs of music playback (locally-stored, not streaming).
In practice, with regular use – push email turned on, social networking use including Facebook and Twitter, some photography, music streaming, and HERE Maps – we easily made it through two days without having to reach for the microUSB charger. That’s almost enough for us to forgive the fact that wireless charging (or the kit needed to use it) isn’t bundled.
Wrap-Up
In some ways, the Lumia 720 is everything we’ve asked for from Nokia. It’s slickly designed and has superlative battery life, the camera out-performs rivals in the same price bracket, and the screen – though lower resolution than we like – is a nice compromise of size, outdoor usability, and general clarity.
Letting the show down are the absence of LTE and the potentially limiting 512MB of RAM. You could well say that the Lumia 720′s target audience won’t miss 4G, but there’s a growing cadre of people wanting higher-end features without a massive display, and they already know they want LTE. As 4G spreads, more and more people are going to expect it to on their phone. As for the RAM, that’s a more obvious drawback: games like Temple Run are quietly omitted from the Store, since they demand twice the memory the Nokia has.
It’s a frustrating flaw in what could’ve been a fantastic device, though the strengths in camera and battery life still make it a solid choice in the midrange.
With the T-Mobile UNcarrier pricing list and details revealed one day early, the 4th-largest carrier in the country may very well be showing off not the plan, but the devices that’ll attach to the plan at their big event! March 26th is the day that we’re going to see the full show – that’s tomorrow or today, depending on when you’re having a peek at this post – but what we know before the fact is quite telling. Several FCC listings and the tease of several machines is what we’ve got right now.
LG Optimus G Pro
Though it’d be quite a scandal if the LG Optimus G Pro were released with T-Mobile before it hit AT&T, we can certainly cross our fingers that this monstrous beast will bestow its greatness on the big pink carrier this week. As it’s already prepared for work with AT&T radios via the FCC, T-Mobile’s technology may very well be pumped up and ready for action here as well.
It should come as no surprise that the Nokia Lumia 521 would be chosen as one of the first devices to be unveiled here in the United States under these new carrier plans. This device was revealed at Mobile World Congress 2013 as one of several budget-minded smartphones working with Windows Phone 8 by Nokia, aiming for the everyman without sacrificing the high-quality craftsmanship and Nokia-way that comes with every Lumia device. You’ll find this device having hit the FCC this week.
Have a peek at our hands-on with the Lumia 520 – the original version (the international version) of the device we’ll be seeing here on T-Mobile as the 521. It’ll be essentially the same device with a few choice changes to the hardware build – expect it! Watch out for the slightly larger Lumia 720 as well.
BlackBerry Z10
Even though the BlackBerry Z10 was available to business customers with T-Mobile back on the 11th of March, it would still make a lot of sense for the company to give some hands-on time and another kick in the bootloader to this smartphone at this week’s event. Once it’s available to the general public, the stream of BlackBerry love can continue – and maybe it’ll even have 4G LTE connectivity. Can we dare to hope?
Have a peek at our BlackBerry Z10 review right this minute as it appears internationally and let us know if you’d jump on board if it were available to you from T-Mobile this week.
Lenovo IdeaTab A1000-F
Though it’s rather unlikely that a device that, according to Engadget, is passing through the FCC this week with Wifi only would be revealed by T-Mobile this week, it’s still possible. This machine is a 7-inch tablet we heard about earlier this year with not one whole heck of a lot of surprises inside, but a Q2 2013 release time on the books. Watch out for it one way or the other!
It may be that T-Mobile has finally signed a deal with Apple to get the iPhone on their shelves, but this is the least likely device of the collection here in this article. It’s much more likely that a carrier like T-Mobile would wait for Apple to reveal a new generation of device before they announce a partnership – especially with the new subsidy plans in the UNcarrier push.
Don’t forget the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy Note II, also – the Galaxy device was the first device to have T-Mobile’s 4G LTE network switched on while the HTC One has been guaranteed to see the carrier sooner than later! Remember – this T-Mobile event happens at 8AM PST tomorrow – that’s 10AM Central, and 11AM Eastern Standard Time. Don’t you dare miss it!
Today the Nokia Lumia 720 has been spotted running through the hoops at the FCC, this being one of the prerequisites for a USA release and a generally OK indicator that a launch here in the states is imminent. We got to take a peek at the Lumia 720 just a week ago at Mobile World Congress 2013 and found it to be a rather impressive machine – especially considering how inexpensive the company aims for it to be. We’re to understand that this device may be heated to AT&T first, with the other major carriers coming up quickly behind.
This device works with a lovely 4.3-inch back-lit color display with a 1GHz dual-core processor from Qualcomm and will be arriving in the states in a variety of colors. Though we’ve seen the device in just Blue and White, you’ll be seeing Black and possible Red coming in as well. And then there’s the case options – case options galore!
UPDATE: We’ve seen black as well – the colors are endless!
Below you’re going to see a hands-on look at the Nokia Lumia 720 as we saw it at Mobile World Congress. Here we’re rolling out at the official Nokia stand, you’ll notice too. This stand was more of a whole experience in and of itself, complete with massive shows of the devices revealed that week – Nokia Lumia 520 as well as the smaller devices too! Have a peek at more of our MWC 2013 content right this minute to see the full run-down.
WIth the Lumia 720 we’re expecting some more awesome customization of options too – have a peek at our hands-on with the brand new Nokia NFC-laden car stand to see how Nokia continues to innovate with their accessories surrounding the whole Lumia lineup. Then get pumped up about the release of the Lumia 720 which should be coming up quick – with Windows Phone 8 included – straight to a AT&T outlet near you!
This week at Mobile World Congress 2013 we’ve seen Nokia‘s own Lumia 820 and 520 getting their own custom casings (not just covers, that is) with the MakerBot Replicator 2 – live and in-action! While it was just this January when Nokia first released their own 3D case printing files for the Lumia 820, MakerBot quickly revealed their own MakerBot Replicator 2 Destkop 3D Printer optimized shell that Nokia uses this week. This ultimate team-up showed what it could do with the publicly available files – all you need is your own maker to make your own!
Nokia has branded this event as the “world’s first live social 3D printing experience” – so fancy you’ll barely be able to handle it! Attendees as well as users at home were able to win customized cases for the 820, and even though there was no large news blast inside the main Nokia keynote, the demonstration was swamped almost non-stop. The hands-on video you’ll see here shows one of the very rare times when the 3 MakerBot Replicator 2 machines weren’t surrounded by a sea of bodies.
You’ll find the scaly example of a case shown above and below to be made of two separate pieces as you’ll be wanting to create when you’re busting out your own design. The reason for this is the relative rigidity of the material you’re creating with. With a second piece pushing out from the inside, you’ve got a bendable set of bits that function as buttons, as they should.
And that affords you the ability to have more than one color, too. You’ll be busting out a black case with yellow buttons – perhaps a case with your school’s colors? The outer bits and back of your Nokia Lumia 820 (or 520 in the very near future) are yours to create. Check the back of the case in the gallery below to see some key-carrying action as well!
Also be sure to check the rest of our Mobile World Congress 2013 coverage in the MWC 2013 tag portal right this minute. Keep your eyes to the Nokia tag for our reviews of the new 720 and 520 in the very near future too – hot stuff!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
