After Google’s terrific performance in mid-range and high-end segment, Microsoft’s share in the product market has plunged pretty badly. The company is still running into profits, but its product line-up is seeing a bad run, especially due to the hefty pricing of Surface Book and disappointing mobile ecosystem of Windows 10 Mobile!
However, despite these losses, Microsoft wants to continue with its mind-boggling Lumia series. The company introduced a plethora of features with Lumia 550, and is now moving a step ahead with its highly touted elder sibling, Lumia 650!
Targeted towards business users, the new beauty from the company ships at a decent price tag, and promises a blazing experience with seamless performance.On paper, it looks pretty good with a suite of Office applications and an impressive OLED screen, but as always, there are some downsides as well.
A Stunning Form-factor
Though no budget phone stands out against the beautiful OnePlus X, we have to keep it as exception and give some credit to Microsoft’s brilliant work in the design department. The latest handset from the company sports a plastic back with matte finish,and sits inside a premium looking metal frame.The sleek profile and brilliant design strategy from Microsoft has made Lumia 650 an enticing package for premium smartphone enthusiasts.
Its seamless design gives reminiscence of iPhone 4/4s, and Gorilla Glass 4 on the top takes screen protection to another level. Overall, this 5-inch phone with sleek bezels and 6.9mm thickness is something which you don’t see every day in the market!
Sharp 720p Display on-board
After seeing a bunch of dull and boring displays, this one looks pretty different. Maybe it’s Microsoft’s good work that this HD panel doesn’t feels like standard high-definition, and looks a lot better, vibrant, and sharper. The 5-inch display bundled with this handset offers a nice visual experience with adequate brightness and legible text output. It looks pretty impressive in day light conditions, and outperforms most phones with HD panels.Special credit goes to the OLED screen tech, which adds punchy and vibrant colours, and makes the whole thing much more exciting. If you’re fond of playing movies and games while hitting the road, this display has just got everything for you!
Decent Performance with Snapdragon 212
Coming towards the downside, it is pretty disappointing from Microsoft that its powerful sub-15k smartphone runs on an entry-level Snapdragon 212 processor with just 1GB of RAM.Tickling four Cortex-A7 cores at 1.3 GHz, the processor promises decent performance with Windows 10, but fails to cater gaming and heavy usage requirements.
Microsoft has crafted this phone specifically for business users, an area where it excels and offers seamless performance just as per their needs. But, if you have any gaming, multimedia or heavy-usage expectations, we’ll suggest to sit this one out!
As for storage, no questions asked, Microsoft has got everything covered with 16 gigs of built-in-storage, expandable memory up to 200 GB (via microSD card), and dedicated cloud storage on OneDrive.
Windows 10 Mobile and its benefits!
Though Microsoft’s highly touted mobile OS covers a small part of global market, its performance and app suite makes an ideal package for business-focused users.Windows 10 Mobile is a real enjoyment, especially with a slew of nifty features and Universal App Support.It handles moderate usage to perfection and runs all major apps without lags or bugs. As of now, iOS 9 and Android 6.0 Marshmallow are still ahead, but considering the advent of new features, things are likely to change in near future!
Speaking more of business usage, the software bundled with Lumia 650 packs a strong punch with Salesforce and SAP support. It features Office 365 suite, personal digital assistant Cortana and a plethora of under-the-hood security features such as, mobile device management (MDM), virtual private networks (VPNs), and data encryption. On whole, everything looks perfect for business-oriented smartphone users.
Top-tier Camera Setup
In addition to this, with an aperture as wide as f/2.2, Microsoft Lumia 650 sports an 8-megapixel rear and 5-megapixel front-facing shooter. The handset takes crisp and sharp images with this camera setup, and is well-supported by the Photos App, which backs up all your shots and videos, and syncs them across your other Windows 10 devices. The camera output and autofocus speed of this handset was pretty good, but couldn’t match the likes of OnePlus X and other players in the same price bracket.
Sufficient Battery for Normal Usage
To keep things up and running, Microsoft endows a 2000 mAh battery with Lumia 650. This battery looks quite weak on paper, but just like iPhone 6’s, it delivers sufficient juice for an entire day of work and play. In fact, even when you’re on-the-go, the impressively powerful battery of this phone will hold enough charge to run basic social networking apps and make few calls.
Pricing In India
The rumour mill suggests a price tag of Rs. 14,990, but according to a recent leak from Amazon India, Lumia 650 will cost you Rs. 16,499 in the Indian market. Though there is no official word from the company, a price around 15k is definitely on the cards, especially considering the recent trend of Microsoft’s 600 series smartphones (Lumia610, 620, 630, 640). This price looks pretty good, but we still don’t know how many will prefer a business-user focused Lumia 650 over OnePlus and other value-for-money players in the game!
Bottom Line
In a nutshell, Microsoft Lumia 650, with Windows 10 Mobile, makes a perfect package for business-class users. The phone is highly secure just like a BlackBerry, and includes a number of mind-boggling features that you hardly find on a regular Android smartphone. Microsoft clearly defines uniqueness with Lumia family, and is still doing a great job at that.
On whole, we can say, the phone runs well, and delivers seamless performance with a strong software making up for weak hardware support!
