My experience with the Microsoft Lumia 640

July 05, 2015

You may remember back in December, just before Christmas I tested out the Huawei Ascend Y550 phone with a day out in the Yorkshire Dales. I really enjoyed giving a different phone a try, even though the quality wasn't what I was used to, so when Microsoft Connects got in touch asking me if I'd like to trial one of their Lumia devices I said yes straight away! After some back and forth discussion, the Lumia 640 was chosen for me, which was released in the UK back in April this year. I had the Lumia 640 for a total of two weeks and used it in place of my usual phone, so read on to find out how I got on with it!

When the phone arrived, the element of stood out to me instantly was the neon orange back - well, you can hardly miss it, can you! It's not a colour I would have chosen, but I had gotten used to it by the time the trial had ended; it even had a use, as it was easier to find in my handbag! It's a light phone, much lighter than my HTC One M8 but seeing as it was made almost entirely out of plastic rather than metal, that's not really a surprise. The Microsoft Lumia 640 uses, as you would expect, a Microsoft operating system. If you have a Windows 8 computer then the setup will be familar to you, as the home screen uses a "Metro" style tiled system where you can arrange your apps. It was easy to change the tiles around and get it set up how I liked it, and as I downloaded more apps these were easy to add to the home screen with a "Pin to Start" option when an app was long-pressed. The tiles actually flip and show you different information based on the app every minute or so, which might annoy some people but I actually quite liked. The colour of the tiles was customisable by a range of colours, although these were limited.

What I was most interested to find out about the phone was the number of apps that are available, and how they work in comparison to those on my own phone. Apps are available to download from the Microsoft Store, which is similar in design and function the the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. The number of apps to download at first seems impressive, until you realise that a lot of them are next to useless apps that someone's thrown together in five minutes. However, I was surprised to find Instagram on there, as well as Twitter and Facebook - although I could find no alternatives for these (For example, on my HTC I use Fenix for Twitter). But there is no Snapchat available yet, or a lot of other apps such as Timehop and VSCO Cam that I'm used to using. In general the lack of options was a bit off putting, and the apps that were available were not as advanced as they could be. For instance, the Instagram that is available for Microsoft is still in the BETA version, which means that it acts and looks like the "old style" Instagram, and limited editing is available. I also wasn't keen on how Facebook displayed posts, people you weren't friends with got the same coverage as people you were. In the image above, I don't follow "The Cat Chat", but someone I'm friends with does. So, when they liked one of their pictures, it shows up on my timeline in the same manner as if they'd posted it. However, I did like that emojis are available on the keyboard as standard, and the keyboard itself was fluid and easy to use once I had gotten used to it.

The Lumia Camera on the Microsoft Lumia 640 was something that I was keen to get using straight away, as I had been told that it was excellent. I started using it pretty much as soon as I had finished setting the phone up, and throughout my trial tried to use it under several different conditions. You can change the exposure compensation, shutter speed, ISO, white balance and flash, as well as the focus, which is something I can't fully control on my HTC. You can deliberately have the scene out of focus if you wish, as you can see in the image above, which was fun to play around with on occasion. There was also an extra app that you can download called Lumia Refocus, which I really enjoyed using. The camera takes three shots all in one go, and then after the images have loaded you can choose from having the scene all in focus, or selected parts in focus such as a flower in the foreground. In general, the quality of the camera was very impressive, with good contrast, saturation and sharpness with few blown-out highlights. Picture quality, when taken in daylight, was comparable to my HTC. However, when the light faded and darkness crept in, the camera quality really did suffer. Saturation was dulled, ISO was high and this resulted in unimpressive, grainy images that were lacking in clarity. A difference in quality is to be expected, but I was surprised to see by how much. When editing my photos, I quickly tired of the Instagram app and used Fhotoroom, which is very similar to VSCO Cam and has an impressive range of editing options and filters - hghly recommended! If you want to see more photos that I took whilst using the phone, check out my Instagram and look for the images with the hashtag #ConnectsTrial.

The last app that I want to talk about in detail is the one I enjoyed using the most - Cortana. You may have heard of it; it's basically the Microsoft version of Apple's Siri. Cortana helps you to not only remember things that are of importance, but also gives you directions and how long it would take to get there, can text people for you, set alarms, and probably several thousand other things that I didn't have time to try. It's like a one stop shop for everything that your phone is capable of doing, and even more besides. Getting Cortana set up was a bit tricky, as the first time around it didn't work properly (Bringing up search results instead of speaking out loud), but it was second time lucky and after that it worked just fine. Not only can Cortana do useful things for you, but it can also provide entertainment by asking it certain questions and saying certain things. For example, if you said to it "Beam me up, Scotty", it replies with "Aye, aye, captain!", or it can sing you a song, tell you a story, or you can even ask it what it is wearing (Answer: "Just a little something I picked up in engineering"). I drove Martin up the wall with it for hours on end, let me tell you! It's like having a sassy personal assistant in your pocket, and I have to admit that I did miss Cortana when I went back to using my HTC. However, I've heard that it's making its way to Android in the not so distant future, so I'll be back to annoying Martin with it soon enough!

So, to round this post off, would I recommend the Microsoft Lumia 640? In a word, yes. To elaborate, if you're after a cheaper phone that still does a lot of what the big boys do, then you will really enjoy this one. However, if like me you're used to phones like the HTC One M8 or the latest iPhone and all the apps that come with, there are noticeable differences and as a blogger, I think I'd struggle with using it long term. But considering that this phone is a good few hundred pounds cheaper than the latest model on the market, I don't think you can go far wrong - especially if you're not social media obsessed like me!