- PROSCheap, compact, capableWindows Phone device. Easy-to-use interface.
- CONSNo front-facing camera and a mediocre rear camera. Slow HSPA+ broadband. Same Windows Phone app-availability issues as ever.
- BOTTOM LINEThe pay-as-you-go Nokia Lumia 520 is a solid introductory smartphone on AT&T's GoPhone prepaid service, provided photography isn't a priority.
The most positive trend in the smartphone industry is not the advent of ever-larger devices, but the arrival of budget-priced phones that still get the basics right. Nokia's Lumia 520, $99.99 at AT&T's GoPhone prepaid service, represents one of the better examples of this entry-level genre.
Size, Screen, and StorageIt's not a good fit for app enthusiasts, videophiles or shutterbugs—or anybody in a hurry on the mobile Web—but if you just need an affordable phone that brings you simple Webaccess and helps you stay on top of your schedule and your social circles, this Windows Phone 8 model deserves a look.
The compact, relatively thick dimensions of the phone—4.72 by 2.51 by 0.38 inches—vaguely remind me of the first iPhone. Like that pioneering model, the 4.37-ounce 520 feels right-sized for single-handed use in a way that today's enormophones never could.
The grippy plastic back peels off to reveal an easily replaced battery, plus micro-SIM and microSD slots. You need to pop out the battery to get at either of the card slots, and the sideways orientation requires wiggling the card back and forth before you can extract it.
The 4-inch display, at 800 by 480 pixels, falls short of Retina standards and seems unnecessarily small given the wide bezel around it. But you have to hold the phone pretty close to your face before you can discern individual pixels, and it's fine overall. All of the buttons line up on the right-hand side: Volume, Power and Camera. A headphone jack is up top, and there's a micro-USB port is at the bottom, but you have no video-out jacks.
An advertised 8 GB of storage space translates to a theoretical upper limit of 7.23 GB, with 4.52 GB available in a fresh configuration.
Call Quality, Battery Life, and BandwidthThe 520 works well at reproducing the human voice. Voice Mail messages left in standard and speakerphone modes sounded equally clear, although the latter failed to capture a whispered segment. The phone's integrated noise cancellation effectively hushed an arriving subway train, and the correctly recognized most voice-dialing instructions made through a Plantronics Bluetooth hands-free kit.
An observed eleven hours of talk-time battery life beat Nokia and AT&T's estimates by more than an hour and exceeded what we saw on the 520's T-Mobile-specific sibling, theLumia 521, by almost two and a half hours.
The 520, however, fared worse than the 521 at delivering mobile broadband. Ookla's Speedtest.net application clocked a peak download speed of 5.3 Mbps on AT&T's signal in the Washington, D.C. area. Wi-Fi can be much faster, but the 520 didn't detect a nearby 5GHz network.
Camera, Connectivity, and AppsThe 520's photo and video capabilities also evoke the original iPhone: You have one camera on the back (sans flash) and no front-facing camera. That 5-megapixel sensor can takedecent photos with good lighting and a bit of luck, but too many showed an off white balance or a distracting, gauzy glow around illuminated areas. Indoors, you'd better have an extremely steady hand as you gently press the shutter button.
The camera does better at moving pictures than still images, keeping close to 30 frames per second in wildly varying lighting, although the footage quickly got grainy as the scene got dimmer.
Nokia throws in some useful photo apps. Cinemagraph lets you quickly crank out a looped, animated image, while Smart Shoot combines a series of photos to craft an improved group portrait, and PhotoBeamer allows you to drive a slideshow on the screen of an adjacent device. The clumsy Panorama app, however, requires you to aim at a series of circles on the screen instead of simply panning in one direction.
(You can also access most of these apps through the lens plug-in button in the main camera app, which should reduce the odds of users ignoring them in a long line of apps.)
AT&T throws in a few of its own apps. Make the redundant, $9.99-per-month AT&T Navigator the first you uninstall. Unfortunately, the carrier has yet to support Microsoft's Data Sense app, which helps you track your bandwidth usage—a key concern given the limited allocations of most GoPhone plans.
Windows Phone 8 handles all of the major audio and video formats except for QuickTime. The 520 also supports one audio format unmentioned in AT&T's spec sheet: FM radio, which is available as long as you have a headphone cable connected to serve as its antenna.
The Windows Phone app inventory continues to trail that of Android and iOS, forcing users to look for more obscure alternatives to some name-brand apps. The platform's increasing popularity—it's now broken past 10 percent in some European markets—suggests this gap will narrow, but you have to be prepared to live with it today.
ConclusionsWere the Lumia 520 on AT&T's subscription service, this phone would be an awful deal. Its low price would soon vanish in higher monthly rates set to subsidize the purchase of pricier hardware. Instead, you can easily get by with a $60/month bill. The camera and battery life could be better, and the mobile-broadband speeds should be faster, but you could do far worse in a starter smartphone.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Given the MSRP for this phone, you have to set some expectations. But then you realize it doesn't carry a 2-year agreement. You can use this phone out of the box on an AT&T Prepaid (GoPhone) line or on AT&T postpaid (contract) plans. It comes with a Micro SIM card and GoPhone activation kit in the box.
It performs great! I've owned a Lumia 920, HTC 8x, Lumia 822, and a few older WP7 devices. This, just like any other Windows Phone, feels smooth and fluid throughout. Sometimes when a larger operation (filtering a photo, opening a big app) takes place, you will notice a "Resuming..." screen for a split second. Otherwise, it's every bit as smooth as any other Windows Phone. You can't really say that about an Android device at this price point.
Pros
1) Price! This phone can be used as a daily driver, backup phone, "I dropped my other phone in the toilet and I'm not due for an upgrade" phone, or even just a device you use with WiFi only.
2) The software library for Windows Phone is getting there. It still doesn't have Instagram, but it has everything else you could really want.
3) Comcast Xfinity remote lets me control my TV/DVR with this thing. It's like I got an amazing touch screen smart remote for free.
4) First-party Xbox apps. Xbox Smartglass lets you use this as a makeshift Xbox 360 controller. Xbox Live lets you keep track of anything like achievements, recently played, your avatar, etc.
5) Nokia Music lets you stream lots of music. FOR FREE!
6) Nokia HERE (Maps, Drive) are awesome! You can download GPS maps for offline use. Use it in the car for turn-by-turn directions, or use it while you're out and about for mapping. If this was the only feature this device had, it would be worth the MSRP!
7) You can swap the cover!Read more ›
It performs great! I've owned a Lumia 920, HTC 8x, Lumia 822, and a few older WP7 devices. This, just like any other Windows Phone, feels smooth and fluid throughout. Sometimes when a larger operation (filtering a photo, opening a big app) takes place, you will notice a "Resuming..." screen for a split second. Otherwise, it's every bit as smooth as any other Windows Phone. You can't really say that about an Android device at this price point.
Pros
1) Price! This phone can be used as a daily driver, backup phone, "I dropped my other phone in the toilet and I'm not due for an upgrade" phone, or even just a device you use with WiFi only.
2) The software library for Windows Phone is getting there. It still doesn't have Instagram, but it has everything else you could really want.
3) Comcast Xfinity remote lets me control my TV/DVR with this thing. It's like I got an amazing touch screen smart remote for free.
4) First-party Xbox apps. Xbox Smartglass lets you use this as a makeshift Xbox 360 controller. Xbox Live lets you keep track of anything like achievements, recently played, your avatar, etc.
5) Nokia Music lets you stream lots of music. FOR FREE!
6) Nokia HERE (Maps, Drive) are awesome! You can download GPS maps for offline use. Use it in the car for turn-by-turn directions, or use it while you're out and about for mapping. If this was the only feature this device had, it would be worth the MSRP!
7) You can swap the cover!Read more ›
Amazon Verified Purchase
1 Comment Was this review helpful to you?
I had an iPhone 5 a year ago and then it got stolen. I can't afford to buy another iPhone because it is off contract with AT&T and even the iPhone 4s would cost me over $350 off contract. I've been curious about Windows Phone 8 and thought this would be a good way to try it out. It is a Go Phone ( marketed for prepaid plans), but if you already have an AT&T post paid phone plan, simply swap in your own SIM card and it will work right out of the box with your current phone number and plan (If you have a larger SIM card you can buy a SIM cutter for under $5 and it should work fine).
I purchased this Nokia Lumia 520 phone from Amazon in mid-august 2013 (about 8 weeks ago). Anyways, I figured that for $100, I could try out WP8 operating system and if I didn't like it it would be not much of a risk or loss to me. So far, I have been really, really happy with it. It is pretty much equivalent in performance and specs to the iPhone 4s. With the Lumia 520, you lose the front camera and flash of the iPhone 4s, but you get a bigger 4-inch screen and bigger battery. The 520 only comes with 8 GB of storage, but I added a 16 GB SD card for a total of 24 gigabytes, which is more than enough for my purposes. Including the SD card, the total phone cost $115 (w/ free amazon prime shipping). I'd be satisfied with this phone if I paid $200 for it, but at $115 - I'm very happy indeed.
The only shortcoming I can think of is there are not as many Windows Phone apps as there are for Android or Apple iOS, but I will not take any stars off of the phone because that is not an issue with the phone and there are more WP apps coming every day. If this was my first smartphone, there would be no complaints whatsoever.Read more ›
I purchased this Nokia Lumia 520 phone from Amazon in mid-august 2013 (about 8 weeks ago). Anyways, I figured that for $100, I could try out WP8 operating system and if I didn't like it it would be not much of a risk or loss to me. So far, I have been really, really happy with it. It is pretty much equivalent in performance and specs to the iPhone 4s. With the Lumia 520, you lose the front camera and flash of the iPhone 4s, but you get a bigger 4-inch screen and bigger battery. The 520 only comes with 8 GB of storage, but I added a 16 GB SD card for a total of 24 gigabytes, which is more than enough for my purposes. Including the SD card, the total phone cost $115 (w/ free amazon prime shipping). I'd be satisfied with this phone if I paid $200 for it, but at $115 - I'm very happy indeed.
The only shortcoming I can think of is there are not as many Windows Phone apps as there are for Android or Apple iOS, but I will not take any stars off of the phone because that is not an issue with the phone and there are more WP apps coming every day. If this was my first smartphone, there would be no complaints whatsoever.Read more ›
I have owned flagship phones, prepaid pieces of junk, international phones, flip phones, etc. This Lumia 520 is by far and away the best deal on a phone I've ever seen. That's not to say it's the best phone ever, clearly you can spend hundreds more to make that happen. What this phone did was show that an inexpensive phone needn't be cheap too. As others have said, if you're on the fence, just purchase this already. It's a no brainer. I will note, I did get mine significantly cheaper than the price listed here - the brick and mortar store that makes the OS on this phone was running a demo that knocked off many dollars on any item. Anyway, onto more of the review.
Overall build/design of the phone - The phone is a very basic look which I find better. It's functional and nothing more, but it isn' also abrasive looking or ugly. The back is made of that soft touch plastic and I love that stuff. It provides grip, it doesn't feel 'cheap', and it doesn't scratch/dent easily. All the physical buttons are on the right side of the phone - which is nice too. You can grip your phone in your left hand without pushing some volume button or what not. The buttons are OK to push - the power works best and so does the camera button(which has two stages so you can focus and snap a pic quickly). The volume rocker is harder to push and push quickly, but you can just hold it to turn volume up/down. Also note, if you take the back off to pull the battery or SD card or what not, make sure you put the cover back on very well - mine was off by a tad and the camera button didn't engage. Overall, the phone is built solidly, it's good looking, and everything is laid out well.
Screen - This is always hard as you have to physically look at the screen to decide if you like it or not.Read more ›
Overall build/design of the phone - The phone is a very basic look which I find better. It's functional and nothing more, but it isn' also abrasive looking or ugly. The back is made of that soft touch plastic and I love that stuff. It provides grip, it doesn't feel 'cheap', and it doesn't scratch/dent easily. All the physical buttons are on the right side of the phone - which is nice too. You can grip your phone in your left hand without pushing some volume button or what not. The buttons are OK to push - the power works best and so does the camera button(which has two stages so you can focus and snap a pic quickly). The volume rocker is harder to push and push quickly, but you can just hold it to turn volume up/down. Also note, if you take the back off to pull the battery or SD card or what not, make sure you put the cover back on very well - mine was off by a tad and the camera button didn't engage. Overall, the phone is built solidly, it's good looking, and everything is laid out well.
Screen - This is always hard as you have to physically look at the screen to decide if you like it or not.Read more ›
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