The Nokia Lumia 510 is an affordable smartphone running on the Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) OS. This handset is priced for around Rs. 10,000 – a good option for users looking for Windows based handset from a well known brand, Nokia.

The Box
The box pack contains the handset, battery, charger – (micro USB), micro USB to USB cable, earphones and user guide / manual.

The Lumia 510 hardware
The CPU / GPU is not mentioned anywhere. The Nokia 510 comes with Cortex A5 MSM7227A snapdragon processor (Qualcomm) clocked at 800 MHz with Adreno 200 GPU. The RAM is 256MB and internal storage is 4GB. There is no external storage support. In other words you get limited space of around 2.2 GB and 7GB Skydrive i.e. cloud storage (net access required).

The WP 7.5 OS runs pretty smooth on this hardware with no lags. The touch is really smooth, much better than most of the handsets.

4 inch Screen
The capacitive touch screen is 4 inches with 800×480 pixels supported resolution (233 ppi). Multitouch is supported. The fonts are sharper and the interface looks really good.

The WP 7.5 OS
It’s a Windows Phone and if you are new to it, it will take some time getting used to. The WP phones use the live tile that keep updating and lets you know about the latest happening, be it a new message, missed call, appointments, weather etc. The tile will keep you engaged.

Connecting the Windows 7.5 phones with the PC is not an easy task and does not happen almost immediately as it does on the android phones. In fact you need to download the Zune software that is around 270 MB after which you will be able to sync data with the phone/ PC and will be able to transfer movies, mp3, photos to and from the devices.

Connectivity
The handset supports 3G, Wifi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS with AGPS and Nokia Maps, 3.5 mm jack and micro USB port. The handset also comes with micro SIM slot so make sure you have a micro SIM ready before buying this handset or rush to your network store and upgrade it.

Camera
There is no front camera. The rear camera is 5 Megapixel autofocus with many features. There is no built in flash so in door photos will not be that exciting. Geotagging is supported. You can record videos in VGA format only i.e. 640 x 480 pixels resolution @ 30fps.

There is a macro mode but you can hardly get perfect close up shots. I found the camera quality better on Micromax A110 and the Karbonn A11. The camera auto focus / even the touch to focus is not that perfect on the Nokia 510. It is impossible to get get extreme close up shots (as taken by A110 / A11) using the Nokia 510. You can check the images below some even after focusing are blurred.

Check the sample images here http://www.flickr.com/photos/gogirana/sets/72157632118890073/

Battery
The BP-3L 1300 mAh Li-ion standard battery gives a talk time of about 8 hours and standby time of around 27 days. There is the battery saver option which can help extend battery life, you need to enable this option.

Others
Being a windows phone the Office suite app comes pre-installed. So you can create or view Microsoft Office documents (Excel, Word and Powerpoint).

The handset can play many video formats, I don’t think it can play 720p videos, so you will need to convert the videos in supported formats. Anyway you will be using the Zune software to transfer the movies and probably it will handle the conversion part, if not you will need to convert the files using a 3rd party software.

I do not have the micro SIM card and hence could not test the handset. But the sound quality is really good and crystal clear. I even tried the GPS but did not get a lock, possibly cause there was no SIM and A-GPS / other data required to speedup the lock process could not download.

The Nokia Maps looks really cool and you even have the Nokia drive option voice based navigation.

The built in internet explorer browser worked well. I could load my website using Wifi network.

Nokia Lumia 510 review
A cool Windows Phone 7.5 OS powered phone to own for Rs. 10,000 – but not for gaming users. The handset is with 256 MB RAM and limited storage of 2.2 GB plus additional cloud storage of around 7GB that requires a net connection. The rear camera is just okay nothing so great (I found the Karbonn A11 camera / video recording much better than this) and the front camera is missing, so no video calls possible.

There is a Windows Marketplace just like we have the Google play on the android phone, from where you can download applications and games. Many of the games / applications should work, but with limited space you will be able to install some limited number of apps / games. Also note that you will be using the same storage space for storing your images, movies, MP3 etc. There is no support for external storage / no micro SD card slot.

But for normal user who are just interested in phone features and spend a lot of time surfing, playing videos, listening to music and most of all always connected with social friend this is a perfect device.

Also note that this 510 handset may or may not get an update to Windows Phone 7.8 and definitely not for the Windows phone 8.0. But still the handset is worth it for the price and the features that it comes loaded with.

Nokia 510 key features and specifications

800 MHz with adreno 200 GPU.
Windows Phone 7.5.
256MB RAM and 4GB internal storage + access to 7GB cloud storage.
4 inch capacitive touchscreen with 800×480 pixels resolution.
3G (7.2 Hsdpa), WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, 3.5mm jack and micro USB slot.
5MP rear camera without flash. Video recording supported (VGA).
1300 mAh battery with 27 days standby and up to 8 hours talk time via 3G network.

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