by Mike Leader
We take a look at Nokia's cheapest windows smartphone to help you decide if it provides value for you or if you would prefer to go for something a little higher up the scale. Read on - you may be pleasantly surprised!
The Nokia Lumia 520 follows similar styling cues to the rest of the Lumia range and this entry-level smartphone doesn't differ an awful lot from the Lumia 620. We're not sure then if there was a need for it at all but the slightly lower price should help attract more people to the Windows Phone 8 operating system.
No doubt Nokia are using Samsung's philosophy that the more phones you have on the market the more you are likely to sell.
Bright and colourful
The 120 x 64 x 10mm size is typically small and neat, and with the brightly pastel coloured rear covers - called "shells" by Nokia, you can have red, yellow or light blue (cyan) - do give the phone a somewhat toy-like appearance this is in fact a good quality, solidly built handset. Black and white are also available too if you're not feeling over adventurous but you can purchase extra shells to suit your mood.
The shell, or rear cover if you prefer, curves right around the sides to meet the front panel, and it looks and feels good with a soft feel matte finish which helps you to grip your phone safely and comfortably.
The 124 gram weight feels just about right for the size of the phone and it definitely adds to the quality feel of this Windows handset.
Capable processor
The phone includes the same 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor as the Lumia 620 and the same 512Mb of RAM, which is easily capable of powering this phone since the Windows operating system uses considerably less processing power than that of android or Apple's iOS.
You also get a generous 8GB of onboard storage and a further 7GB free cloud storage which will cater for the storage needs of most of you. If that isn't enough there is also a MicroSD memory card slot under the removable battery cover which accepts memory cards up to 64GB.
Multitouch screen
The 4 inch multitouch screen, which means you can use more than one finger at a time, is again a generous amount of viewing space at this price and like all Lumia models it even works with gloved hands.
The 800 x 480 pixel resolution isn't going to rip up any trees but it still offers a quality display of 235 pixels per inch and it suits the Windows platform and it's colourful resizable tiles very well.
Being an IPS LCD display means you get bold and rich colour and sharp contrast which is good at wide viewing angles and is easily to view in bright sunlight. For an entry level model it is a superlative, very impressive display.
Capable 5 megapixel camera
That screen shows your photos in glorious bright colours from the 5 megapixel camera, and while bigger smartphones have better cameras this is well up to the job and produces bright colourful outdoor shots
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However hopefully you're not expecting an LED flash on an entry level model, because you're not going to get one. But the camera will take decent outdoor photos long after the umpire has sent everybody home due to bad light.
You also get 720p HD video recorded at 30 frames per second too. There is no forward facing camera but then how often do people use these really?
14 hours of music downloads
You do get full access to Windows own app store and while it cannot hope to complete with those of android or Apple, all the big name apps are there and there are thousands more to keep you occupied, including plenty of camera functionality enhancements.
You can add Nokia's own apps list to this too which includes Maps, and their free satellite navigation app, appropriately called Drive unless you are walking of course! There is lots for music lovers to enjoy with free streaming Mix Radio and Nokia Music which even allows you to download up to 14 hours of music to play offline.
Our summary
So what isn't here compared with more expensive Nokia Lumia Windows phones? Well you lose the higher quality Carl Zeiss camera lens, front facing camera and higher resolution screen.
There is no NFC functionality or HDMI facility either but there is little else missing and overall this is a perfect phone for those wishing to try a Windows phone without spending a lot of money or for anybody on a budget, perhaps looking for an affordable phone for a teenager's birthday?
There isn't really anything not to like about the Nokia Lumia 520 though and in fact at times you have to remind yourself this is only an entry level handset.
In terms of bang for buck it is an outright bargain buy which will not fail to impress and is both a perfect introduction to windows and a well specced high quality smartphone in it's own right available at an outstanding price
