Nokia Lumia 1320 review: Playing by the book

Display

The Nokia Lumia 1320 has a 6" IPS LCD screen of 720p resolution for a pixel density of 245ppi. The LCD incorporates Nokia's ClearBlack tech - a set of polarizing filters, which minimize glare. Plus, there's Gorilla Glass 3 on top - the strange thing is the Lumia 1520 has only the second gen screen protection and not this one.

The 6" IPS LCD on the Lumia 1320

The capacitive display has the super sensitive touch technology allowing it to detect user input even through gloves. Just make sure you enable it in the settings menu if you need it, as it's disabled by default to conserve battery power.

A cool option that the Lumia 1320 has is the Lumia Color Profile. It gives you two sliders to play with in the settings - one for color temperature (which spans the cool, neutral and warm range) and color saturation (natural to vivid).

Lumia Color Profile settings

The Nokia Glance screen keeps the clock and notification icons visible on the lockscreen. This could be set to only display for a little while after lock, intermittently on and off and always on. There's a separate always on setting for when the device is charging. A Night mode allows you to pick a different color for the Glance screen info - Red, Green or Blue - if the default White setting is too bright for your sleepy eyes.

Nokia Glance Screen settings

One new option in GDR3 is the screen rotation lock. That's an important feature for a phablet, but unfortunately it's only accessible in the Settings menu, which means you have to leave the app you are using to change it, there are no quickly accessible toggles here (this is a common problem for any setting in Windows Phone).

The Lumia 1320 screen isn't the sharpest we've seen on a phablet. The 720p resolution stretches a bit thin on the 6" diagonal, but it's not too bad really. You can fairly comfortably read books on the Lumia 1320 and view websites. Granted, it's not as crisp to look at as is the Note 3 or the Lumia 1520.

The great news is that the viewing angles and contrast are good and colors look great. Outdoor visibility is another key area where the 6" IPS LCD excels - you won't be having any problems showing your friends any content even in bright sunlight.

Sunlight contrast ratio

• Nokia 808 PureView
  4.698
• Apple iPhone 5
  3.997
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  3.997
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo
  3.487
• Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III
  3.419
• Nokia Lumia 925
  3.402
• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  3.352
• Samsung Omnia W
  3.301
• Samsung Galaxy S
  3.155
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  3.127
• Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom
  3.118
• Nokia N9
  3.069
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  2.970
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2.950
• HTC One S
  2.901
• BlackBerry Q10
  2.856
• Samsung Galaxy S II
  2.832
• Samsung Galaxy S II Plus
  2.801
• BlackBerry Z30
  2.790
• Huawei Ascend P1
  2.655
• Sony Xperia ZR
  2.672
• Nokia Lumia 900
  2.562
• HTC One Max
  2.537
• Nokia Lumia 720
  2.512
• HTC One
  2.504
• Sony Xperia Z
  2.462
• Samsung Galaxy S III mini
  2.422
• Motorola RAZR i
  2.366
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2.307
• Alcatel One Touch Hero
  2.272
• Apple iPhone 4S
  2.269
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  2.262
• LG Nexus 5
  2.228
• HTC One X
  2.158
• Nokia N8
  2.144
• Oppo Find 5
  2.088
• BlackBerry Z10
  2.051
• Apple iPhone 4
  2.016
• HTC One mini
  2.003
• LG G2
  1.976
• Sony Ericsson Xperia ray
  1.955
• Nokia Lumia 1320
  1.941
• Samsung Galaxy Camera
  1.938
• HTC Butterfly
  1.873
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1.865
• Nokia Lumia 1520
  1.813
• Sony Xperia V
  1.792
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  1.772
• Sony Xperia U
  1.758
• Meizu MX3
  1.754
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1.691
• HTC One V
  1.685
• BlackBerry Q5
  1.682
• LG Optimus Vu
  1.680
• LG Optimus GJ
  1.666
• HTC Desire V
  1.646
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1.578
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  1.563
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1.552
• LG Optimus 3D
  1.542
• Nokia Asha 302
  1.537
• Sony Xperia M
  1.473
• Oppo N1
  1.470
• Nokia Lumia 610
  1.432
• Gigabyte GSmart G1355
  1.361
• HTC Desire C
  1.300
• Nokia Asha 503
  1.281
• Nokia Asha 501
  1.270
• LG Optimus L7
  1.269
• LG Optimus L9
  1.227
• Meizu MX
  1.221
• Sony Xperia E dual
  1.203
• Samsung Galaxy Pocket
  1.180
• Sony Xperia tipo
  1.166
• Samsung Galaxy mini 2
  1.114

Battery life

With a sufficiently large battery inside, Nokia quotes the Lumia 1320 at a maximum 3G talk time of 21 hours and 9 hours of video payback time. Our own test was concluded with an endurance rating of 75 hours. That's how long the smartphone's battery would last you if you use it for an hour of web browsing, an hour of video playback and an hour of talking each day.

That's not bad, but if you want even better battery performance in the Windows Phone segment, the Lumia 1520 is definitely the one to check, as it crossed the 100 hour battery rating barrier late last year.

You can find the complete test breakdown over here in our blog.