Nokia Lumia 1320 and 525 hands-on: First look

Nokia Lumia 1320

The Lumia 1320 carries much of the imposing presence of its more premium sibling, the Lumia 1520. It has a massive 6.0" 1280x720 ClearBlack IPS LCD up front, same size as that on the 1520 but without that glorious 1080p resolution. On paper, then, it doesn't seem like much and indeed if you look closer, those used to more pixel-dense displays will see the rough edge on the fonts but we were pleasantly surprised by the overall image quality of the display. This is a really good screen to look at and other than pixel peepers everyone else should be quite happy with it.

Nokia Lumia 1320 live photos

The design deviates slightly from that on the 1520, with curved edges all around and a removable back cover that lets you switch to other color options. Despite the removable cover, however, the build quality remains commendable. The phone does seem slightly heavy though, but not a lot more than you'd expect from a device this size.

As with the 1520, the 1320 has some specific alterations to the UI for the big screen. The homescreen, for example, now shows three columns of medium sized Live tiles and the Settings app shows a lot more items on the screen at once. But a handful of these optimizations aside, the OS just wastes the extra screen space by just blowing every element up in size instead of showing more content. The on-screen keyboard, for example, is almost the same size as the entire display on the Lumia 525. This is good for those with weak vision but for the rest of us it feels like a wasted opportunity. Hopefully, future versions of Windows Phone 8 are better optimized for bigger screens.

The Lumia 1320 is priced at $399 at launch, which is quite good considering the hardware you get. We'll be taking a better look at the Lumia 1320 in our full review.

Lumia 525

The Lumia 525 is the updated version of the highly successful Lumia 520. One of the important changes is a new design for the back, which mimics the appearance of the Lumia 720. The back covers are removable and come in a variety of glossy colors. Build quality is very good and the phone feels great to hold thanks to the compact size.

Nokia Lumia 525 live photos

The display on the 525 is identical to the 4.0" 800x480 IPS LCD panel on the 520. For the price, the screen is adequate in terms of size and resolution but the colors are a bit washed out.

Nokia has updated the RAM on the 525 to 1GB from 512MB on the 520. This should definitely help improve performance during multitasking and web browsing but will also make the phone compatible with all the apps on the store that require at least 1GB of RAM.

The Lumia 525 is priced at $170 at launch, which is a good entry point. Once again, we'll be taking a closer look as soon as we have the device at HQ.