Hands-On First Look: Nokia Lumia 1520, The First 6-inch And Full HD Windows Phone 8 Phablet

They might be late into the market but the arrival of this particular product is yet another proof on how booming the phablet market is right now to the extent that it attracted Nokia and Microsoft’s attention. However, the newly announced Nokia Lumia 1520 is not only an attempt of putting Windows Phone into that particular segement but it also marked the arrival of Lumia Black update which is essentially a combination of Windows Phone GDR3 update and Nokia’s own tweaks.

Hence, the LTE-enabled and NFC-equipped Nokia Lumia 1520 is generally the most advanced Windows Phone 8 device available to consumers once it arrived into the market later this quarter. Equipped with a 6-inch full HD ClearBlack IPS display that is protected by Gorilla Glass 2, the massive device is paired together with the equally powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor that runs at 2.2GHz as well as 2GB of RAM.

The power of Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor still can be felt in Lumia 1520 even though Windows Phone 8 is a highly fluid operating system by itself regardless of whether it is running on a high end or lower end devices. One good example is the Nokia Camera app which seems to start and operates faster on the Lumia 1520.

Meanwhile, the bigger display on Lumia 1520 allows the inclusion an additional column of Live Tiles on the device. The output of the display looks pretty vibrant as well, with high level of details thanks to its full HD resolution. Additionally, there are also 32GB worth of internal storage space within the device and can be further expanded via microSD card with the support for capacity of up to 64GB. Somehow, Nokia choose to equip the Lumia 1520 with nano SIM slot which made it one of the few devices that uses such SIM card.

With a thickness of 8.7 mm, the Lumia 1520 is only 0.2mm thicker than the slimmest model in Nokia Lumia family – the Lumia 925. Of course, the Lumia 1520 is much heavier than Lumia 925 though at 209g. The device comes in four different colours: red, white, black and yellow – the first two come in glossy finish while the other two have matte finish.

Story continues after the jump. Hit on the Read More link below (when available) to take a further look at the new Nokia Lumia 1520 6-inch full HD Windows Phone 8 phablet.

For a family of devices that never had a screen bigger than 5-inch before, the Lumia 1520 certainly towers over everyone else. Although a six-inch device might be too big for some users to put in their pockets especially for those that loves tight jeans, I found that it is somehow quite easy to slide the Lumia 1520 into the front pocket of my jeans which I believe due to the smooth matte finish on the yellow colorway of Lumia 1520.

As advanced as it might be, the only thing that Lumia 1520 loses out to previous Lumia devices is its rear camera which is equipped with a 20-megapixel sensor – much smaller than the Lumia 1020. However, many of the PureView tech on the Lumia 1020 are still present on the Lumia 1520 such as optical image stabilization, oversampling and dual capture capability.

There are also six-element f2.4 lens by Carl Zeiss and dual LED flash for it together with full HD video recording capability. The Lumia 1520 does have something that superseded previous PureView-equipped Lumia devices though: its Nokia Rich Recording actually utilizes four built-in microphone which give the device directional stereo recording capability. Last but not least, the device is also equipped with 1.2-megapixels wide-angle f2.4 front-facing camera which able to record video at 720p.

The Lumia 1520 is also one of the initial device that will come together with Nokia’s new Storyteller app which presents images and videos in the story form together with location information powered by HERE. Users are also able to use the new Nokia Camera and Nokia Refocus (we will be taking a closer look at the app in an upcoming article) apps on the device.

Comes with built-in Qi wireless charging capability, the Lumia 1520 electrical power is supplied by a non-removal 3400mAh battery that Nokia claims able to provide up to 25.1 hours of 3G talk time, 13.6 hours of Wi-Fi based Internet browsing time and maximum standby time of 32 days.

Priced at USD 749 (RM 2370), the new Nokia Lumia 1520 is scheduled for release later this quarter in Hong Kong, Singapore, United States, China and Europe. Unfortunately, the release date for Malaysia is not known for the time being. To learn more about the device, head on to www.nokia.com.