Hands-On First Look: Nokia Lumia 2520, The 10.1-Inch Windows RT 8.1 Full HD Tablet With LTE

So, Nokia has decided to jump into the tablet segment by officially unveiling the brand new Nokia Lumia 2520 as part of its multiple devices announcement over at Nokia World 2013 in Abu Dhabi yesterday. It is indeed one odd device due to the fact that it is running on Windows RT which is not popular among consumers, frankly speaking.

Anyway, let’s save that fact for another story on another day. For this round, let’s take a closer look into the device which Nokia’s latest submission into the highly competitive tablet world.

As the name implies, the general design of Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet seems like a fitting match to the Lumia Windows Phone devices. The tablet which features a thin and rounded edges does not feel slippery at all and actually quite comfortable to hold even for glossy colourways such as red and white. Clearly, Nokia’s command over industrial design is certainly at work here once again.

The Nokia Lumia 2520 is equipped with a 10.1-inch full HD (1920×1080) ClearBlack IPS capacitive touch display that is covered by Gorilla Glass 2 and has a high luminance level of 665 nits as well as a pixel density of 218 ppi. Within its unibody 8.9mm chassis, the tablet which weights around 615g is powered by a 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor.

The processor is further supplemented by 2GB of RAM together with internal storage of 32GB and the support for microSD cards with storage of up to 32GB. The tablet will come together with Windows RT 8.1 right out of the box.

Story continues after the jump. Hit on the Read More link below to take a further look at the new Nokia Lumia 2520 Windows RT tablet.

The tablet is also equipped with 6.7-megapixels auto-focus rear camera complete with f1.9 lens by Carl Zeiss together with full HD 1080p 30fps video recording capability. However, there is no flash for the camera though. Nokia have also included a 2-megapixels wide-angle f2.4 front-facing camera on the tablet which also has 720p video recording capability.

In terms of I/O port, the tablet is equipped with microUSB 3.0 port on its upper right side which is indeed a curious selection by the folks at Nokia. There are also micro HDMI port, 3.5mm combo audio jack and 2.5mm charging connector. Connectivity-wise, the Nokia Lumia 2520 come standard with NFC, A-GPS, A-GLONASS, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN and LTE.

The new Nokia Lumia 2520 also comes with a non-removal 8000mAh internal battery that gives the tablet up to 10 hours of video playback together with a standby time up to 25 days. Thanks to its quick-charging capability, the tablet’s battery is able to be charged from empty to 80 percent in just an hour time.

Alongside the tablet, Nokia will also be releasing the new Nokia Power Keyboard which gives the tablet a physical keyboard and gesture-supported trackpad. It also acts as protective sleeve and additional external battery for the tablet that provides up to extra five hours of usage. We will have a closer hands-on look at it in a separate article that will touch on new accessories that Nokia have introduced during Nokia World 2013.

The hardware that were mentioned above is just part of the picture when it comes to Lumia 2520. In addition to the usual Windows RT such as pre-installed full version of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook, Nokia have brought over a number of their signature applications into the tablet in order to make the tablet much more unique than any other Windows RT tablets before it.

Among them is a version of the new Nokia Camera app that is almost identical to the version on Lumia smartphones which was just released to users yesterday. That’s right, Lumia 2520 owners will able to utilize the manual camera settings UI that the app is known for. However, the Lumia 2520 version of Nokia Camera app does not contain the Smart Cam portion of the app.

In addition to that, the Lumia 2520 also features Nokia Storyteller – yet another new app that was announced yesterday at Nokia World which display photos and videos in the form of story together with the help of Nokia HERE maps.

Other new apps that will also be included in Lumia 2520 are Nokia Video Director for minor video editing, HERE Maps which provides the tablet with offline maps, and a version of Nokia Music with pre-installed Mix Radio. There is also an exclusive game for the tablet called Dragons Adventure which is based on DreamWorks Animation’s movie called How To Train Your Dragon.

While the Malaysian release date for the tablet is not yet known at the time being, the Nokia Lumia 2520 is scheduled to hit its initial markets such as US, UK and Finland starting from Q4 2013 with a price tag of USD 499 (RM 1584). To learn more, check out its full specification over at www.nokia.com.