Nokia Lumia 710 - Software and Battery Life Review

How does the Nokia Lumia 710 stack up against the HTC Radar in terms of software and battery life? Find out by watching the video above and reading our review!

Software

The Lumia 710 is your typical Windows Phone… it has a butter smooth, crash-free, and elegant operating system. What makes Nokia phones unique is their Nokia Collection of apps. When you buy any Nokia phone, you get Nokia Drive (Turn-by-turn GPS navigation), Nokia Maps, ESPN, and more, all for free.

Nokia Drive is extremely accurate, as seen in our driving demo of the app. It’s still not fully-functional compared to other GPS navigation software (lacks some features and doesn’t work completely offline), but for the price of free it’s a nice bonus.

Nokia Maps is also a nice addition, since it is typically more accurate and up-to-date than Bing Maps (in my city, that is).

HTC phones used to have an advantage in that HTC provided a free flashlight app, but now thanks to developer Gregerly, we have a free flashlight app that uses your LED flash and doesn’t flicker!

The Lumia 710 on T-Mobile is lacking internet sharing (maybe an update will unlock it?) and video chat (no front-facing camera), but the Lumia 710 does have a compass and gyroscope, which means you can use augmented reality apps.

The Lumia 710 runs on Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, which, in my opinion, directly compares to the iPhone’s ease of use (miles above Android). In summary, you should buy Windows Phone if you want a phone that works and doesn’t require constant rebooting. WP7’s app Marketplace is lacking some major apps right now, but Microsoft and Nokia are greatly committed to bringing all the apps possible to Windows Phone, so that shouldn’t be an issue for much longer.

Battery Life

The Lumia 710’s battery should last you through your day, only requiring a charge when you’re sleeping. In my real-world use, my Radar seemed to last a little longer than the Lumia, which makes sense because the Lumia only has a 1300 mAh battery while the Radar has a larger 1520 mAh battery.

I performed two battery tests on each phone. In the first test, I played music on both phones for 2 hours, with volume on 15 out of 30, phones in airplane mode, screens off, using the same pair of headphones. After two hours, the Radar drained from 100% to 99% battery, while the Lumia drained to 93%. If you factor in battery sizes, the Radar gets about 7.5 minutes per 1 mAh of battery, while the Lumia only got about 1.5 minutes per mAh of battery.

The Lumia and Radar both have a second-generation snapdragon processor, but the Lumia’s is clocked at 1.4 GHz while the Radar is at a slower 1.0 GHz, which could be giving the Radar the extra boost in battery life.

My second test involved playing the same movie on both phones for an hour, with brightness on medium, volume on 30/30 using headphones, and with the phones in airplane mode. This test confirmed the audio test results, since the Lumia drained down to 75% while the Radar only drained to 90%. If the Radar and Lumia both had 1520 mAh batteries, that would mean that the Radar could play movies for 10 hours while the Lumia would only be able to play for 4.7 hours.

These tests aren’t scientific by any means, but they do seem to confirm my guess that the Radar lasts longer than the Lumia. However, the Lumia’s battery life isn’t bad by any means and is acceptable by smartphone standards!