This is the best Windows Phone you can buy right now

The Best Windows Phone You Can Buy

For Windows Phone fans, it is an exciting time. There are tons of OEMs pumping out devices at all ends of the market. From the Nokias to the Prestigios. Buying a phone now comes down to one thing, what are the most important qualities you look for in a phone? What qualities can objectively make your phone a pleasure to use?

The qualities I have chosen for this article are value for money, camera quality, storage quality and battery life as well as OEM support. In another world where people have massive hands and deep pockets, the only fair winner would be the Lumia 1520. This is however, not that world, and these need to be taken into consideration. So before I go forward, if you have massive hands and large pockets, buy the 1520, otherwise move on.

The best Windows Phone you can buy is the Lumia 735.

Why the Nokia Lumia 735 is the best Windows Phone you can buy

The Lumia 735 is Nokia’s killer midrange device and a successor to the Nokia Lumia 720. Aside from the processor, it sits comfortably ahead of the lower end Lumias and right beside the 830.

One of the major differentiators between high-end a low end smartphones is the camera, and the Lumia 735 is no slouch. It offers a 5 Megapixel wide-angle lens for it’s front facing camera which should beat out the front and rear cameras of many mid-low end devices in picture quality. Its rear camera is a 6.7 megapixel camera lifted from the 720 which takes excellent low-light images. Need proof? Click the link  to watch the 720 demolish the HTC One in image quality.

 Now, while the Lumia 735 comes with a measly 8 GB of storage, it also has an SD card which can take up to 128 GB of external storage. That is to say, it has maximum of 136 GB of storage, easily higher than the highest iPhone configuration. Previous Windows Phones that came with 8 GB were crippled by Windows Phone 8 handling of SD cards and the “Other” Storage bug but 8.1 now allows you to offload everything and anything on an SD Card (apart from a few apps). Frankly speaking, you should have no problem with storage on this Lumia.

Now, back to the processor. The Lumia comes with a Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz. Is it the fastest processor? It is not by any means. The Snapdragon 600 and 800 series outclass it. It is however enough to handle Windows Phone 8.1 when paired with it’s healthy 1 GB of RAM. It has a 720p display and a 4.7 inch screen, which means it should sit comfortably at “retina” resolution (to borrow an Apple marketing term) without being too taxing on the processor and battery life. It has a beautiful design, building off the N9 design language which when paired with its screen size, weight and thinness makes it comfortable to hold and beautiful to look at.

However, it is not without its flaws. It lacks a camera button, the glance screen and access to Microsoft’s “Hey Cortana ” feature. Your mileage may vary depending on how much these features mean to you, it is worth noting that the only Windows Phone that has all these features is the 1520 and well…6 inches man.

Why the others don’t measure up

 The Lumia Icon/930 is expensive, has weak battery life and lacks expandable memory. 32 GB of storage is not nearly enough at that price.

 The HTC One has a horrendous camera and no amount of ultra-pixel branding can change that. It’s also limited to Verizon in the US for now.

The Samsung Ativ SE is a wonderful all-rounder with a thin and light design. But…if you fancy being stuck on Windows Phone 8 and on Verizon… be my guest.

The Lumia 1020, 925 and 920 have been EOL’d at this point and they perform similarly to the 735 on benchmarks. The 1020 is frankly only recommendable if you need those extra pixels.

The closest competitor is the 830. Simply put, the 8XX series offers little value over either the 7XX series or 9XX series. You’re better off getting the 930 unless glance and the SD Card are important to you. If price is what you care about, the 735 is cheaper and has a comfortable design, better screen quality and a sleeker design (subjective).