I have a love/hate relationship with big phones over the years, and I’m now back in the “big” camp.
The pre-smartphone era
Nokia 5110 was truly the first consumer phone, and it was a big phone. Everyone had this phone, with custom covers, extended batteries, car adapters, etc etc… And for the first time, we could reliably SMS each other… all day… all night… for 20c a message (lol, wut?). Of course, sooner or later the range of functionality on the 5110 got stale… and if you were a geek like me, there was one phone that showed the future of more-than-a-phone… The Nokia 5510
In 2001, months before the iPod would reveal its (clunky, firewire only, Mac exclusive) initial niche device, the Nokia 5510 had it all.
- 64MB of storage to play MP3 or AAC files.
- USB connectivity
- FM radio (that you could record)
- QWERTY keyboard
This was the original convergent device – perhaps a Neanderthal ancestor of the modern day smartphone. It wasn’t a great phone for making calls – but for texting and listening to music, it was great. However, it was a brick! When the allotted contract expired, I needed to downsize. Fashion was changing – no longer were cargo pants acceptable for anyone other than enlisted men or pro-paintballers, and this phone could not fit in any pair of jeans yet invented. So I went small – to the Sony Ericsson T61i. This little dude had a color screen, a bizarre input method known only as T9 (you think today’s autocorrect problems are bad?) and perhaps more interestingly, a Bluetooth radio and support for custom code. I could actually advance slides in Entourage and PowerPoint by using a custom app and Bluetooth pairing. In 2003! Magical!
Smartphones? Mostly just data-intensive phones
The smartphone era for me started with the awesome Samsung Blackjack. HTC Diamond & Diamond 2. These were great phones, but towards the end of the Windows Mobile lifespan, the software really started to let them down. Windows Phone 7 and the HTC Mozart and Samsung Omnia were interesting phones for their time… but the way I used my phone had started to change again. No longer was it just calls, tunes and texts, but the phone became a fulltime email + internet device. Even today I spend far more time in email than I ever did making calls. No phone has really mastered this for me – the iPhone has aq quirky email client, the various android devices (I was quite partial to the HTC One X and now, the HTC One) had great hardware, but the OS & software was, and still is atrocious. A chrome browser and an android browser, really guys? Gmail app that is favored over the standard mail app? Don’t ship the Org Chart!
Enter the Titan. More-than-a-smartphone
Anyway, I digress, on to the Nokia 1520. My first impression was that this phone is impossibly, ridiculously big. The phone absolutely dwarfs the Nokia 920 (not a small phone itself) and the onscreen keyboard is about the same size as the entire iPhone 5. I’ll let that sync in. The first time I received a call on this phone I was childishly giggling at the thought of holding such a large device to my head. But the more I used it, the more I got over the size – at the end of the day, I don’t make a lot of calls – that isn’t the primary use case of the smartphone (or post-smartphone, as this device really is).
One last thing on physical size… It is a big phone, it is not a thick phone. In fact, it is thinner than the Nokia 920 and about the same thickness as the Nokia 925. I’ve seen numerous reviews that could be summarized as:
“OMG, how could this monstrosity fit in my tiny little pocketsies?”.
I have no problem putting this phone in my pockets. For average people and normal regular jeans, this phone should pose no obstacle. No, you wont be able to put it in you shirt pocket without it poking out the top… but if that is a consideration for you, a new phone should not be at the top of your shopping list. If you are wearing skin tight jeans or jeggings, maybe this could be a problem. However, if that is your style, you probably keep your pockets empty and carry a purse or handbag (or retro leather messenger bag – poser!).
Software wise, it is still Windows Phone 8. The Nokia Black update has some cool additions – the new camera app is amazing, the extra column of icons is useful (although I am not a big app consumer – I prefer to keep the start screen to only live tiles and swipe across to the app list when I need to). The new apps like Nokia storyteller are really interesting, in that it automatically maps and sorts you photos by location and timeline (and I really hope this comes to the OOTB Windows phone and Windows photo app). The 20MP camera is still great, although not quite as nice as the Nokia 1020, the PureView camera tech makes every other smartphone camera look tired and amateur.
The processor inside the Lumia 1520 is a quad-core snapdragon – actually the same silicon as inside Nokia’s Windows RT tablet (the Lumia 2520). Processors have never seemed to matter much in Windows Phone – it is always relatively snappy. The only way I notice this improvement is when loading games like Plants vs Zombies and Halo:Spartan Assault.
Where this phone comes into its own is having a 1080p 6 inch screen and a full desktop-class browser. I usually hold my phone about 40cm ( 1ft and a bit, I assume) from my eyes and at this distance, the screen looks to be about the same size as viewing a laptop in my lap. To put that in perspective, reading on this phone is functionally equivalent to reading on a laptop – but far more practical. It isn’t just about the size though – the pixel density, colors and readability in overhead light (sun or just brightly lit offices) is amazing and makes for a great reading experience.
A few years ago, this phone would have been ridiculous. But, with LTE, modern browsers and changing habits – the Lumia 1520 is the perfect convergent device of 2013, just like the Nokia 5510, 12 years ago. I have stopped carrying around a tablet for consumption sake (just a laptop/suface for when I need to do work) – this phone has filled this niche.
Whether that translates to commercial success – I don’t care, but this is the perfect device for me, today.
PS- Get the cover, it makes the phone look like a checkbook!
Superstratum 