Nokia Lumia 1320 hands-on

Introduction

Nokia has a knack for covering all the bases and they did so this time in the phablet space with the Lumia 1320. It is a close cousin to the new Lumia 1520 in that it too shares a 6-inch display, but the rest of the components are quite a bit different. The Lumia 1320 will be put on sale in Europe and developing markets in the eastern hemisphere.

Design

The Lumia 1320 design remains true to Nokia’s form factor overall. That means there is a selection of colors to choose from. In this Lumia’s case, the back-plate is removable, which means you can get other colors to suit your style and switch them anytime you like. The design belies the device’s size in that it is quite comfortable to hold in your hand thanks to nicely rounded edges on all sides.

Everything is where it should be on a Lumia device, the volume rocker, power/lock and camera buttons mark the right edge of the handset. The rest of the set-up is what you would expect on most smartphones, with the micro-USB plug on the bottom and 3.5mm headset jack on top.

The battery is 3,400mAh, just like the Lumia 1520, so the lights should stay on for a good long time. However, wireless charging and NFC is not supported on the Lumia 1320.

Display

The display on the Lumia 1320 does not have the same resolution, still the 1280x720 panel does of fine job of showing off the color and detail to be found in the Windows Phone user experience. The Lumia 1320 also benefits from ultra-bright, super-sensitive touch and ClearBlack features that make Lumias a pleasure to work with.

Processor and Memory

The Lumia 1320 gets by with 8GB of native storage and 1GB of RAM.  While some may be put off by what is now regarded as a small amount of storage, the Lumia 1320 does support microSD card expansion up to 64GB.  Under the hood is a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon singing along at 1.7GHz, more than enough to handle the Windows Phone operating system.

Interface

The Windows Phone experience remains intact with the new Lumia phablets. The fact that a third column of Live Tiles is supported does not change much for the user. If anything, it improves it from the standpoint that you can put more of what is important to you on the screen.

Even in these pre-production units on display, Windows Phone performed smoothly with no undue drama.

Price, release date and carrier announcements

Just like the other devices announced today, Nokia did not communicate a formal release date or list any specific carriers that will sell the Lumia 1320. We were only told that the Lumia 1320 will make its debut in early 2014.  With a retail price of $339 however, we are pretty confident that the 1320 will find wide appeal to those that want to have a solid media consumption device, but do not want to pay premium prices. We could see this being an effective competitor to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Mega series.  We will let you know as soon as release dates and participating carriers are announced.