Hardware and Design
Visually, the Lumia 525 is just about indistinguishable from its predecessor. You still have the flat glass front with angular corners contrasting with the aggressively beveled back panel. All the physical elements are still in the same places as they were on the Lumia 520, from the buttons to the 3.5mm audio jack to the microUSB port to the position of the single loudspeaker on the rear. You still have the 4-inch WVGA LCD display on the front flanked by the earpiece and the non-backlit Windows Phone capacitive keys for Back, Start and (Bing) Search. The 525 continues to be an extremely well-built device for the price, with the coloured back shell (orange, in my case) wrapping around the entire device giving it the illusion of a unibody construction. While the physical buttons on the side feel a tad flimsy and are somewhat difficult to press, they are still of passable quality. The only visible difference between the Lumia 520 and 525 is the fact that the back shells come in different colours and are now glossy instead of matte. While I will always prefer matte plastic over glossy plastic, it is true that the glossy finish makes the Lumia 525 stand out even more than its predecessor from an aesthetic standpoint.
Under the hood, the only difference between the Lumia 525 and its predecessor is the fact that you get 1GB of RAM on the former as compared to 512MB on the latter. This should translate to better performance and access to the full Windows Phone Store library of apps and games, freeing the user from having to contend with RAM limitations. However, the 525 retains the dated dual-core 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus CPU along with 8GB of internal storage (of which 4GB is user-accessible out of the box) and a user-replaceable 1430mAh battery. The 4-inch WVGA LCD display appears to be unchanged from the one found on the Lumia 520, which means that you are getting relatively muted colours, mediocre contrast and subpar viewing angles. I cannot in good faith say that you are getting a quality display on the Lumia 525, but I doubt that much of the target audience will mind.
The 4GB of user-accessible internal storage definitely fills up quickly with apps and games, so you will want to either invest in a decent-sized microSD card even if it can only be used for photos, music and videos, or rely on streaming media. However, the omission of LTE on the 525 means that you’ll only be streaming at 3G speeds. Other hardware omissions include a front-facing camera, NFC, oleophobic (anti-fingerprint) screen coating, an LED flash for the camera and a secondary mic for noise cancellation. You really are not getting much in the way of frills as far as the Lumia 525 is concerned.
Performance and Battery Life
The Lumia 525, just like its predecessor, provides a more than acceptable user experience despite its modest internals. Within the confines of Windows Phone 8, it is smooth and snappy even when browsing the web with only occasional lag to be found. Even though the Lumia 525 is an entry-level device, even advanced users would be likely to be happy with the 525′s everyday performance.
Gaming performance on the Lumia 525 is adequate, with no frame drops or visible stuttering even in demanding games like Asphalt 8. You won’t get much anti-aliasing or advanced visual effects like reflections and shadows, but it’s a passable experience.
Battery life on the Lumia 525 is more of a mixed bag. You will be able to get the device to last a day from morning till evening, but only if it is used lightly. Subjecting the Lumia 525 to moderate to heavy use will leave you stranded for juice by early to mid-afternoon.
Imaging
With the Lumia 525, you get a 5-megapixel autofocus camera that lacks an LED flash. For the price of the device, it is a passable camera that gets slightly better once the new Nokia Camera Beta is installed. Nokia Camera Beta brings all the advanced camera features that were once the domain of Nokia’s PureView devices to the Lumia 525 which means that, for better or for worse, you’ll be able to finetune settings such as shutter speed, ISO sensitivity and exposure as well as use manual focus when shooting with the Lumia 525.
You will want to restrict your use of the Lumia 525′s camera to outdoor and well-lit situations though – it will not cope very well with poorly-lit or low-light scenes. Your food photos, however, will turn out just fine.
Software and Services
The Lumia 525 runs the latest version of Windows Phone 8 (GDR3) with the latest version of Nokia’s Lumia software (Black). GDR3 brings a number of small improvements to the platform including a new Driving Mode, screen rotation lock and the ability to close apps in the app switcher. Lumia Black brings a separate set of small improvements including Nokia Camera compatibility, Bluetooth 4.0LE support, DNG (RAW) image support and Glance Screen notifications. Not all new features in Lumia Black are applicable to the Lumia 525 (the latter two features, for example, are absent) but it is nice that the entry-level Windows Phone device runs on the same software platform as the Lumia 1520.
Windows Phone 8 is still best suited for novice users, people who desire a unique and different experience and people who are already invested in Microsoft’s collection of web services. Nokia’s hardware still continues to “sell” Windows Phone 8 rather than the other way around; one would buy the Lumia 1020 because of its amazing camera and the Lumia 525 because of its impressively low asking price. Whether you find yourself liking Windows Phone really depends on how invested you already are in Apple’s and/or Google’s ecosystem, the platform you’re already used to as well as your expectations for Windows Phone.
That is my objective opinion about Windows Phone 8. My personal views on the state of Windows Phone 8 at the end of 2013 start below.
I am not pleased with the progress that Windows Phone 8 has made this year, which essentially amounts to virtually nothing. I am not talking about sales figures, which according to Nokia have picked up somewhat. I am not taking any issue with Nokia’s work on Windows Phone, which has been an impressive effort with developments like HERE Maps, HERE Drive+, HERE Transit, Mix Radio, Glance Screen, Nokia Camera, Smart Camera, the imaging APIs and the decoupling of the company’s settings panels (display, touch, accessories, extras+info and so on) from the platform update cycle. It is the core platform that has hardly evolved. It is the selection and quality of third party apps that has hardly evolved. Even the Store experience has not changed.
This is a non-exhaustive list of essential, very basic features that Windows Phone 8 continues to lack today, at the end of 2013:
- A centralized holding place for notifications
- Separate volume controls for media, alarms and notifications
- The ability for the user to change the notification tone (apart from the ringtone, SMS tone and email tone)
- The ability for more than 15 apps to run background processes
- USB and Bluetooth tethering
- The ability to customize what the hardware Search button does
- The ability to create groups of tiles on the Start Screen
- The ability to have more than 5 number badges on the lockscreen
- The ability for Live Tiles to update in real-time and display 3-digit numbers
- The ability to view a list of previously-installed and purchased apps in the Store
- The ability to check for updates manually in the Store
In fact, what were once headline features in Windows Phone now seem to have fallen by the wayside. Nobody likes to talk about the social networking integration in Windows Phone anymore, but that is because those features no longer work for the majority of Facebook and Twitter users today. The existence of standalone, regularly updated apps for Facebook and Twitter make the built-in features (like the Me Tile) more or less unnecessary, and while it is still nice that Windows Phone pulls in data from Facebook to enhance your contacts in the People Hub, I cannot see a use for the What’s New columns in any of the hubs, nor do I know anybody who uses the hubs to interact with Facebook and Twitter.
The quality of third-party apps also remains hit-and-miss. Instagram has finally arrived on the platform in official form, but it is nowhere near as good as even the Android version. It is slow and janky with missed taps and occasional issues with loading columns, it does not support video uploads as far as I can tell and notifications do not come in reliably. The Spotify app is absolute garbage; it seems to have been abandoned a while ago as it does not support Spotify’s Browse and Discover features, nor does it support Windows Phone 8 features such as fast app switching and saved states. It is so slow that it feels like a feature-phone app, and it is also particularly crash-prone. There are no third-party alternatives that I could find for Spotify on Windows Phone.
It is very difficult to make Windows Phone 8 fit my smartphone usage habits. There is no app, official or otherwise, for Simplenote. There is still no official app for Dropbox that supports automatic camera uploads. Google Drive, essential for my work, can only be accessed via some very basic third-party clients. The only Windows Phone app for Todo.txt, my preferred task management solution, is a Windows Phone 7 app. Hangouts is no go on Windows Phone, Google Play Music is no go on Windows Phone, I cannot control my Jawbone Mini Jambox from the Lumia 525 because Jawbone does not have an app for Windows Phone. And I’m still waiting for a really good podcatcher.
Conclusion
While using a Windows Phone device as a primary smartphone is very challenging for me, I would still recommend the Lumia 525 just as readily as I did the Lumia 520 to first-time smartphone buyers, novice users or people with simple needs. The Lumia 525 makes what was already an appealing product even better, and can even serve as a more-than-capable secondary device for more advanced users. However, I would also like to see further advancement in hardware features and component quality at this price point; the Lumia 525 feels more like a half-step ahead of the Lumia 520 instead of a new-generation entry-level Lumia. Still, the Lumia 525 is solidly-built and works well, and at this price point there is really not much more you can ask for.
