Nokia Lumia 710 Hands-on: Colorful Windows Phone for the Masses

While the Lumia 800 is Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone, the mid-range Lumia 710 has plenty going for it for those looking for something more affordable. The compact 4.4-ounce device packs a 1.4-GHz processor and will come in back and white with multiple back cover options that you can swap, including cyan, fuchsia, yellow, black, and white. Read on for our impressions.

One of the most striking things about the Lumia 710 are the cool-looking, acrylic-like physical hardware buttons beneath the display. This strip of buttons is a bit narrow for our tastes, but they felt pretty solid. The 710 has an intriguing tapered shape with angled corners, compared to the more stark and rectangular Lumia 800.

While the screen on the 710 isn’t AMOLED like the Lumia 800, we found the ClearBlack TFT to be plenty crisp during our hands-on time. This Windows Phone also features a 5-MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics that can capture 720p video.

Up top you’ll find a power button and headphone jack, and the volume controls and camera button are on the right hand side. As with other Windows Phone devices, you’ll be able to activate the camera by pressing the shutter key even when the screen is off.

To help stand out from other Windows Phones, the Lumia 710 comes with Nokia Drive, which delivers turn-by-turn navigation and Nokia Music MixRadio (a Pandora alternative). In an update delivered later this year, Nokia Lumia users will also gain the ability to create personalized channels from a global catalogue of millions of tracks.

Overall, we like the look and feel of the Lumia 710, which will give shoppers an affordable Windows Phone device with a personality. We look forward to seeing this handset come stateside early next year.

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