New Nokia Lumia 625 Windows Phone Review #HolidayGiftGuide

Sadly I’ve had the same old cell phone for the past eight years, yeah I know! It’s very basic with no texting, no internet access and now its battery no longer holds a charge so it was time to upgrade, update, and choose a phone that is current. I didn’t realize how tech-deprived I was until I saw all the new cell phones on the market. I need one that’s user-friendly, offers all the tools I need and is budget friendly. The result is the new Nokia Lumia 625, a sleek, attractive and innovative Smartphone.

The Nokia Lumia 625 is the biggest phone in the Lumia range and has an abundance of awe-inspiring attributes, bells and whistles. Where do I begin? Starting with the outside, the shell has nice contoured edges and a smooth matte finish making it easy to grip. These shells come in 5 different savvy colors and I was lucky enough to get the black and the very vibrant green. If you’re not digging these colors, you can pick up lots of stunning colored shells online. Behind the shell is housed the battery, SIM card slot, and a memory card slot. On the back of the phone are the loud-speaker and the camera. Along the edges, you have the 3.5mm headphone jack on top and on the right side, you have the volume rocker, the off/on switch and the camera button. Along the bottom are the micro USB port for charging and data transfer. The first thing you will want to do is head over to your service provider and get your SIM card installed. It’s very inexpensive and took less than a minute.

This Windows Phone 8 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and a Dual-core 1.2 GHz Krait CPU. It boasts a 4.7″ IPS LCD display touch screen which makes viewing effortless. It has a screen resolution of 480 x 800 megapixels giving it a density of around 199ppi, so some images and text may appear somewhat pixelated. Although this may not be the clearest resolution, I absolutely had no problem seeing my tiles, images, apps or messages. If you are a gamer you may sense the lack of resolution or if you watch any videos you may sense the lack of sharpness. As well, this particular phone does not have the Nokia ClearBlack screen which improves visual image quality. Perhaps this is the trade-off for the larger screen.

The Lumia 625 has 512 MB RAM and 8 GB of memory that can be upgraded to 64 GB if desired. Turning the phone on for the first time was so exciting and a little unnerving at the same time. The first thing you will see is a bunch of small squares. This is the Windows phone interface home screen which consists of a group of live tiles that can be customized. You can pin, unpin, alter, or move any tile on a whim. Swipe to the left and you will be greeted by a full list of applications that you have on the phone in smaller icons. Any of these can be added to your home screen by holding the app icon down. A little menu will pop up and you tap “pin to start” and it will automatically show up on your home screen. So easy!

One fabulous feature is the Office application. Swiping left to right you have access to different portions of this application, like recent files for instance. As you start to store files and photos, they can be saved to Sky Drive which saves these inside your Hotmail account. So if you log into your Hotmail account with your Tablet, you can get access to this same information. Fabulous! Another great app is the People hub. This is an amalgamation of all your people and social networks. You can go into your settings and set up your Facebook, Twitter, or any social media. The People hub will automatically bring together all the different contact information from all your different networks and allow you to see them as an individual contact card per person. You can create groups, send mass emails, and even put a specific person or group on your homepage. This way you can see updates on the tile without opening up the application. I love this feature. There are so many awesome applications like, Maps, GPS, oodles of games, and many more, I could go on forever.

An awesome feature is a 5-megapixel camera. I had so much fun learning how to take pictures and videos and storing them on my phone. There are two ways to take a picture, you can either use the camera button or simply tap on the phone. The phone offers four lenses so you can take a variety of unique pictures. The panorama lens allows you to take a series of pictures. The screen will show you an arrow to follow and line up with a circle, once lined up the camera will automatically snap the image. This is really remarkable and perfect for outdoors, parties or even family get-togethers. We had a blast with this feature.

Aside from phoning, texting and checking my email I’ve been using the Lumia 625 to watch videos while I’m on the treadmill. I don’t have a TV in my exercise room and I think we can all agree that it can be painfully boring walking on the treadmill. It was fabulous to watch my favorite classical violin artists. Time just flew by!!

I absolutely love this phone and I’m very impressed with how user-friendly it is. Although I haven’t learned everything on the phone yet and a few of the steps are still rough, I can always tap into Nokia’s Help & Tips application which guides you through the very basics steps all the way to more advanced ones. The Nokia website also offers some basic videos that will at least get you started. You can also set up an appointment with a Nokia tech who will phone you and walk you through any issue you are having with your phone, now that’s service.

The Nokia Lumia 625 is a mid-range phone that is ideal as a first or second smartphone device. It offers incredibly fast internet connection, it’s great for managing your contacts and the screen is big enough to watch a video. Also important is the price, it’s unbelievably affordable. Christmas is so close and I think this phone would make a very merry gift!

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post. I received a phone for review only. The opinions expressed here are my own, yours may differ.