Nimish Sawant

Microsoft had announced the Lumia 640XL and Lumia 640 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and has now, launched these devices in India at a price of Rs 11,999 for the Lumia 640 and Rs 15,799 for the Lumia 640XL. Both these phones will be upgradeable to Windows 10 mobile phone OS when it is launched.

Now from the naming convention, one may think that these phones just differ in screen size, but that is not the case. While both phones sport the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC, both phones come with different cameras, different battery capacities. We got a chance to play around with the Lumia 640XL and here are our first impressions.

Build and Display

Lumia devices are known for their decent build qualities and the Lumia 640XL does not disappoint. It isn't very different from what one may have seen on other Lumia phablets such as the Lumia 1320. The plastic rear cover one of the sturdiest we have seen in recent times and is removable.

The Lumia 640XL comes with a massive 5.7-inch display with the Corning Gorilla Glass 3 but sadly it only has a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. We would have certainly liked to see a full HD display on such a massive screen. The pixel density is 259ppi. But the Clear Black IPS LCD panel gives a good contrast and thanks to the IPS panel, the viewing angles are good.

There are plastic buttons on the right hand side which have a good feedback. Removing the rear cover is easy and it shows you the long removable battery beside which you have the dual-SIM slots and a microSD card slot above it. The matte finish on the phone helps with the grip.

Processor, Storage, RAM

The dual-SIM Microsoft Lumia 640XL comes with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC which has a 1.2GHz quad-core processor along with an Adreno 305 GPU. There is 1GB of RAM along with 8GB of internal storage. You can expand the storage from the microSD card slot to up to 128GB. Additionally Microsoft will also offer you 30GB free of OneDrive cloud storage. Apart from this, buyers will also get a 12 month Office 365 Personal subscription as a limited time offer redeemable between April and June 2015 which will also include 1TB of OneDrive storage.

In the limited time that we had with the device, the 640XL performed speedily. There wasn't any stutter while scrolling through the app menu or the home page. Switching between applications was quick. We will have to run the benchmarks and run the phone through out battery of tests to really give a verdict on the performance though.

OS and other features

Microsoft Lumia 640XL runs on Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim update. But it will be getting the Windows 10 mobile update when it is available. Thanks to the Denim update, you get Cortana support, love folders, and even the settings menu has got some love. You now have different sub-heads for settings and can even pin a setting to the Start screen. It comes with built-in Skype integration. It comes pre-installed with apps such as BookMyShow, BBM, Ola cabs, Food Panda among others. On the battery front, the Lumia 640XL houses a 3,000 mAh battery which promises a day-long usage. We will find that out when we test it.

Camera

The Microsoft Lumia 640XL comes with a 13MP rear camera with an f/2.0 aperture and a 5MP front camera. The 1/3-inch size sensor on the Lumia 640XL promises good performance and the sample images we shot at the venue showed ample detail. But lighting conditions at press launches aren't ideal and we would hold our thoughts on the image quality till we actually try out the camera in the wild. The front camera has a 24mm wide angle lens, which is something we had seen with the Lumia 730 as well. It comes with the Lumia selfie app for selfie-enthusiasts.

Conclusion

Microsoft has released a mid-range phablet, but at Rs 15,799, the price seems quite a lot. Sure the Windows 10 compatibility sounds tempting, when it comes will be available. But at this price point, Microsoft is competing with many Android mid-range phones. Barring the removable battery, there isn't much that is compelling over existing Lumia devices. Also the 5.7-inch display with an HD display may not be to everyone's liking. We will give our final thoughts once we test the device in our labs.