I have to say, the whole bright orange thing grew on me. When Microsoft contacted me and asked if I’d like to test out the Nokia Lumia 735 for a couple of weeks, I wasn’t quite expecting neon orange. I don’t have that much orange stuff. Turns out I like the orange though. Now, onto a more detailed review that “ohhh, pretty colour”.
I use my phone to take A LOT of photos, which is a distinct advantage for this camera. It’s lauded as having one of the best selfie cameras and the front facing camera does take a good quality selfie. It also has a Lumia Selfie app to help you edit your picture until you’re looking your best (or you look like a cartoon character, it’s easy to go too far with the old eye enhancer). I’m more likely to be taking photos of products than my face and the full camera also gave clear, crisp images which would be more that good enough blog quality.
I also really liked the quiet hours feature. I have a mini battle with myself because I put my phone on aeroplane mode every night so that my phone doesn’t go off or start flashing in the night and disturb me. But, what if there’s a middle of the night disaster and no-one can get through to me?! I might have had a good eight hours, but I will have missed the major crisis. I didn’t even think this kind of anguish was a thing, but apparently Nokia think it is too, so Quiet Hours stops most notifications, but still allows calls/texts from certain people, if they try a certain number of times. Clever…
I was also very fond of Cortana. She’s just so bloody helpful, reminding you about stuff, setting off alarms, finding answers to the kind of questions that plague every day life like “what’s the difference between a chicken and a hen?”, “where do lentils come from?” and “just what is vinegar?”. I know that lots of phones have a similar feature, but, I don’t know, I sort of got attached to her. She understood what I said pretty much first time and didn’t suggest that I’d said something entirely random.
Look how confidently she reminded me about Bake Off (still forgot to watch it and then accidentally found out who won though).
Battery life on this phone is also really good, particularly given how much time I spend on the camera, photos and apps. I could go two days without charging this up even with my high usage.
One downside of this phone is that it’s quite a bold look, what with it being bright orange. Personally, I grew to love it but it’s also available in green, black and white if you’d prefer a different shade. It also took me a little while to get to grips with how to operate the phone. Once I was in the apps, they were really easy to use and the customisable big buttons allow you to quickly find what you use most often (once you have them set up), but I initially found that navigating around took me some time to get used to. That said, I have been devoted to another phone for the last 5 years so any new phone would be bound to have the same effect on me. One other note is that I had most of my normal apps on the phone, but I did struggle to find Pinterest, which I’m normally a regular user of. I did find the health and fitness app really interesting and the phone had been counting my steps without me even knowing it.
Overall, I really enjoyed using the Nokia Lumia 735 and I think it would make a good, affordable option if for someone who is looking for a high quality camera, help with organisation and long battery life. I’m not due to upgrade just yet, but if I was I’d be happy to switch to this phone (and not just to be reunited with Cortana…) 🙂
