Review: Nokia Lumia 710

The Lumia 710 was the first entry-point for Nokia with Windows Phone in the New Zealand market, and also comes at an entry-level price of $549. And yet, the 710 actually shares a lot of specifications with its more expensive sibling, the Lumia 800. The specs are so similar, in fact, that it's going to be hard for many to justify spending the extra $350 on what's essentially the same powerful phone but with a sexier case.

Call quality on the Lumia 710 was great, on the Telecom XT network at least. Since Telecom is the only telco selling the phone, that's a good thing. Texting was a little more difficult, as the 710's screen is long and narrow. As a result, the on-screen keyboard had incredibly small buttons even for tiny thumbs.

The 5MP camera on the phone is fairly average - not great, but not bad either, especially considering the price tag on the device. As always, low-light situations produced shots with grain and pixelation, but that's true of most smartphones.

One thing that differentiates the new Nokia Windows phones from the competition is the excellent Nokia Drive app, which brings something new to phone-base GPS navigation. Maps are shown in 3D, which allows you to place where you are in relation to landmarks - the map will show you that if you head past the Sky Tower on the way up Victoria Street, you've gone too far. It looks cool and it's genuinely helpful.

Like the Lumia 800, the 710 has a 1.4GHz processor and 512MB of RAM, making the device seamless to use. The phone performed well when running all kinds of tasks - games, web browsing, video playback. It comes with Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) on board, which is a relatively speedy, clean OS. The screen is the same size and resolution, and colours look to be of a similar quality. It also has all the same connectivity options, including the HSDPA speed, which has an influence on how fast the internet is.

The differences between the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800, hardware-wise, are mostly nothing to do with how powerful the device is. The battery in the Lumia 800 is bigger than that of the 710, but otherwise the changes are relatively minor. The Lumia 800 has 16GB of storage space to the 710's 8GB - possibly the biggest non-superficial sell, as you can't add microSD storage - and an 8MP Carl Zeiss lens instead of a 5MP, less fancy one.

But the real change is in the body of the phone. The Lumia 710 is admittedly not the most attractive phone out there. It's clunky, blocky and thick; it's made of mostly plastic and a rubberised backing that sticks in your hand. It has three tactile buttons at the base of the phone for the Back, Home, and Search keys. The 800, by comparison, is sleek, with a polycarbonate and almost indestructible case case.

For a lot of people, the look is important, so they'll go for the 800 - it's far nicer to look at than the Lumia 710. While there's nothing wrong with choosing a more expensive smartphone based on its look - you do have to be seen with it all the time, after all - it pains me to realise that the 710 could have been a fantastic phone if the body was prettier. As it stands, the 710 is extremely solid and deserving of your money, but will likely be outshined by the spectacular design of other Nokia devices.