• Diyan
• On November 4, 2015

Review Overview

Design

7

Display

8

Camera

7

Performance

8.5

76%

Rating

The best-value phone with Windows Phone

Microsoft Lumia 640 is a 5-inch mobile phone that offers a great value for the money (below EUR 150 at the time of writing). The phone runs the latest official Windows Phone 8.1 Update 2 out of the box, but you can expect an official Windows 10 Mobile update in December. In fact, I’ve been running test build 10581 for a week and the phone’s performance is really impressive.

Design

At a first glance, Lumia 640 has a traditional Lumia design that reminds of the cheaper Lumia 535, but the 640 has a fresher translucent back. The phone is quite slim (8.8mm) compared with the old generation of Lumias (like 920, 930, 1020) and fits well in the pocket. Under the removable back you will find a large 2500 mAh battery, microSD and micro-SIM. The other key specs are 8 GB of storage (you have less than 5 GB free), 8 MP rear camera, 1 MP selfie camera, 1 GB of RAM. Overall, the phone feels sturdy and well made for the money you pay for.

Display

Lumia 640 is equipped with a 5-inch HD LCD IPS display (1280 x 720 pixels) with Clear Black technology, and protected by Gorilla Glass 3. This screen impresses with its clarity, colors and viewing angle, while the HD resolution is more than enough for most of the users – we have seen 720p screens in far more expensive models on the market.

Camera

Lumia is famous with its great cameras even in the less expensive models and Microsoft Lumia 640 is yet another example of that. The Microsoft Lumia 640 has a 8 MP main shooter with a single LED flash, but without PureView branding and Optical Image Stabilization. Outdoors, the phone capture good details and the photos will satisfy all users who just post photos on Facebook and Instagram. To improve the photos you’d better switch to full manual mode and adjust shutter speed and ISO settings according to your needs. When the sun goes down, this 8 MP shooter is also capable of some good results, but not in extreme low-light scenes because of the lack of OIS.

This camera also supports two unique Lumia features – Rich Capture and Dynamic Flash. Rich Capture combines multiple shots into one photo to create more dynamic images automatically, while Dynamic Flash lets you adjust the amount of Flash after you’ve taken the photo.

Performance

The Lumia 640 is equipped with a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor with 1 GB of RAM. The processor and the amount of RAM are more than enough for all apps and games you will find in the store. I found the Lumia 640 even better with Windows 10 Mobile – with almost no resuming screens while switching between apps and very fluid animations. We expect a number of new universal apps (Twitter, Instagram, Messenger, Viber) to reach the new platform in the coming months, so you can expect even better performance on Lumia 640 with Windows 10 Mobile.

As far as the battery life, the Lumia 640 will carry you at least throughout the day without need of a charger. If you are a moderate user, you will manage to get around 2 days, while some of you may even get 3 days.

Verdict

With Windows 10 Mobile just around the corner, plus an excellent performance, good camera and a solid battery, the Microsoft Lumia 640 is definitely the best-value Windows phone you can find right now. Lumia 640 is available in single SIM, Dual-SIM and LTE variants in four colors – black, white, cyan, orange.

Pros:

• great value for the money
• excellent battery
• smooth performance

Cons:

• 8 GB of storage
• lack of OIS