This month we take a look at one of the best budget devices on the market today, the Lumia 630 combines great software with decent specs and all for bargain price of £80! Samsung has released the absolutely stunning Galaxy Note 4 which it claims is one of the best phablets around, see how they both got on below.
Nokia Lumia 630
After performing exceptionally well in the smartphone market in recent years Nokia, now owned by Microsoft, are really concentrating at the low end of the market with the Lumia 630. You can pick one up from about £80 SIM- free or completely free with a contract from £7.50 per month... this is seriously cheap for what the 630 is packing performance wise.
The device comes with the new Windows 8.1 straight from the box and includes a 4.5-inch 480 x 854 display, 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor and 512MB of RAM. The new version of Windows is a much bigger step forwards than you may expect and has clearly been thought out to bring it closer to iOS and Android. It comes with extras like Word Flow Keyboard which makes simple typing tasks a lot easier.
The screen is decent sized and sports 271 ppi which is not going to win any prizes but is certainly decent for this price range. It was also meant to come with Cortana, Microsoft’s answer to Siri, but unfortunately there has been a delay in rolling the feature out to the UK for the 630. This was disappointing as many reports have spoken favourably about the voice only software.
Battery life is great and it actually felt quick to use, I had no problem whizzing between apps and had none of the usual lag you get with cheaper devices. The major plus points for business users is the Dual-SIM functionality, Microsoft Office and OneNote which is a great start for a professional device.
Pros Cheap, Fast, Dual-SIM, Does the basics very well
Cons Screen isn’t great, Camera is shocking
Samsung Galaxy Note 4
The Galaxy Note is considered by many as the Godfather of the phablet, now onto the fourth iteration the Note 4 is an impressive addition to the big screen family. The screen size has remained at 5.7 inches but has received a large resolution improvement. The Note 4 is in the minority with its QHD display, providing it with a staggering 515ppi pixel density thanks to the 2,560 x 1,440 resolution.
The Note 4 comes running OS Android 4.4.4 KitKat but it is expected that there will be an upgrade to Lollipop in the near future. The mighty device packs a 2.7GHz quad-core processor and 3GB of RAM which is enough to make it out perform the likes of the Galaxy S5 and the iPhone 6 Plus on the benchmarks. That is no mean feat and along with the impressive screen makes this a serious contender for one of the best phones of 2015.
Emails and messages are an absolute dream to compose on the Note 4 and the device comes with a choice of two SMS clients, Samsung’s messaging app and also Google’s Hangouts app. Both do the basics but Google’s offering has a few more bells and whistles. Hangouts incorporates Google’s own instant messaging client into the app, meaning fewer trips to different apps as you attempt to keep in contact with everyone.
Pros Amazing Screen, Blistering performance, 4G
Cons OS still on KitKat, Expensive (£500)