Nokia Lumia 710 for T-Mobile hands-on (video)

Deja vu ? Absolutely. Nokia’s chosen to make its first, big Windows Phone splash stateside with the standard Lumia 710 on T-Mobile . Eager Espoo fanboys and ladies were likely hoping the corporate would’ve opted for a Red, White and Blue polycarbonate debut (see: Lumia 800 ), but that isn’t the black and white story being told here. So, put your hands down in the event you have already got a smartphone to name your individual — this one’s aimed squarely at mobiledom’s stragglers. At $49 on contract, it is a value proposition that may rather well lead the uninitiated down a live-tiled, Mango-laden path and help Microsoft ensnare a larger user base for its OS. Join us then, won’t you, as we dive deep into our second first impressions after the break.

There is no doubt about it, the Lumia 710 is light within the hand. The plastics utilized in its construction be capable to shave off the additional heft we’ve come to go along with more premium handsets and at no detriment to the standard of build. The soft touch removable back feels good to touch, but not so slippery as to warrant accidental drops. We did have a hard time, though, locating the device’s power button, embedded because it is in the phone’s frame. It is not an especially attractive device; it certainly doesn’t hold a candle to the sinuous taper of the 800, but there’s an appeal here for first time smartphone users. Put simply, the 710 is an unassuming phone, one which leaves all of the glitz and glamour to its OS. And it really well should, because the 3.7-inch ClearBlack LCD display does Mango’s live tiles justice. Colors are bold and viewing angles are fairly decent, but, again, specs aren’t this phone’s mission statement — it’s about breaking that barrier to entry.

As we saw back at Nokia World, the Lumia 710 is helped along by its greater than ample 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 512MB of RAM. Navigation during the various tiles and screens was fluid and free from any apparent hiccups. Nokia’s loaded its Drive app onto the device, along with a handful like Netflix, an exclusive ESPN app and MS Office. Thankfully, it is all removable bloatware, so that you can configure the telephone as you please. We were ready to run a couple of speed tests to attempt out T-Mobile’s 14.4Mbps HSPA+ network the Lumia 710 runs on and while we weren’t exactly blown away by the speeds — HSPA+ 24 would’ve been sweeter — they’re definitely fast enough at a median of 5Mbps down and nil.6Mbps up.

All in all, it is a solid collaboration between Nokia and Microsoft, in addition to a welcome boost to T-Mobile’s lineup, but we won’t help wonder why they did not just launch the Lumia 800 instead. What Windows Phone Mango needs without delay is a face and there is none prettier than that polycarbonate entrant. Still, in case you be trying to pick up a starter device for that enjoyed luddite to your family, you actually can’t get it wrong with the 710 and it’s $49 on contract price.

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This post is tagged: attractive device, first impressions, glitz and glamour, value proposition, Windows phone