A rainbow of polycarbonate

Nokia brings its biggest Lumias yet, including a Windows RT tablet

New Lumia phones sport 6-inch displays.

Jason Inofuentes – Oct 22, 2013 10:55 am | 57

Nokia Lumia 1320 Credit: Nokia

To open Nokia World 2013 in Abu Dhabi, former CEO Stephen Elop unveiled Nokia’s first tablet alongside several new handsets. Rumors had been building that some bigger Lumias were coming, with Windows Phone Update 3 including support for 1080p phones, and fuzzy pictures of increasingly larger handsets being leaked. Looking over the lineup and specifications, there’s a lot to like in the new Lumias.

Lumia 2520—10.1 Windows RT Tablet

Nokia’s 10.1-inch Lumia 2520 Windows RT Tablet. Credit: Nokia

Nokia has always had the design chops to make covetous devices, and with its first Windows tablet you get the same design language, just bigger. The Lumia 2520, Nokia’s first Windows RT device, moves the company into direct competition with the newly launched Surface 2. The 10.1-inch slate features a 1080p display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC, LTE, Wi-Fi, and a 6.7MP rear camera with Zeiss optics and an impressive f/1.9 aperture. The display’s touch interface features the same capacitive layer we’ve seen from other Lumias, so you won’t need to take off your winter gloves in order to operate the tablet.

Windows RT 8.1 drives the device, and Nokia has included ports of some of its suite of Windows Phone apps, including Here Maps for offline navigation and Nokia Music and Mix Radio. Two new apps, Storyteller and Video Director, make keen use of the camera. It’s little surprise that Nokia would attempt to offer a premium camera experience on any of its devices, even if cameras on tablets aren’t traditionally a priority. That Nokia’s focus is on video rather than still shots hints that the company has researched user behavior and expects video to be the primary use case for a device this size.

Aping the Surface 2’s accessories, Nokia is releasing the Power Keyboard cover. Featuring a keyboard and touchpad, the cover also has an additional battery and two USB ports. The wrap-around cover looks to be a mix between Microsoft’s Touch Cover and Type Cover, offering physical keys with a soft-touch body. Nokia reports battery life in the 16-hour range with the Power Keyboard attached and 11 hours without it. Nokia has also baked in its charging tech, which it claims allows for 80 percent of battery life to be recovered in just one hour of charging.

The Lumia 2520 comes in at $499 and will be available in red, cyan, white, and black. The $50 premium over Microsoft’s Surface 2 nets you LTE and NFC, though no 64GB option has so far been announced. The Power Keyboard cover will cost you another $149. Sales will begin to roll out in the US, UK, and Finland shortly, with other markets rolling out soon after. In the US, versions will be available for both AT&T and Verizon, with the AT&T device supporting both 3G and LTE and the Verizon one being pure LTE.

Lumia 1520 and 1320—big phones, different prices

The Lumia 1520 and 1320 extend the recipe Nokia used for the Lumia 1020—with some choice substitutions. The 1520 is the new flagship, though it doesn’t have the ultimate camera. Featuring a 1080p 6-inch display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC, 2GB of RAM, and a 20MP PureView camera, the 1520 comes laden with all the advances you’d expect—and a premium $749 price tag to match. The large volume allows it to house a 3400 mAh battery and a microSD slot to compliment the 32GB of onboard flash. A new addition to Nokia’s camera software is the ability to shoot in RAW, a feature that will come to the Lumia 1020 in a later update. The 1520 will be exclusive to AT&T when it launches in the US.

The 1320’s price, $339, gives you a good idea of what you’ll find inside. While still a 6-inch device, the 1320 makes do with a 720p display (a rarity among Nokia’s Windows Phone 8 devices, which have tended to favor 768p) and a Snapdragon 400 SoC. The phone is aimed at those who still have an interest in large devices but don’t want to spend the big bucks to get one. And although it isn’t the powerhouse of its stablemate, it does retain the 1520’s 3400 mAh battery. Omitted, though, is the PureView camera; Lumia 1320 buyers will have to be content with a 5MP shooter, though the same video and camera software suite will be made available.

Nokia: Bigger is better.

These two approaches to the “big phone” market should cover all the demographics interested in larger devices, and they are somewhat enabled by the advances Microsoft made in its GDR3 update.

Asha—For the rest of the world

Nokia’s Asha Phones: Just as colorful, oh so affordable. Credit: Nokia

US readers are likely unfamiliar with Nokia’s Asha platform, though folks in the developing world probably are. Not quite a smartphone platform, Asha has been at the heart of Nokia’s push into emerging markets around the world. The new handsets (Asha 500, 502, and 503) are all priced below $100 and feature modest specifications while still drawing from Nokia’s design language and historically high build quality. Interestingly, Microsoft will be able to use the Nokia name only with Asha phones; Lumias will presumably fall under the Microsoft or Surface brands. The challenge for Microsoft becomes helping Asha customers make the transition to Lumia phones despite losing the Nokia name. For now, you can have a brand-new Nokia Asha 500 for just $69, though I would suggest the 503 since it supports 3G data.

Jason Inofuentes Technology Reporter

Jason Inofuentes studied Biology at the University of Virginia and has written for AnandTech and The Wirecutter, covering Android, Chrome OS and vacuums.

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