Nokia XL Review – The Last Glimpse of Microsoft’s Android Phone[RIP]

Nokia Before handling the complete company to Microsoft. They came-up with new line up of Nokia X platform which is Android Based, three phones were launched Nokia X, X+ and XL. There were tons of rumours in technology world that Nokia building android smartphone named normady. When it launched all rumors came to end and CEO of Nokia Said that the main goal of Nokia X platform was to build a Phone between Nokia Asha range of feature phone and Nokia Windows Smartphones in Feb 2014. In India it was the Gap of Rs 5000 Approx between Asha and Low end windows phone. It was such a small Era that Yesterday that is 17th July 2014 After Nokia was completely Microsoft Company, Microsoft Announced that they would discontinue the Nokia X android Platform and Phones in future they will continue with Windows Phone OS in Nokia X series. Also microsoft Announced biggest job cut of about 14,500 with Also Shutting down Microsoft’s Xbox Entertainment Studio.

This review is totally the last Glimpse of Nokia XL whose future model would be seen or not seen we can’t say. The last phone from Microsoft running Android/ running its own Skinned version of Android.

Specification Of Nokia XL

• 5.0 inch 480×800 pixel screen resolution (187 PPi).
• Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro Dual Core Processor.
• Skinned version of Android 4.1.2 jelly bean ( Nokia’s 1.1.1.0 software version RM 1030).
• 5 MP rear camera with Auto-Foucus and 2MP front camera.
• Dual SIM Dual stand-by, Both Micro Sim and only First SIM 3G supported.
• 738mb ram
• 2000 mAh removable battery.

In-Box Content of Nokia XL

• Handset.
• Battery.
• Headphone normal one.
• Charger non USB one.

Build

Nokia’s Windows Smartphone were very famous for its Build and Vivid colours availability of it. Nokia XL is of Same Polycarbonate tuff build quality. I could say nokia makes its phone as strong as stone. It was a Duo body design you can remove whole back-panel and fit an new one with new colour and then you have a different colour phone. Even when I removed the back panel its build was so superb that other android competitors like Samsung, Sony would never be able to get that quality of build what nokia could able to offer with its build quality. The button Placement was so similar to that of every other android phone towards the right side. 3 Buttons on right Volume up, Down and lock. At bottom micro-USB connector while at Top 3.0mm headphone jack. The only Change over was the capacitive buttons instead of 3 buttons like every other android phone here was only one back button. Trying to make it feel like Nokia Asha 500 type of smartphones. I had an vibrant green colour where at back Nokia Logo printed in some dark shade of green above it was the 5 MP camera with Single LED Flash and Below to Nokia logo in Nokia XL was the Speaker Grill which was Loud enough than all other smartphones. The Nokia XL is huge you can’t do one handed task you need to use both hands. The nokia XL comes with the pair of normal headphones which we get with Lumia phones too. This headphones build is good and surprisingly they sound great too with Nokia XL.

The Phone is so sturdy that you would almost break others phone.

 

Software

The CEO said they needed a platform between the Asha range and Windows phone smartphone. So in Software part of Android they folk it like Windows and Asha. The main home screen has tile like interface of windows phone these are static tiles, not live tiles as windows. You can change the colour of each tile as your wish and organize according to colour of tiles, Also you can increase the size of it. For the notification they imported the Fastlane which was introduced in Asha phones. FastLane is actually a time-line which shows the recent app you used, combining the notification of messengers and twitter in real time according to time. The android people has an habit of swiping down here in that case no notification are present, only 1/4th screen is taken by swipe down panel also which is for only quick settings toggle. If you talk about the bloatware, it runs android but with no google service pre-installed. It all comes with microsoft services pre-install like instead of google drive there is SkyDrive , intead of google maps there is here maps. It also comes with Nokia Mix Radio service not the music store but only mix radio service. There are some apps comes pre-install like Facebook, Twitter, BookMyShow, Plants Vs Zombies 2, Danger Dash, bejeweled 2 ,tetrix, green farm 3 , wonder zoo,monopoly classic, Astro file manager, opera, vine ,BBM , facebook messenger, WeChar, news hunt , Sony Liv, Clean-up. Nokia has its own Android Appstore not with much apps, It doesn’t have officially whatsapp or instagram, for that it suggests us to download 1mobile market which has all these apps. There was one more feature which they got from Windows phone was the glance screen, Nokia said people using smartphone spent most time in checking notification and most battery is spent on just checking the notification, so for that purpose the solution was the glance screen which shows time and notification from the apps right without unlocking the device in white font.  The lockscreen was completely implemented from the Asha series all notifications comes on lock screen swipe right inorder to open that App.

Camera

Nokia XL, The name nokia is very popular for its camera in the phone. Well the only part the camera will never disappoint you. The 5 Mp rear camera sounds low in number but not in quality. The clarity and auto focus was up to the point . Even in low light it was good. The colour reproduction was perfect no over or under saturation the focus was perfect but there was more of shutter lag you can’t click more than 1 image in you want to click like xperia or other android smartphones. Front Camera is decent for video calling.

Battery

The Nokia XL has 2000 mAh battery looks small but one thing they had made it perfect optimize. yet the low core processor. It can easily give a one day battery life. On 2g it gaved almost 1 and half day battery with decent messaging, twitter and email stuff with decent gaming. we didn’t tested it with high end gaming but its complete decent.

Verdict

The price which was kept was about 11,000 Rs which is quiet expensive for just build and good camera only I would suggest only Nokia Fan will buy after its RIP moment made by Microsoft. There were better competitors during that time which crushed its demand a lot.