Lumia 640 XL LTE or 640 LTE?

Do-more

Having smashed the screen on my 1st. Gen Moto G which I have been using for the past 18 months I am in the market for a new phone and wanted to go with a much bigger screen.

At first I thought to stick with Android but am put off by how buggy most phones in my price range (sub €300) seem to be especially with lollipop.

The wife has an 830 which she is very happy with but that is a little over my price range.

So I am considering the Lumia 640 XL LTE which is available here in Sweden via the Microsoft store at 2499 SEK which is about €275 or the 640 LTE which is 1690 SEK (€185) at a local retailer.

€90 seems to be quite a difference for the better camera and bigger screen size, so I am having it hard to decide!

Anyone got the 640 and can comment on the camera quality? Or is the exact same camera in any other model?

Any comments or opinions to help me decide?

BTW Will Chrome browser be available when these phones get the Windows 10 update?

theothernt

I can't comment right now, but I'll have a Lumia 640 to test in a few days?

Update: Others had the same idea...

http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-lumia-640-camera-compared-to-the-lumia-930-1020-sony-xperia-z3-and-canon-sx50hs/

Do-more

Cheers, I'm using a 635 as a standby for the moment and it does the things I want from a phone. Apart from the lack of a camera flash and the screen size it would do the job. I expect the 640 with the extra ram should be more than good enough for me.

One concern with the XL is the physical size for carrying around in my jeans pocket but the 830 seems OK in that respect so hopefully the XL should be too.

Would like to know about Chrome in Windows 10. The 640 is supposedly top of the list for getting Win 10 so hopefully not long to wait to get the full release. I use chrome on other devices so it would be good to still be able to sync bookmarks, passwords etc. to my phone.

theothernt

The Lumia 640 XL is a big phone at nearly 6", so I'd try and use a similar phone to see if you're happy with the size. Both the 640 and 640 XL are newer generation phones so their performance should be very similar to the 830 (just not the 630 as it's an older 2014 device).

As for Google Chrome, it's a Windows desktop app - it doesn't exist for the phone and unless Google specifically remake it as a Windows 10 Universal app, it won't exist for the phone when Windows 10 arrives.

Do-more

theothernt wrote: »

I can't comment right now, but I'll have a Lumia 640 to test in a few days

Did you get the 640 yet? Any feedback?

I haven't had any joy in finding either phone on display in a B&M shop, the few around me won't have stock until the first or second week in June. All I can try do is compare with similar size phones such as the Note 4 vs. the XL.

The dual sim LTE versions are not available locally either but can be got from Amazon France for €249 for the XL not sure if I have much use for the dual sim though.

beauf

theothernt wrote: »

...640 and 640 XL are newer generation phones so their performance should be very similar to the 830 (just not the 630 as it's an older 2014 device)....

I don't get that comment. Correct me if I'm wrong but the CPU, GPU are the same those phones.

Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7
GPU Adreno 305

The only difference is the 630/635 have 512mb of RAM vs 1GB in the others. I would wonder will that make much difference at all. I don't know.

beauf

Do-more wrote: »

...I haven't had any joy in finding either phone on display in a B&M shop,....

Meteor in Blanch had a 640 when I was there during the week. Seems nice enough.

Do-more

beauf wrote: »

Meteor in Blanch had a 640 when I was there during the week. Seems nice enough.

I expect the build quality of the 640 & xl to be very similar to the 635 I am using now i.e. case/shell.

The spec of the 640 is surprisingly close to the 830 the wife has apart from the case and the screen spec.

I doubt I'd notice the difference in the screen unless they were side by side.

But its the XL that I am really leaning towards but I am just concerned about its physical size for carrying around and whether at the bigger screen size the resolution will be noticeable.

I guess there is one way to find out!

Payday today so I will pull the trigger on something when I get home this afternoon, probably a spur of the moment decision based on price and availability.

[Edit] Went mad and bought the dual sim 4G XL model in Radioactive Orange from Amazon.fr supposed to be delivered on Thursday this week, worked out the same price as the single sim version from the Microsoft store which was one of the few places I could find with stock.

Ordered a 32gb Samsung Evo microSD for it also.

Will give a quick review when I get my greasy paws on it.


.

dasa29

If I was you I would get the 640 LTE, I got it a few weeks ago through the Vodafone website. It is a good size and I am happy with it, I have not used the camera that much as I still have to get a micro SD card but the photos look good.

I looked at a few phones, and compared them before I got it, in terms of size the 640 is only 1.9mm longer and 1.5mm wider compared to the 830, while the 640xl is 18.5mm longer, 10.8mm wider so size might need to be looked at if you want the phone to fit in your jeans pocket.

"The spec of the 640 is surprisingly close to the 830 the wife has apart from the case and the screen spec." while that is true the camera is different on both phones as the 640 is 8mp while the 830 is 10mp.

The Lumia 640 LTE and xl LTE both come with a one year Microsoft Office 365 Personal subscription.

Overall I find the 640 a good phone, and I am still getting used to as my last phone was a Sony Ericsson k800i that I had for the last 7+ years.

beauf

dasa29 wrote: »

...while that is true the camera is different on both phones as the 640 is 8mp while the 830 is 10mp.....

The 640 is 8mp (No Carl Zeiss)
The 640XL is 13 MP, Carl Zeiss optics, 1/3'' sensor size
The 830 is 10 MP, but also has the following in addition to the above.

(OIS)Optical image stabilization
Bigger 1/3.4'' sensor size, PureView technology,
Video 1080p@30fps, (OIS) stereo sound rec.

Also has metal in the build. The others are all plastic.

Do-more

My dual sim 4G 640XL purchased from amazon.fr on Monday finally shipped from Milan yesterday afternoon.

Was supposed to be guaranteed delivery today.

It arrived at the UPS depot 25 minutes drive away from me at 4.50am this morning.

Was "out for delivery" all day. I even rang UPS at 3.30pm to check that it would be delivered today and they said "yes, no problem we deliver up till 7pm." 5.10pm tracking changed to "delivery delayed one business day" Argh Feck UPS.

Rang them back and had it re-directed to my work address tomorrow and just hope that they deliver it before I leave at 2pm.

theothernt

I hope it arrives

Do-more

My new phone was delivered this morning and just getting a chance to play around with it now. It might be a few days before I have a chance to post photos and a better review but I will post a few first impressions now.

Not that there was ever any doubt but the phone is BIG and will take a bit of getting used to. I fits in my jeans pocket no problem although it can dig in when bending down and you really need to take it out when driving.

I don't see any problems with the display resolution zooming this text for example produces no jagged edges that I can see.

Both sim slots are 4G I have tested this as I saw reports that the 3G dual sim model only operates at 2G on the second sim slot.

I don't know if the dual sim 4G model is sold in any other EU countries but the EAN code for this package only returns hits for French websides and the package contains only a French language quick start guide, the phone starts up in French and there were 4 or 5 French apps pre-loaded but they were easily uninstalled.

One concern is that I have lost the data connection a number of times despite having great mobile coverage but I think I may just need to clean my sim card as one time when I was swapping it between sim slots the phone said "no sim inserted" until I rebooted for a second time.

So far I haven't tested it with two sims inserted at the same time.

For some reason I can't get the weather displayed on the glance screen it only shows on the lock screen. Any idea how to fix that? At the moment glance only shows the time but not the date.

Just noticed that it doesn't have 5ghz WiFi but that's not a problem for me as no congestion here.

Do-more

Here are some photos of the Lumia 640 XL LTE dual sim, hopefully I will get a chance to add some more photos and impressions in the next few days.


Packaging front.


Packaging back.


Packaging side.


Package contents 1.


Package contents 2.


Charger & headphones.


Lumia 640 XL LTE Dual sim innards.

The phone was purchased from Amazon France (but shipped from Italy) and has the EAN code: 6438158722989 which is specific to the French market.

For anyone buying a Lumia 640 or 640XL from the web take great care in reading and verifying the specs correctly. That I know of there are 4 different versions of each phone available in Europe i.e. 3G single sim, 3G dual sim, 4G single sim and 4G dual sim and availability varies widely according to market.

Add in all the colour options and market specific packaging and you end up with a lot of SKU's to try to compare which makes comparing prices a little more difficult than usual.

Item descriptions for 4G phones normally have "LTE" in the title, if it's not there then you can be fairly sure that it's 3G only.

My phone was supplied with a Microsoft branded Euro type usb charger. Note that this is a fixed cable for charging only and no USB to USB cable is supplied.

The package includes headphones which have hard plastic ear buds and are "one size fits all" they didn't fit me very well so I haven't even tried them for sound quality. Next stop for them is the recycling bin.

I'm still having some problems with an iffy data connection, some apps such as Facebook are having problems with data from time to time. Never had this problem in the same location with other phones, could it be something to do with "data sense"? I will try switching if off later to see if there is any difference.

jimmynokia

Depending on size preference both are great phones for the money. Been using them some time now and I'm impressed.. The 640 XL is similar to the 1320 Lumia size wise.

Do-more

Having read some forums I found another owner reporting similar problems with their data connection (and general poor phone reception) they discovered that this was due to having incorrect APN settings and thus the phone kept hunting for the right connection and never found it resulting in an endless loop which was also eating their battery.

I have been using the APN settings given by my provider but searched the net for alternatives.

I have found settings now that seem to have solved the problem but bizarrely they will only work if I use sim 2 slot. Using the same sim card and APN settings in sim 1 slot results in no data at all.

I have also had another problem which another poster has also encountered and that was the screen going completely black and the phone being totally unresponsive. It lasted for about 15 or 20 seconds and I was just about to pull the battery when the phone returned to normal. It has only happened once and hopefully is not going to be a regular occurrence.

It appears that glance screen has been changed in Update 2 and now only shows the time and notification icons such as alarm, vibrate only mode etc. it no longer shows day and date and weather info as my wife's 830 does.

K.O.Kiki

Got my 640 LTE today, gonna be a fun weekend setting it up

Do-more

Best of luck with it.

I'd recommend the Windows Central forum as a good place to connect with other owners.

http://forums.windowscentral.com/lumia-640/

Now that I have got over the weirdness with my data connection I am starting to really like the XL.

bnt

I was also wondering whether I ought to wait and spend the extra for the 640 XL, but I drew out the screen sizes on paper and concluded the 640 LTE is plenty big enough. I picked one up 2 days ago (Meteor PAYG upgrade), and am still getting used to the size compared to my previous handset (3.7").

One annoyance is that it doesn't come with a case. I have the official flip shell on order and got a cheap generic case to protect it till then.

I immediately got the Windows 10 Preview on to it, since I'm interested in building some "Universal" Windows 10 apps, so I'm not in a position to comment on the quality of the software. There are known bugs with notifications, Outlook etc. In terms of overall performance, I'm pretty impressed.

Regarding 4G on Meteor PAYG: officially, I don't have it, since I'm on the €10 data only plan (see here), but the H+ icon is coming on at times. 4G coverage appears spotty even in central Dublin. Not particularly bothered, I'm not the kind of user who needs to watch HD streaming video while walking down the street. :cool:

Do-more

It doesn't really need a full case as such, the Gorilla glass 3 is very tough, my previous Moto G also had it and never picked up a scratch in over a year, normally being kept in my pocket with keys, change etc. during the day. A bumper case is a good idea though and saved my Moto G from numerous falls. Not sure why I stopped using it but managed to smash the screen shortly afterwards.:rolleyes:

The problem with having a flip case is that it makes taking photos more difficult and makes glance screen pretty much useless.

I think the 5" screen probably is perfectly adequate but having got used to the larger 5.7" screen of the XL I would find it impossible to go back to a sub 5" screen now. I was using a 4.5" Moto G the other day and couldn't get over how small it seemed.

Internet browsing remains the biggest letdown for me with IE being prone to fairly frequent freezing and crashing and other general weirdness such as going back 2 pages instead of one when hitting the back button. Hopefully Edge will be a vast improvement in that regard but I still don't have enough faith to install the Win 10 preview on this phone having had a pretty poor experience of the previous build on a 635.

Kenny Powers

Hi Guys,

How long did amazon take to deliver? And after a couple of months use would you still recommend buying?

Thanks

Do-more

I purchased from amazon.fr and it took about 3 days before it was despatched but then it did arrive overnight from the Italian warehouse for some reason.

Generally I am happy with my 640XL but I really hope that the new Edge browser in Win 10 is a huge improvement on any of the browsers currently available on 8.1 if not then I will be heading back to Android for my next phone.

There is no doubt that the size impacts on the general portability of the phone, you are really aware of carrying it around, but having got used to the big screen I could now never go back to a phone below 5".

The camera is great in good light but in low light on auto the quality is absolutely pathetic and I am too lazy to go messing about with settings.

The biggest concern I would have if I was buying new now is that quite a few people have had a yellow spot burn in in the top right corner of the 640XL, check out the Windows central forum for more info.

If I was buying again I would go for the 640 as it is so much cheaper than the XL.

colossus-x

The 640 LTE Single sim is now available in Argos for 149.00. This is the cheapest price I've seen anywhere for it AND it's unlocked. The PAYG options on the various network sites have it for 10 to 20 euros more than the argos price and they would be network LOCKED also.

Think I'm gonna get it as a backup. Anyone comment on the sound quality through headphones ? Cheers.

http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/4285065/Trail/searchtext%3ELUMIA.htm

jimmynokia

Been in ARGOS for a while at that price,the sound with headphones is good....once you have decent ones that is..

colossus-x

^^ Coolio...yeah I have good headphones , that's why I asked. I listen to beats on turn-in radio a lot !