Difference Between Nokia Lumia 710 and HTC Radar

Nokia Lumia 710 vs HTC Radar
 

Microsoft Windows is perhaps the most popular operating system in the world. It certainly has the highest number of end users. Experts say that this is because of their user friendliness. Thus, it is fair to assume that, Windows Mobile would also be a hit like that and would have higher usability. But that is quite an overstatement. Windows Mobile is actually at the lower level in market shares, and it doesn’t use to provide a good usability experience, since the Windows Mobile also came with Windows Style start menu and so on and so forth. That just did not suit for a mobile device. This might have caused the fallback in popularity for the OS. Fortunately, Windows has realized that, and completely redesigned the OS for better usability from the v6.5 and they have released Windows Mobile v7.5 Mango, which seems to be a hit among the mobile phone vendors. The two phones we are going to compare here features Windows Mobile v7.5 Mango and are from two competitive vendors, Nokia and HTC. While HTC is leading the smartphone market, Nokia is trying to penetrate the market, and thus, we can expect a fierce fight between these two vendors. When we get down to the finer details of the two handsets, you will get a better understanding on that.

Nokia Lumia 710

Nokia has actually performed a leap of faith by embracing the newest Windows Mobile 7.5 Mango OS for their handsets. Lumia was due to be released at the end of November, and it seems consumers are equally excited to get their hands on this beauty. It looks small for a smartphone but considerably thicker than the modern smartphones. Lumia 710 has a 3.7 inches TFT Capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels and a pixel density of 252ppi. It also entertains from Nokia’s generic touches such as, Nokia ClearBlack display, multi touch input, proximity sensor and accelerometer.

Lumia 710 comes with a 1.4GHz Scorpion processor and Adreno 205 GPU on top of Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. It has hardware accelerated 3D graphics engine, as well. The 512MB RAM seems to be just sufficient, but I’d have liked it to be 1GB for smooth performance. The internal storage is at fix capacity of 8GB and not expandable which is a significant fallback. The much awaited Windows Mobile 7.5 Mango runs on top of this set of hardware. Lumia 710 has a 5MP camera with autofocus, LED flash and Geo-tagging with A-GPS support. It can also record 720p HD videos @ 30 frames per second. As usual, Nokia is to release this handset in a variety of colors including Black, White, Cyan, Fuchsia and Yellow. Because of its fine build, the handset feels good in hand and carries an expensive look. Lumia 710 also enjoys fast internet browsing with HSDPA 14.4Mbps support and continuous connectivity with the built in Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n.

The active noise cancellation with dedicated mic, Digital Compass, MicroSIM card support and Windows Office support are significant improvements compared to a conventional Nokia handset. And of course, it looks more and more smartphone like by the day. Lumia 710 has a 1300mAh battery which features a talk time of 6 hours and 50mins which isn’t state of the art, but would do. 

HTC Radar

Been one of the first phones to embrace Windows Mobile v7.5, HTC has done a great job in grooming Radar. It comes in a beautiful Active white or a Metal Silver color combination and fits right into your palms. It has a thickness of 10.9mm and dimensions are just right. The only fallback is that, it weighs 137g and would feel somewhat hefty. HTC has given the Radar a 3.8 inches S-LCD Capacitive touchscreen with 16M colors. It features a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels and a pixel density of 246ppi. It also comes with a Gorilla Glass display so that the screen would be scratch resistant. The accelerometer sensor and the proximity sensor add value to the handset, as well.

HTC has ported Radar with 1GHz Scorpion processor and Adreno 205 GPU on top of Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon chipset. This is been backed up by a 512MB of RAM, but as I’ve mentioned above, I’d prefer it to have a 1GB RAM for seamless operation. It also has the bottleneck in storage as like Lumia 710, as it only has 8GB of storage, and HTC hasn’t provided the infrastructure to expand the capacity using a microSD card. HTC has graced their Radar with a camepa of 5MP with autofocus, LED flash and Geo tagging with Assisted GPS. It can also capture videos in 720p HD resolution @ 30 frames per second. Been a windows product, it comes with Bing Maps instead of Google Maps to back up the device in terms of GPS navigation. It also has the front camera and is bundled with the built in Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP. It’s the ideal choice for a good video chat.

HTC Radar takes use of HSDPA networks and provides speeds up to 14.4 Mbps and 5.76 Mbps on HSUPA. It also has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n for continuous connectivity and features DLNA technology, which you can use to stream media content directly from your phone to a TV with wireless connectivity. As Lumia 710, Radar also comes with Active Noise Cancellation and other generic features of HTC. The standard 1520mAh battery promises a talk time of 10 hours, which is really good.

Conclusion

We started talking about Windows trying to penetrate the market with their new OS, and that mobile phone vendors have already started embracing it. The review was about two such vendors and two such phones. Both of the phones are state of the art mobile devices with a comparably low price tag. Nokia Lumia 710 and HTC Radar are almost identical apart from the difference in processor. Thus, is it a difficult task to conclude which phone would be favorable over the other with so many similarities and so few differences. But we are about the differences and here’s our verdict.

While HTC Radar has cutting edge features compared to its release time of October 2011, Nokia has significantly improved the processor while they are still promising the release. Both the handsets feature the same OS; therefore, that won’t be a differentiating factor, yet Nokia Lumia 710 is bound to give better user experience due to the higher processor. But HTC Radar promises higher talk time with the better battery they have and that of course is a differentiating factor. Also, we need to take the thickness of the Nokia Lumia 710 into consideration, as well. Further, the color flavors of the two phones would matter the user preferences. In any case, we can recommend that Nokia Lumia would have a performance advantage over HTC Radar and if you want to get the phone with the highest processor and performance, go for Nokia Lumia 710. Of course, if you are a Nokia fan, which would totally, justify the choice, as well. If you do look at the effective battery life and wants a decent handset, HTC Radar would be your choice.