Lumia 435 and Lumia 532 are the first compact smartphones created on the basis of Microsoft by the famous Finnish brand Nokia - a company known for its excellent phones. It is logical that Microsoft decided to pay due attention to one of the most popular market segments.
The specifications of the Lumia 532 do not break records, but they are impressive: a 4 "WVGA display, a Snapdragon 200 and 8 GB of RAM, and Microsoft experts say that this is more than enough to ensure smooth use of their mobile platform. It is worth noting that the gadget is equipped with a powerful quad-core processor and a 5 megapixel camera.
The smartphone has a fairly simple assembly, which should make it more durable than many of its more expensive competitors. In addition, several color options are offered, including bright ones, which significantly expands the target audience: from business people to teenagers.
Retail equipment
Microsoft Lumia 532 is an entry-level phone, it becomes completely clear as soon as you open the factory packaging. Only a standard charger is included; MicroUSB cable is not included.
Phone Microsoft Lumia 532 has an attractive appearance, thin bezels and a small screen. Its dimensions are quite compact (118 x 65 x 11.7 mm), and weighs 137 grams - slightly more than can be expected in appearance.
Design and build quality
On the front there is a fairly noticeable edging around the 4-inch display, while a one-piece back cover completely envelops the case. The plastic used for the design is pleasant to the touch, the phone has a glossy surface on the sides and a matte finish on the back.
Compact dimensions make it easy to hold the device in your hand and fit in any pockets. Since the build quality is very high, there is no need to fear for it. The only inconvenience may be the small keys on the on-screen keyboard (if you have fat fingers).
Control
The 4-inch Microsoft Lumia 532 display is surrounded by three capacitive Windows keys. There is some problem with these buttons. It is expressed in the fact that they do not have a backlight, and this makes the operation of the phone in the dark somewhat difficult.
The backlight and proximity sensors are hidden in a circle above the top speaker (located above the screen), and the front VGA camera is very noticeable.
The smartphone does not contain anything on the left side, while on the right there are volume keys and a power / lock button. All three of the above controls offer excellent tactile feedback.
At the top of the Nokia Lumia 532 there is an audio jack, at the bottom - a MicroUSB port. The microphone hole is hidden along the bottom edge of the front panel. A 5-megapixel camera is located on the rear panel, next to the speaker grill.
Removing the battery is required to gain access to the microSD memory slots and SIM card.
Display
As already noted, the Lumia 532 has a 4 "LCD screen with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. This is the lowest among the currently available on the market, but given the modest diagonal size, it combines with a density of 233ppi, which is not bad at all.
But resolution is not the main problem of the screen. The low end panels also show a noticeable halo when fast scrolling is performed. In addition, the display has low contrast and low brightness.
Viewing angles are also quite limited: there is a noticeable compression of contrast and color shift, even with slight inclinations.
The only positive quality of this screen can only be called the saturation of color options. However, even a very powerful tuner will find it difficult to extract a lot of performance from this device.
Sunlight also greatly reduces readability, but this is not surprising given the very dim screen and reflective glass on top.
Battery life
Nokia Lumia 532 is powered by a 1560 mAh BV-5J battery. This figure seems small, but you should not forget that this is a smartphone of a small price category. The Windows operating system has good energy efficiency, so the device can work for quite a while without recharging. You can save about 6 hours if you use your phone with just one SIM card.
Communication
The Microsoft Lumia 532 smartphone has support for GSM / GPRS / EDGE, as well as four 3G bands with HSDPA. Dual SIM models also support dual standby.
In terms of connecting to a local network, the phone offers 2.4 Wi-Fi B / G / N with DLNA and Wi-Fi Hotspot, as well as stereo Bluetooth 4.0 with support for file transfer.
For positioning, the Lumia 532 includes GPS and GLONASS. Compass is not available.
FM radio is also included, and it is a good alternative source of news and music (since many Android gadgets have recently removed this feature in favor of online streaming alternatives).
Lumia 532 smartphone runs on pre-installed WindowsPhone 8.1 (Update 1). The latest LumiaDenim software package also comes pre-installed, but not in all cases. Models with 2 SIM cards lack a firmware update, which offers some additional menu and application options.
The screen saver shows the time, and also supports notifications similar to those displayed on your LockScreen.
Lumia 532: interface features
The smartphone has a familiar interface with resizable tiles on the start page. You can group tiles into folders if you like ordering. Almost every application available in the online store comes with its own tile, and thanks to this, you can see useful information on your desktop. The tile background looks beautiful, but still not all tiles are transparent, which can distract from the overall effect.
Microsoft has borrowed from Apple the ability to run applications running in the background: most programs can be paused by pressing the Windows key and will be resumed as soon as you want to return them. Of course, there are applications like navigation or battery settings that will continue to run in the background unless you specifically close them.
Multitasking
The sleep mode available in WindowsPhone can be set in order to block calls and messages for a predetermined period of time, plus it can also turn on automatically during events marked on the calendar. Naturally, there are certain exceptions in the settings, and they should be borne in mind.
The Microsoft Cortana service is used to recognize your voice commands. Cortana can fully interact with your phone and carry out all kinds of commands related to it. The application is also able to track various news topics, makes suggestions for cooking, tour plans, searches for places and other useful information.
Specifications
Lumia 532, reviews of which are somewhat controversial, runs on a fast version of the chip with a quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 processor, Adreno 302 GPU and 1 GB of RAM.
It seems that 1 GB of RAM is now the minimum for the Lumia lineup, even within the initial level, as this will facilitate the transition to Windows 10. Microsoft has promised to update all previous phones of the Lumia line, even those that came out with 512 MB of RAM, but correctness work with this indicator will not be guaranteed.
The Internet Explorer browser in Windows Phone 8.1 is nothing special, but it works as fast and smoothly as possible on this equipment.
The Lumia line is an entry-level smartphone, and they are not designed to load a lot of games or provide lightning fast performance. They are designed to cover the minimum needs - calls, messaging, visiting social networks, performing navigation and office tasks. As they say about Microsoft Lumia 532 reviews, the device successfully performs these tasks. Windows Phone 8.1 runs fine on all major applications, although some “heavy” services (such as Skype) may take a few seconds to load. There are several games that work very well if you are not too demanding on the schedule.
Telephony and contact management
First Names and Surnames is the hub of any phone book that you find on your Windows device. It supports multiple accounts, including social accounts, and has several pages, as in the rest of the WP interface. On the first page there is a list of contacts, the second is under the heading “What's New?” and contains all the updates from your friends.
In addition, viewing a specific contact also allows you to check for updates on the social networks of a particular person, plus you can view the complete history of exchanging information with this contact in one place in chronological order. Everything except status updates will be listed in this option: calls, SMS and email messages.
Contacts
Each SIM card has a separate list of phones and messages, so the likelihood that you accidentally use the wrong SIM is very small. The switch between the "SIM cards" works very simply, so you can easily select the card with which you want to make a call.
Camera
The Lumia 532 offers a 5 megapixel camera with a fixed focus. The phone has a significant drawback in the form of the absence of an LED flash, as well as a secondary microphone for stereo audio recording.
The Lumia camera interface is very simple - it offers white balance, ISO, shutter speed up to 1s and exposure settings. In addition, you can get an increase in the image, as well as Cinemagraph effects (animated photos), panoramic shooting, selfies, etc.
Images obtained from the Lumia 532 camera look pretty decent for such a resolution. Contrast is not bad, although white balance is not well adjusted.
480p video recording
The Lumia 532 camera , whose characteristics are relatively good, can also record video at 30fps FWVGA (848 x 480 pixels) with a low bit rate of 3 Mbps. All videos are written in one mode - AAC channel with a bitrate of 160 kbps at 48 kHz.
The camcorder's interface is pretty much the same as the camera. But you can choose the bass audio filter (from 100 to 200 Hz). Opting for 200 Hz (strong) will record much better sound at concerts or in clubs.
The captured videos are not very impressive. They have fuzzy details, blurry colors and lack of white balance.
In general, if you want a 4-inch compact smartphone, the Lumia 532 will easily perform the necessary tasks.