Nokia Lumia 710

Nokia's Lumia 710, a lower-end, lower-cost Windows Phone sibling to the Lumia 800, has less flash memory at 8GB but will ship in more colors when it arrives in early 2012.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--Nokia's first, highly anticipated foray into Windows Phone gives both the phone builder and the software maker a second chance. Two of them, actually.

A few hours after Nokia's big unveiling of the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 at Nokia World, Senior Associate Editor Nicole Lee and I went to Nokia's Sunnyvale office to spend some quality time with both phones. (Stay tuned for Nicole's hands-on impressions of the Lumia 800!)

The Nokia Lumia 710 is the more midrange of the two, but I must say, it was attraction at first sight. The phone itself is pretty typical in dimensions and layout--Nokia left all the design risks to the Nokia Lumia 800, with its polycarbon unibody design, lack of a battery cover, and single visible screw.

Yet the Lumia 710 fits together well, feels good in the hand, and has some fun, funky colors and quirks that set it apart from the legion of sleek 'n' glossy, black and gray phones that seem to dominate.

Design

(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET)

The colors are a big part of the phone's personality, so let's start there.

The Lumia 710 comes in black and white, but there are five choices for removable back covers: black, white, cyan, fuchsia, and yellow. When you buy the black phone, you'll get the black color and one other cover. The same formula extends to the white phone.

I saw white, fuchsia, and cyan colors, which looked especially jazzy when paired with Windows Phone's various customizable OS tile colors.

Now on to the specs! The Lumia 710 has a 3.7-inch LCD screen with a WVGA 800x480-pixel resolution. It employs Nokia's ClearBlack display technology, which helps filter out the light to improve contrast, and also improve readability in direct sunlight. While not nearly as stunning as the Lumia 800's AMOLED display of the same size, it still looks nice and bright and colorful.

One benefit of the Windows Phone OS is that the live tiles and icons are large and the design is clear-cut, so a smaller screen isn't as much of a hindrance as it could be, at least in terms of navigation. While on the compact side, the 3.7-inch screen didn't feel claustrophobic in the hour or so I had the phone in hand.

Beneath the display is an oblong bubble of plastic that serves as the button for the three Windows Phone keys: the Back button, the Windows button, and the Search button. It looks pretty cool, but isn't as responsive as I'd like. The buttons on either end have more snapback, but I wasn't always sure I was hitting the Windows button in the center. Nokia could have done a bit better there.

For a little more personalization, you can swap out the white or black back cover for one with a magenta, cyan, or yellow hue.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

There are the volume rocker and photo shutter button on the right spine, a 3.5mm headset jack and power button up top, and a Micro-USB charging port.

On the back is the 5-megapixel camera lens with LED flash. You'll be happy to know that it supports 720p HD video capture at 30 frames per second. Nokia is known for its strong camera phones, so I wasted little time working those angles. Most of the photos I took were indoors and saturated with plenty of natural light supplied by large windows, and the photo quality looked pretty good overall, though I'll need some more time and lighting situations to really determine quality.

Features and apps
Inside, the Lumia 710 runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango (full review), so it will contain all those software features. It will also have three new apps found only on Nokia-made Windows Phones. The first is Nokia Drive, which will offer turn-by-turn voice navigation (as Android does). Instead of using Bing maps, Nokia Drive uses maps provided by Navteq, which Nokia also owns. While I did quickly peruse the app, voices weren't installed on the test phones I saw, but Nokia promises that you'll be able to download a variety of voices and languages. The service is free.

Related stories:
• Nokia is back in the smartphone game...sort of
• Nokia: Go big or go home for Windows Phone
• Nokia, Monster partner up on audio accessories
• Flex it, baby! Nokia's new interface is seriously twisted

There will also be the Nokia Music app, which isn't yet available. It will offer Mix Radio and free streaming music. The ESPN Hub is the third unique software addition; it will have a host of scores and details for sports lovers, integrated right into the phone.

Like the Lumia 800, the Lumia 710 is powered by a 1.4GHz single-core processor, and its performance felt nice and zippy during my brief testing period. Of course, I wasn't e-mailing or using the phone for any strenuous tasks.

(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET)

Pricing and availability
The Lumia is a quad-band GSM world phone that's expected to cost $370 (270 Euros) unlocked.

There aren't any immediate announcements concerning a U.S. carrier on either the GSM or CDMA network, but Nokia says it's working on a CDMA version, and also on making the phones LTE-capable. That means there's a very good chance we'll see the Lumia 710 or something like it announced for Verizon.

We also know that the Lumia 710 won't arrive on the menu until closer to the end of 2011, with Hong Kong, India, Russia, and Taiwan being the first to get a bite.

In sum
The Nokia Lumia 710 isn't a cutting-edge phone in terms of specs, but so far it's a solid device with a nice design. Although my hands-on time is cursory compared with the kind of deep testing we employ for a full-on review, I'd say I got a good snapshot of the phone's look and feel. I didn't have a chance to test call quality and data speeds, especially since as the phone isn't optimized for a U.S. network, performance here is not representational. However, I did enjoy holding and interacting with the phone, which is always a positive sign when it comes to a manufacturer and carrier actually selling the things.

I look forward to seeing the Lumia 710 and its cousins optimized for a U.S. market, and seeing how well it holds up to the competition when it does.

HTC Titan

The good: The HTC Titan has a premium and polished design coupled with a colorful and vibrant display. It ships with the latest Windows Phone 7.5 Mango OS, and has a 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor, an 8-megapixel camera that takes great pictures, and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video chat.

The bad: The HTC Titan could be a little too large for small hands, and it doesn't offer expandable memory. We expected better call quality as well.

The bottom line: The HTC Titan's big and beautiful design and impressive features make it one of the better Windows Phone offerings on AT&T.

Photo gallery:
HTC Titan

One of the best weapons in Windows Phone's arsenal is a well-designed phone, which is why I'm happy that HTC is along for the ride. HTC has a history of beautifully designed phones that are exceedingly polished with a premium feel, and I think the HTC Titan certainly fits that bill. Aside from its good looks and imposing size, it packs in a solid 1.5GHz processor, the latest Windows Phone 7.5 Mango operating system, an 8-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and 720p HD video capture, a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera, and support for AT&T's HSPA+ network. The Titan will cost you $199.99 with a new two-year agreement, but if you're interested in trying Windows Phone you should definitely give the Titan a look.

Design
The HTC Titan is aptly named. Measuring 5.2 inches tall by 2.7 inches wide by 0.39 inch thick, it has a very large footprint and seems quite massive in my small hands. It is also quite a hefty phone at 5.6 ounces, though that contributes to the phone's premium feel. Yet, it is relatively thin, and the tapered edges along the back let it cradle comfortably in the hand. In fact, the back and sides of the Titan make up the phone's entire shell. When you remove the casing to access the battery, you're essentially separating out the display and the phone's innards from their metal housing. The result is a streamlined head-to-toe design that looks and feels luxurious.

The HTC Titan has a massive 4.7-inch touch-screen display.

The reason behind the Titan's impressive size is the large 4.7-inch Super LCD display. It has a WVGA (800x480-pixel) resolution, which is the same resolution as on the HTC Radar 4G. However, because the Titan has a much larger screen, the pixels are a bit more visible, especially so with text. When I browsed Web pages in zoomed-out view, for example, letters were noticeably blocky. Yet, the Titan's screen shines in almost every other respect. The display is visible even at an angle, and the bold graphics of Windows Phone really come to life with the screen's capacity for showing off vivid colors and deep blacks. It's certainly not as rich as the Super AMOLED screens we've seen, but I found it more than satisfactory for most tasks.

The touch screen was really responsive. I swiped and scrolled with ease through Windows Phone's fluid interface, and launching applications took less than a second. The virtual keyboard on the Windows Phone felt intuitive as well--each tap of the finger hit precisely the right key and I didn't find myself relying on autocorrect too often. You also get a proximity sensor and an accelerometer, which appears to kick in quite quickly to shift the view from portrait to landscape and vice versa.

Beneath the display are the standard Windows Phone touch sensor keys for the back, start, and search functions. Along the right are the volume rocker and a camera shortcut key, while the Micro-USB port sits on the left spine. On the top are a 3.5mm headset jack and a power/screen lock key. On the back of the phone are the 8-megapixel camera lens along with a dual-LED flash, while the 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera perches above the display on the upper-right corner.

The HTC Titan comes packaged with an AC adapter, a USB cable, and reference material.

Software
The HTC Titan ships with Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, which is the latest version of Windows Phone as of this writing. It brings plenty of improvements like Twitter integration in the People hub, threaded conversations, multitasking, and a better Bing search engine. You can read more about them in our in-depth review of Windows Phone Mango. Personally, I'm a big fan of the Metro user interface, and I find it to be extremely fresh and intuitive. I feel it's a viable alternative to the Android and iOS operating systems, as long as you're satisfied with the available apps.

Aside from the stock Windows Phone interface, HTC has added a few of its own touches to the Titan. You can access the HTC Hub, which houses HTC's now-famous clock and weather widget along with featured apps, and news and stock feeds. There are also HTC-specific apps like HTC Watch, HTC's video download and rental service, HTC's Photo Enhancer, Locations, Notes, and Connected Media. As you might expect, AT&T preloaded several of its own apps on here, like AT&T Live TV, AT&T Code Scanner, AT&T Navigator, and more. Of course, there are the usual Windows Phone apps on here as well, like MS Office, Local Scout, and Bing Maps. The nice thing is that you can unpin and uninstall these apps completely if you don't want them.

Additional titles are available through the Windows Phone Marketplace, which has more than 35,000 apps in its catalog.

Features
The HTC Titan is a quad-band world phone with speakerphone, call waiting, call forwarding, conference calling, voice dialing, and text and multimedia messaging. Other connectivity features include Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), GPS, and support for AT&T's HSPA+ 14.4 "4G" network. As I said earlier, the Titan has a front-facing camera that you can use for video calls. The phone comes with the Tango chat application for just that function. Calls can be made over 3G, 4G, or Wi-Fi.

Amazon Kindle 2011 (with Special Offers, Wi-Fi)

The good: The entry-level Amazon Kindle 2011 is a compact, lightweight, and ultra-affordable e-book reader with a crisp Pearl e-ink screen and Wi-Fi. It offers access to a massive catalog of books, magazines, and newspapers via Amazon.com's familiar online store, plus online loaners from your local library. The Kindle can hold hundreds of books and the battery lasts for weeks.

The bad: The lack of a touch screen means that input is limited to a cumbersome directional pad and virtual keyboard. There is no support for audio. All accessories--including a cover and an AC charger--cost extra. You need to spend an extra $30 if you don't want the ad-supported Special Offers version.

The bottom line: If you don't want to spend the extra $20 to upgrade to the forthcoming touch-screen version, the entry-level 2011 Kindle is a great choice for an ultraportable and superaffordable no-frills e-ink reader.

A lot of people have been waiting a long time for Amazon.com to drop the price of its Kindle to less than $100. Well, that day is here, but Amazon has thrown a little wrench into the equation: it's offering two sub-$100 models, the $79 entry-level Kindle reviewed here and the $99 Wi-Fi Kindle Touch, which is due to ship in mid-November.

To be clear, to get that sub-$100 pricing for the devices, you'll have to purchase the ad-supported Special Offers versions. The ad-free versions cost $30 and $40 more, respectively. The Touch is also offered in a version that adds free 3G wireless for $149 (Special Offers) and $189 (ad-free).

Whether you opt to pay more for the ad-free version is up to you, but we must say that we didn't find the ads to be intrusive (they don't appear in books; they only appear at the bottom of the home page and as screensavers when you turn off the device). That issue aside, the bigger question is whether you should choose the budget $79 Kindle or hold out to spend the extra $20 on the Kindle Touch.

The short answer is: hold out for the Kindle Touch if you can afford that extra $20. That doesn't mean the non-touch Kindle isn't good--it's a perfectly decent e-reader that's slimmer and lighter than the 2010 Kindle (which has now been redubbed "Kindle Keyboard"), and it's the only current Kindle with hard buttons for turning pages (if that's your preference). If you don't need to use the virtual keyboard too much and you're just looking for a no-frills e-book reader, it's hard to argue with the $79 price tag.

Design
The first thing you notice when you take the new Kindle out of the box is how light and thin it is. In four years, the Kindle has gone from being pretty ungainly to now being a fetching electronic device (Jeff Bezos said that Kindle 3 owners would be upset when they saw the new Kindle, and he's mostly right).

A screensaver ad on the Special Offers version of the Kindle.

The basic Kindle is the smallest and lightest of the three new Kindles, weighing 5.98 ounces. At 6.5 inches long by 4.5 inches wide by a scant 0.34 inch thick, it's slightly smaller all around than the Kindle Touch and it weighs 1.5 ounces less. The Barnes & Noble Nook Touch, by comparison, is very similar in size and weight to the Kindle Touch.

Since this Kindle lacks a touch screen, page turns are accomplished via buttons mounted on either side of the screen. We didn't like the page-turn buttons quite as much as those on the earlier Kindle, but they're basically fine. (The $99 Kindle Touch has no physical page-turn buttons--you tap on the screen to go back or forward.)

Below the screen is a five-way directional pad for navigating menus (and working the virtual keyboard), and four other keys: a back button, home, keyboard toggle, and menu. "Typing" on the keyboard requires shoving the cursor around, similar to entering onscreen text with a video game controller.

We've always found the Kindle interface simple enough to navigate and use, but we do prefer touch-screen navigation. While we haven't used the Kindle Touch yet, we have seen in-person demos, and just as with the Nook Touch, touch navigation offers a better user experience.

Features
Though Amazon has moved from the Kindle 3.1 OS on last year's Kindle Keyboard to Kindle OS 4.0 on this model, we really didn't see any significant changes to the user interface; it's basically the same.

Amazon natively supports its Kindle (AZW) format for e-books, along with TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, and PRC files (you can drag the latter four file formats onto the device from your computer). It also supports HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP through conversion.

Like the Nook, the Kindle supports limited lending of e-books: publisher-approved titles can be lent out once for two weeks to one fellow Kindle user. Kindles also now support library lending. If your public library offers e-book lending, you can "check out" e-books for free for one or two weeks. Only certain titles are available to check out, but the list is growing.

The latest models, like all previous Kindles, use Amazon's WhisperSync technology. That means you can download books in less than a minute, and resume books where you left off on other Kindle-compatible devices. Thanks to Amazon's nearly universal app support, Kindle books can be accessed on iPads, iPhones, iPod Touch handhelds, Android phones running version 2.1 and later, Android tablets, many BlackBerry phones, Windows PCs, Macs, Windows Phone 7 phones, and via HTML 5-compatible browsers for people using the Kindle Cloud Reader. And, of course, you can access the e-books on other hardware Kindles, including the Kindle Fire.

Like other Kindles, this one includes an "experimental browser." It's always been a little crude and e-ink is sluggish by nature, but it worked better than we thought it would--we loaded a Gmail account and NYTimes.com--and would certainly do in a pinch. Again, we expect browsing to be a better experience on the Touch.

Another nice Amazon benefit: Kindles get free Wi-Fi access to AT&T hot spots throughout the U.S.

What's missing
Aside from the smaller dimensions, the lack of a keyboard is really the biggest physical change to the Kindle from last year's model. While some people liked having a keyboard for basic Web browsing and searches in the Kindle Store and within books, we never found it to be an essential feature. Yes, manually moving the cursor around the pop-up, onscreen keyboard is a little tedious, but we didn't find it to be as big of a nuisance as we thought it would be. That said, being able to type with your fingers on the Kindle Touch's virtual keyboard will surely be easier and faster, if the Nook Touch and similar touch-screen readers are any indication.

There are some other feature step-downs from most other Kindles. If you choose this model instead of the Kindle Touch, you get no audio--this guy is silent. That means if you're a fan of audiobooks, playing background music while you read, or using Amazon's text-to-speech ("read-to-me") feature, you should opt for the Touch instead.

Likewise, the new Kindle has "only" 2GB of storage and no expansion slot, versus twice that for other models. But that's still enough for 1,400 books, and if you ever have need to go beyond that, your book purchases are stored "in the cloud"--you can delete and redownload purchases as needed in less than a minute.

Amazon says you can get up to a month's use from the device before needing to recharge the battery, based on 30 minutes of reading a day and keeping the Wi-Fi turned off. That's half the battery life of the previous Kindle, so to shrink the device Amazon appears to have had to go with a smaller battery. In case you're wondering, the battery is sealed in and not user-replaceable, which seems par for the course for most e-book readers these days.

It's also worth noting that Amazon doesn't ship an AC adapter with this Kindle (or with the Touch); it's a $10 optional accessory. Only a USB charging cable is included. That's somewhat annoying, but because the Kindle has a standard Micro-USB port, any modern cell phone charger should do the trick. We tried a generic AC charger, and it worked fine.

Performance
This Kindle--like the 2010 Kindle, the Nook Touch, the Kobo Touch, and the latest Sony Readers--uses E Ink's Pearl screen technology. In other words, the text on the screen looks exactly like it did on the previous model, which is to say: it looks good, but don't expect any improvements in contrast or sharpness.

As with all e-ink displays, it's easy to read in bright light, as it doesn't get washed out in direct sunlight the way LCD does, but since the screen isn't backlit, you do need a light source to read. Amazon sells leather covers with built-in LED lamps, but at $60, they cost almost as much as the reader itself.

Amazon claims that a new processor has increased the speed of page turns, but when we compared this model with the Kindle Keyboard side by side, we barely noticed a difference in the speed of the page turns. Any increase is very slight.

While the previous Kindle models "flashed" (refreshing the screen like a photographic negative) between every page turn, the new Kindle seems to have followed Barnes & Noble's lead and cut the flashing to once every six pages or so.

The long and the short of it is that this Kindle, aside from the shorter battery life, seems to perform the same as or very slightly better than the previous model. That's good, considering it costs less.

Conclusion
So long as you're not a fan of the 2010 Kindle's keyboard or audio features, you'll think this new base Kindle is a nice advancement, with a smaller, lighter form factor and an overall sleeker look. In fact, if given the choice between this model and the Kindle Keyboard, we'd have no hesitation taking this one, and it's a good value at $79. Yes, we'd suggest buying the Special Offers version over the version that isn't ad-supported unless you are vehemently opposed to seeing any form of ad on your Kindle.

The Barnes & Noble Nook Touch edges out this version of the Kindle by virtue of its touch screen--but it currently costs $60 more, and $30 more than the Special Offers version of the Kindle Touch. That is cash you could use to buy yourself a lot of e-books instead.

At the end of the day, the 2011 Kindle is a great entry-level e-book reader. That said, if you can afford the extra $20, the $99 Kindle Touch, with its more intuitive and fluid touch interface and audio extras, is going to be the better bet and better buy.

Another nice Amazon benefit: Kindles get free Wi-Fi access to AT&T hot spots throughout the U.S.

What's missing
Aside from the smaller dimensions, the lack of a keyboard is really the biggest physical change to the Kindle from last year's model. While some people liked having a keyboard for basic Web browsing and searches in the Kindle Store and within books, we never found it to be an essential feature. Yes, manually moving the cursor around the pop-up, onscreen keyboard is a little tedious, but we didn't find it to be as big of a nuisance as we thought it would be. That said, being able to type with your fingers on the Kindle Touch's virtual keyboard will surely be easier and faster, if the Nook Touch and similar touch-screen readers are any indication.

There are some other feature step-downs from most other Kindles. If you choose this model instead of the Kindle Touch, you get no audio--this guy is silent. That means if you're a fan of audiobooks, playing background music while you read, or using Amazon's text-to-speech ("read-to-me") feature, you should opt for the Touch instead.

Likewise, the new Kindle has "only" 2GB of storage and no expansion slot, versus twice that for other models. But that's still enough for 1,400 books, and if you ever have need to go beyond that, your book purchases are stored "in the cloud"--you can delete and redownload purchases as needed in less than a minute.

Amazon says you can get up to a month's use from the device before needing to recharge the battery, based on 30 minutes of reading a day and keeping the Wi-Fi turned off. That's half the battery life of the previous Kindle, so to shrink the device Amazon appears to have had to go with a smaller battery. In case you're wondering, the battery is sealed in and not user-replaceable, which seems par for the course for most e-book readers these days.

It's also worth noting that Amazon doesn't ship an AC adapter with this Kindle (or with the Touch); it's a $10 optional accessory. Only a USB charging cable is included. That's somewhat annoying, but because the Kindle has a standard Micro-USB port, any modern cell phone charger should do the trick. We tried a generic AC charger, and it worked fine.

Performance
This Kindle--like the 2010 Kindle, the Nook Touch, the Kobo Touch, and the latest Sony Readers--uses E Ink's Pearl screen technology. In other words, the text on the screen looks exactly like it did on the previous model, which is to say: it looks good, but don't expect any improvements in contrast or sharpness.

As with all e-ink displays, it's easy to read in bright light, as it doesn't get washed out in direct sunlight the way LCD does, but since the screen isn't backlit, you do need a light source to read. Amazon sells leather covers with built-in LED lamps, but at $60, they cost almost as much as the reader itself.

Amazon claims that a new processor has increased the speed of page turns, but when we compared this model with the Kindle Keyboard side by side, we barely noticed a difference in the speed of the page turns. Any increase is very slight.

While the previous Kindle models "flashed" (refreshing the screen like a photographic negative) between every page turn, the new Kindle seems to have followed Barnes & Noble's lead and cut the flashing to once every six pages or so.

The long and the short of it is that this Kindle, aside from the shorter battery life, seems to perform the same as or very slightly better than the previous model. That's good, considering it costs less.

Conclusion
So long as you're not a fan of the 2010 Kindle's keyboard or audio features, you'll think this new base Kindle is a nice advancement, with a smaller, lighter form factor and an overall sleeker look. In fact, if given the choice between this model and the Kindle Keyboard, we'd have no hesitation taking this one, and it's a good value at $79. Yes, we'd suggest buying the Special Offers version over the version that isn't ad-supported unless you are vehemently opposed to seeing any form of ad on your Kindle.

The Barnes & Noble Nook Touch edges out this version of the Kindle by virtue of its touch screen--but it currently costs $60 more, and $30 more than the Special Offers version of the Kindle Touch. That is cash you could use to buy yourself a lot of e-books instead.

At the end of the day, the 2011 Kindle is a great entry-level e-book reader. That said, if you can afford the extra $20, the $99 Kindle Touch, with its more intuitive and fluid touch interface and audio extras, is going to be the better bet and better buy.