nokia 520 review

The arrival of Nokia Smart Camera will enhance these options even further, with a range of funky effects incoming, although it's not clear at this stage exactly what features you'll get on the Lumia 520. The dual-core 1GHz processor is certainly powerful enough to run the operating system smoothly, and a score of 1,473ms in the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark shows the Lumia 520 to be as quick as the Lumia 620 for web browsing and up there with all but the quickest Android handsets. You can however add any of the Lenses that Nokia makes available to beef-up its camera offering. Turns out this is a Lumia, with Windows Phone 8 as its operating system.

All too often this year we've seen a highly anticipated game come to Windows Phone, but without initial support for 512MB devices. You'll find that slot by prizing off the Lumia 520's interchangeable nokia 520 review backplate (available in five different colours), where you'll also uncover an old-school, replaceable BL-5J battery. This little handset has also just been on the receiving end of Nokia's Lumia Black system update that adds some extra functionality to the device as well as some new features to play with. We ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark to test how responsive is the web-browsing experience when compared to other smartphones.

Realistically, this is something that will become important in a year or so's time but for many, especially customers not on EE, it doesn't make any difference yet. The back of the handset is almost featureless, with just a small Nokia logo in the centre, the 5MP camera lens near the top and a tiny loudspeaker near the bottom.