The Nokia Windows Lumia 730 released globally last month and just recently also in the Middle East – at a regional media launch event hosted at the H Hotel in Dubai, UAE.
Wait! Let me take a selfie.
Never in my life have I heard the term ‘selfie’ or should I say ‘selfieeeeee’ being mentioned! The Lumia 730 is all about the selfie, and it was the main theme for the launch event. After a quick briefing session, and some alone time with the phone, we were all ushered into a bus and taken to Dubai’s Al Bastakiya – a historic district full of great backdrops for… you guessed it… selfies!
The press pack included a bunch of accessories, which I’ll get to in a moment, but the main one for the day was the regular non-branded selfie stick. After clumsily assembling it and attaching it to the phone, we were all ready for the selfie tour.
It was a hot day out, but that didn’t stop everyone, and I mean every single one, from having a good time – the Lumia 730 is a fun phone. Members of the press were taking single or group selfies, mainly using the ‘Voice Selfie’ application (downloadable for free from the Windows Store). With arms extended and ear to ear smiles all-round, the photo was taken by using the not so cliché voice command “SHOOT!”
With a 5 megapixel front facing camera, thus dubbed the ‘selfie phone’, the Lumia 730 was whipping out some great photos. According to Nokia – it is the first smartphone designed specifically for selfies and Skype video calls.
The camera apps that are available and I recommend you try are the previously mentioned ‘Voice Selfie’, ‘Nokia Camera’, ‘Lumia Panorama’, and my new favorite ‘Blink’. With over 1.5 million downloads, Blink will land you the best action shots. What it basically does is it captures a burst of images before you even press the shutter, and continues to capture pictures after you’ve taken your shot. Save and share the shot you like best. With the many burst shots, you can also collate them into a moving animation style video and share that too.
What would have made the Lumia Camera the ultimate camera is if all the apps mentioned were available as native menu items in the main camera app. OK, I understand that whatever activity I get up to will not require me to quickly shuffle through modes (I’m no Travis Pastrana), but it is a hassle to keep going back and forth to switch through the apps.
Another key aspect of the Lumia 730 is its dual SIM capacity. The native tiles for calls and messages on the home screen are labelled 1 and 2 as not to confuse which line you are using to dial or text (now, which SIM was in which slot again?).
The Lumia 730 is a light phone, weighing only 130.4g, and is quite slim at 8.7mm thick. I’m not a fan of how the removable back cover wraps around to the front of the phone. The device that I had was the white one, and it stuck out too. I think I would have preferred the all-black device – I know because I was jealously eyeballing someone else’s at the event.
The Lumia 730 Dual SIM has a 4.7” ClearBlack OLED display with HD720 (1280 x 720) resolution. The display features include Sunlight readability enhancements, corning® Gorilla® Glass 3, high brightness mode, wide viewing angle, scratch resistant glass, and a double-tap to wake. Under the hood you have the Quad-Core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 processor, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 macchipset, and an Adreno 305 GPU. It also comes with 8GB internal memory storage, and is expandable to 128GB.
We were also handed a bunch of accessories with the phone, the aforementioned selfie-stick, as well as a wireless charging stand and the really cool Microsoft Screen Sharing for Lumia Phones.
The screen sharing accessory uses the portable NFC disc to connect and share the phone’s screen on a TV, without you actually having to be physically being right next to it. The device shares exactly what is on the phone on to the HDMI enable TV you’ve connected it to. The device comes in two compartments. The main hub which is connected to your TV via a HDMI cable, and a magnetic disc which you can take off the device, that way you don’t have to be stuck to your TV.
The Lumia 730 is another fun device to have with you, with the awesome 5MP front facing camera, the apps to power it and the dual SIM capacity – it is the device to have for trips and vacations. I recommend spilling out some extra cash (from the money saved buying a cool device) on the well worth accessories.
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This is a guest post / Opinion by Tarek El Moukachar.
The views & opinions expressed in any guest post / Opinion featured on our site are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions & views of AbsoluteGeeks.com.
This post appeared on AbsoluteGeeks.com with the express approval of the publisher.
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