Review Nokia Lumia 625 Smartphone

For the original German review, see here.
With the Lumia 625, Nokia expands its already extensive product line of Lumia smartphones by one more. Just like its colleagues, the Lumia 625 uses Windows Phone 8 as the operating system and comes with many interesting features. At a manufacturer's price of 299 Euros (~$399) the mid-range smartphone offers, for example, a 4.7-inch LC-display, allows very fast Internet connections via LTE and records videos in the 1080p format with its main camera. The test sample is driven by the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8930 SoC that is assisted by the integrated graphics chip of the Qualcomm Adreno 305. Our test will show how the Lumia 625 does in practice.
Despite the 4.7-inch display, Nokia managed to pack the Lumia 625 in a compact case that gets by with a footprint of 133.2 x 72.2 millimeters (~5.24 x 2.84 inches). With a design height of 9.2 millimeters (~0.36 inches), the test candidate is even one of the thinnest Lumia smartphones - only the Lumia 720 is, with its 9 millimeters, just a little bit thinner. All in all the Lumia 625 is as thin as it is elegant and convinces with an excellent feel.
The Lumia 625 weighs 160 grams (~5.6 ounces) and is very handy. Above all this is owed to the non-slip backside made of polycarbonate. Its rubberized surface provides a secure grip for the fingers. The Lumia is topped off with a sensible array of controls, rounded off corners as well as a tight-fitting glass cover made of Corning Gorilla Glass 2. Even under great pressure the Lumia 625 cannot be bent - nothing wiggles, clatters, or creaks.
Nokia offers the Lumia 625 in five different case colors. Those who like it colorful can choose between the loud yellow, green, or orange model. Those who prefer a rather "serious" color can choose their back cover in a matte black or white. Underneath the cover, we find the unfortunately non-interchangeable 2,000-mAh battery as well as slots for micro-SIM and microSD cards. The case color does not have any influence on the functions of the smartphone - they are the same for every version.
As opposed to the case colors, the Lumia is very stinted in terms of memory variety. The internal memory contains nominally 8 GB, but Windows 8 Phone only leaves a meager 4.7 GB. To compensate for this drawback, the central memory can be extended by up to 64 GB via the microSD card reader. Furthermore, Nokia provides 7 GB of online memory in the Microsoft Cloud Skydrive via an app.
The operating system can be controlled via three sensor fields that are located underneath the LC display. Android users have almost no issues getting used to the new design. The "back"-button on the left and the "home"-button in the middle act exactly the same, only the right button needs some time getting used to since it calls up Windows' search engine Bing. The three soft buttons are accompanied by three physical buttons on the right side of the chassis. One of them is a volume rocker, the other a power button and the latter a camera button that even works when the Lumia 625 is in hibernation mode. When the camera app is activated, the user can zoom via finger movements.
The accompanying in-ear headphones fit the 3.5 mm audio jack at the top and output surround sound via Dolby Headphone. The micro-USB interface (USB 2.0) at the bottom serves for charging of the device as well as for the data transfer with a computer.
Software
Windows 8 Phone is the operating system on the Lumia 625. Just like the desktop version, it presents itself in the typical tile look. All elements can be arranged and changed in size and form as desired on the home screen
Nokia equips the Lumia 625 with various preinstalled applications, including the mobile version of Microsoft Office with which Excel, Word, PowerPoint and OneNote documents can be created, opened and edited. The application list encompasses the navigation tool HERE Drive and HERE Maps as well as the extensive help software Nokia Care.
Communication & GPS
The Lumia 625 provides a comprehensive assortment of communication modules. Especially noteworthy is the fast LTE wireless standard that is supposed to reach download rates of up to 100 MBit/s. Additionally it has GSM quad-band (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) and UMTS with W-CDMA for maximum transfer rates of up to 42.2 MBit/s. The WLAN standards 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 are also part of the wireless equipment. The Lumia 625 connects to positioning satellites via A-GPS and Glonass connections and kept a constantly stable connection during the test.
Telephone Functions and Speech Quality
In the factory setting the Windows tile of the telephone app is situated in the left top corner of the home screen and can be, like all other screen elements, moved around and adjusted in size. The smartphone shines in the test with an impeccable speech and sound quality, no matter if calling a mobile phone or a fixed phone.
Cameras & Multimedia
The front side of the Lumia 625 holds a 0.3-megapixel webcam. With a photo and video resolution of 640x480 pixels, it only reaches VGA quality. This should suffice for snapshots and video telephony though. The main camera on the backside of the case has much more to offer. It has a resolution of up to 5 megapixels (2592x1936 pixels) and comes with an LED flash. The smartphone can even record video in Full HD resolution (1920x1080 pixels).
Under good lighting conditions the camera sensor takes good shots, although the pictures could be slightly sharper and richer in contrast. The Lumia 625 does by no means have to shun the direct comparison with the Lumia 920 but does not quite reach the image quality of high-end smartphones like the Google Nexus 4 or the Apple iPhone 5.
Accessories
The scope of delivery includes a printed quick-start guide, in-ear headphones, a micro-USB cable and a micro-USB charger. Nokia offers additional accessories on its website, for example, Bluetooth compact speakers, on-ear headphones as well as car phone holders and wireless charging pillows.
Warranty
Nokia provides for the Lumia 625 a warranty period of 24 months. The warranty explicitly applies to the smartphone itself, not the accessories (Micro-USB charger, headphones, micro-USB cable), which only have a warranty of 6 months. Please note that this type of warranty applies to European countries only.
Input Devices & Control
The touchscreen of the Lumia 625 converts all input precisely and instantaneously. This works not only barehanded but also when the user wears relatively thin gloves. Input with several fingers is also no problem for the smartphone. A big contribution to the pleasant control is the glass surface, which allows fingers to glide effortlessly, and additionally the quick automatic screen rotation.
The virtual QWERTY keyboard is not completely convincing though. On the one hand, in landscape mode, the key images are larger and therefore allow quick typing of URLs or text, on the other hand, the keyboard does not use the screen width to its full extent. This way a black bar is visible on the left and right side of the keyboard.
The 4.7-inch LC display of the Lumia 625 has a resolution of 480x800 pixels. Given the screen size, this seems somewhat undersized. The good display features, which are by no means self-evident for a smartphone of this price range, make up for it though: With an average luminance of 380.0 cd/m² the test candidate convinces with a good value. One that is only exceeded by the Sony Xperia L (383.3 cd/m²). Thumbs up for the black value. A value of 0.56 cd/m² is low enough to attest the Lumia 625 a good contrast ratio of 716:1. Of course, it is no match for the Samsung S3 Mini with its enormously high contrast ratio of 26200:1. However, this is owed to the fact that, unlike the S3 Mini, the Lumia 625 is not equipped with an AMOLED display.
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Brightness Distribution: 84 %
Center on Battery: 401 cd/m²
Contrast: 716:1 (Black: 0.56 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 3.07 | 0.5-29.43 Ø4.9
ΔE Greyscale 4.1 | 0.5-98 Ø5.2
Gamma: 2.51
The Nokia Lumia 625 displays blue colors too faintly and white slightly too intensively. However, this deviation is barely visible to the naked eye and is only detected by our measurements with a colorimeter and the software CalMAN - and even then; the deviation is kept within very reasonable limits. With an average DeltaE value of 3.07, the display comes very close to the ideal values concerning color rendering. The grayscale rendering value is slightly more off target (Delta-E 4.1). All in all those are quite reputable measurements for a smartphone display. Subjectively speaking the Lumia 625 displays undistorted images and with vivid colors.
Due to the high display luminance, the Lumia 625 can be used outdoors without further ado. Only under direct sunlight, is it difficult to recognize anything on the screen, mainly because of the highly reflective surface. This problem can be easily solved with a slight rotation of the smartphone.
The Lumia 625 convinces with high viewing angle stability. The screen content of the smartphone can be read from every angle. The colors do not deviate and the brightness only decreases at extreme viewing angles.
The Lumia 625 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8930, which is a 1.2 GHz dual-core SoC that is primarily used in smartphones and tablets of the high-end range. The SoC is accompanied by the integrated GPU Qualcomm Adreno 305 and 512 MB RAM.
In comparison with similarly equipped competitors, the Lumia 625 scores somewhat below average. Therefore, the results of the browser benchmarks Peacekeeper and Google V8 ver. 7 only suffice for a place at the lower end. The smartphone, however, can keep up well in the Browsermark 2.0 and the Sunspider benchmark. Yet the overall performance crown goes to the Acer Liquid E2 Duo (v370).
Peacekeeper - --- (sort by value) | |
Nokia Lumia 625 | |
Samsung S3 Mini GT-I8190 | |
Sony Xperia L | |
Nokia Lumia 520 | |
Acer Liquid E2 v370 |
Browsermark - --- (sort by value) | |
Nokia Lumia 625 | |
Samsung S3 Mini GT-I8190 | |
Sony Xperia L | |
Nokia Lumia 520 |
Google V8 Ver. 7 - Google V8 Ver. 7 Score (sort by value) | |
Nokia Lumia 625 | |
Samsung S3 Mini GT-I8190 | |
Sony Xperia L | |
Nokia Lumia 520 | |
Acer Liquid E2 v370 |
Sunspider - 0.9.1 Total Score (sort by value) | |
Nokia Lumia 625 | |
Samsung S3 Mini GT-I8190 | |
Sony Xperia L | |
Nokia Lumia 520 | |
Acer Liquid E2 v370 |
* ... smaller is better
Games & Videos
In the test, the graphics accelerator Qualcomm Adreno 305 of the Lumia 625 is troubled neither by Full HD videos nor by graphically demanding games. Our chosen games from the Windows Store; Angry Birds, Flight Control, Plants vs. Zombies and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, were displayed fluently and judder-free.
Temperature
Under load the Lumia 625 heats up to 43.8 degrees Celsius (110.84 Fahrenheit). The maximum value is reached around the speaker at the backside of the case. With 42.4 degrees Celsius (108.32 Fahrenheit), the smartphone stays slightly cooler at the front. Even though the temperature of many competitors is significantly lower, both values lie within tolerance range. The Nokia colleague Lumia 520 reaches a maximum of 41.6 degrees Celsius (106.88 Fahrenheit) and the Sony Xperia L 37.8 degrees Celsius (100.04 Fahrenheit). The Samsung S3 Mini keeps the coolest head with a maximum temperature of hand-warm 34.4 degrees Celsius (93.92 Fahrenheit).
(±) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 42.4 °C / 108 F, compared to the average of 35.1 °C / 95 F, ranging from 21.9 to 63.7 °C for the class Smartphone.
(±) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 43.8 °C / 111 F, compared to the average of 33.9 °C / 93 F
(±) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 32.1 °C / 90 F, compared to the device average of 32.8 °C / 91 F.
Speakers
A speaker is situated at the back side of the smartphone. Unfortunately, due to the missing counterpart it only produces mono sound. As is typical for smartphones the sound membrane lacks almost completely in mid-range and bass sounds. On the plus side, it does not distort the sound even at maximum volume. The provided in-ear headphones, which are equipped with surround sound via Dolby Headphone, improve the sound-image tremendously. This is rounded off with numerous predefined equalizer settings, for example, for more bass, less highs and music genres like hip-hop, jazz and rock.
Power Consumption
The Qualcomm SoC and the 4.7-inch LC display probably take up the biggest share of the battery power. We found out that the Lumia 625 is not very energy efficient. During idle the smartphone needs between 1.4 and 3.0 Watts - significantly more than the maximum consumption of 2.2 Watts of the Nokia Lumia 520, which is equipped with a 4.0-inch display. Especially the Acer Liquid E2 Duo excels in this discipline with a maximum consumption of 1.1 Watts.
Under load the power consumption ranges between 3.0 and 4.5 Watts. Both values are relatively high as proven in the direct comparison. The Sony Xperia L comes with a maximum consumption of 3.1 Watts the closest to the Lumia 625. In contrast the Acer Liquid E2 Duo (2.8 Watts), the Nokia Lumia 520 (2.6 Watts) and especially the Samsung S3 Mini (2.4 Watts) are very well capable of conserving their energy.
Off / Standby | ![]() ![]() |
Idle | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Load |
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Key:
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Battery Runtime
According to the manufacturer the 2,000-mAh battery of the Lumia 625 is supposed to allow a stand-by time of up to 23 days and still last for almost 9 hours when surfing the Internet via WLAN. Our tried and tested runtime tests will reveal how realistic these statements are. First of all, we determine the maximum battery runtime (minimum display brightness, activated power-saving function, all wireless technologies deactivated except WLAN) while a script simulates the reading of a text document. In this test scenario the Lumia 625 scores a very good value of 19 hours and 50 minutes. The competition cannot keep up with that - only the Nokia Lumia 520 comes relatively close to the test candidate with its 17 hours and 5 minutes.
At the other extreme, the minimum battery runtime (maximum brightness and activated wireless modules), the Lumia 625 reaches 2 hours and 48 minutes. With a runtime of 4 hours and 20 minutes, the Samsung S3 Mini has the greatest stamina.
The practical-oriented WLAN test (display brightness of 150 cd/m², automated call-up of websites in 40-second intervals) terminates at a very respectable 12 hours and 43 minutes. Similar times are also achieved by the Nokia Lumia 520 (12 hours and 56 minutes) and the Acer Liquid E2 Duo (12 hours and 34 minutes). With only 7 hours and 10 minutes, the Sony Xperia L proves to be the least enduring.
Verdict
The Nokia Lumia 625 convinces in the test as an overall reliable smartphone at a small cost and studded with many advantages in its favor. We like the high-grade processing of the case, the overall smooth and quick operation under Windows 8 Phone as well as a speed for applications and games that leaves nothing to be desired. Many other positive equipment features catch our eye as well. For example, the Lumia 625 allows Internet connections via LTE with a speed of up to 100 MBit/s. The decent 5-megapixel main camera takes adequate pictures and can, on top of that, record video in Full HD. Plus points are also awarded for the consistently good battery runtimes.
Of course, there are also some drawbacks: The available memory space, short of 5 GB, is not particularly generous. The purchase of a microSD card is especially mandatory when the smartphone is meant to be used as a multimedia center, meaning storing lots of songs, pictures and videos on it. We would have appreciated an interchangeable battery just as much as a slightly higher display brightness. It is more than adequate indoors but due to the highly reflective surface, it can cause some issues outdoors. Ultimately, it is not the fault of the Lumia 625 that the supply of apps in the Windows Store is quite negligible in comparison to Google Play - however it should not go unmentioned, especially since the store is the only option to obtain applications for the smartphone.