[IFA 2014] Hands On: Nokia Lumia 730 / 735 and Lumia Selfie App

Apart from Nokia Lumia 830, Microsoft has also brought another new smartphone to IFA 2014 this week in the form of Lumia 730 Dual SIM and its LTE twin, the Lumia 735. Prior to the official launch, the smartphone has been fondly referred to as the selfie Lumia phone by almost all pre-launch rumours and leaks.

This obviously means that Lumia 730’s front facing camera is pretty much the main highlight of the device. In terms of specifications, the camera is comprised of 5-megapixels sensor and a wide-angle F2.4 24mm lens which is the biggest or in fact, the best front-facing camera that any Lumia devices ever have so far.

To coincide with the launch of its new selfie-oriented smartphone, Microsoft took the opportunity to announce the Lumia Selfie app which is actually a rename of the Glam Me app that was released last year. For those who are not familiar with the app, it is designed to provide quick photo editing capabilities for selfie lovers.

This include popular photo filters such as black & white, retro, and more. Of course, it is not a selfie app without image enhancements feature that allows users to adjust their eyes size, skin tone, soften the image or make them look slimmer. Additionally, the Lumia Selfie app also comes with auto selfie feature that enable users to snap a selfie using the phone’s main camera.

On the Lumia 735 that was on display at it launch event as well as our own Lumia 1520, the Lumia Selfie app works pretty well as expected. The image processing is rather fast while the auto selfie feature is able to aim and snap almost immediately after we turn the devices around in order to take a selfie with their rear cameras. There is also an option for users to share photos from Lumia Selfie app to popular social networks, e-mail, OneDrive, WhatsApp, and other devices (via Bluetooth) once they saved the photo that they snap and edited through Lumia Selfie app.

While we don’t have an actual image output from Lumia 730/Lumia 735’s front-facing camera since we were told that the devices shown at the event were pre-production units, we do have a sample from Chris Weber, the CVP of Microsoft’s Mobile Device Sales division who snapped a selfie after a round table session with journalists from APAC region using Lumia 735.

http://twitter.com/CWeberatMSFT/status/507546657831927808/

Meanwhile, let’s go back to the other section of Lumia 730. In terms of physical design, the device looks similar to Lumia 920 and Lumia 1020 due to the rounded structure on the left and right side of the device. That being said, the Lumia 730 is actually lighter than both of the devices at 130.4 grams.

Then again, the removable shell of Lumia 730 has a highly glossy finish which is unlike the two previously released devices. In addition to that, Microsoft has also decided not to include the camera button on Lumia 730 which is rather odd for a smartphone that is made for snapping photos.

The processing power for both Lumia 730 and Lumia 735 is provided by the 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor just like the newly announced Lumia 830. The Lumia 730 also comes with 1GB of RAM but it is built with only 8GB internal storage as opposed to 16GB on Lumia 830. However, users are still able to expand Lumia 730/735’s storage space by using microSD card with capacity of up to 128GB.

Even though Microsoft might be touting the front facing camera on Lumia 730, the smartphone still comes with a rear camera. In fact, Lumia 730’s camera is actually equipped with a 6.7-megapixels rear camera alongside F1.9 lens from Carl Zeiss and an LED flash. Both Lumia 730 and Lumia 735 come with the same BV-T5A 2220mAh battery which provides them up to 25 days of standby time and 17 hours of 3G talk time.

In case you wondering, the Lumia 730 supports HSPA+ connectivity of up to 21.1Mbps for download and 5.76Mbps for upload while the Lumia 735 is able to go up to 42Mbps/5.76Mbps on HSPA+ and up to 150Mbps/50Mbps. Apart from their connectivity, another feature that separated the Lumia 730 and Lumia 735 is wireless charging capability which is only supported on Lumia 735.

To be released globally starting from this month, the new Lumia 730 Dual SIM is priced at EUR 199 (RM 821) while the Lumia 735 goes for EUR 299 (RM 903). As for Malaysia, it is not known at the moment which variant will be heading our way but nevertheless, we’ll keep you posted once we know about it.

Note: the device that we used in this article is a Lumia 735.