Microsoft Lumia 532 Review

Last month, Microsoft had announced two new budget Windows Phones, the Lumia 532 and Lumia 435. The Lumia 532 yet another budget smartphone in the 500 series. The Lumia 532 comes with a 4 inch WVGA display and is powered by 1.2Ghz Quad Core Snapdragon 200 processor which is powering other budget Windows Phones. There is 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage included in the phone. There is also a 5MP fixed focus camera on the device.

The phone runs the latest Windows Phone 8.1 Update with Denim update for Lumia devices. Here is the detailed review of the phone.

Related Reading: Microsoft Lumia 532 Unboxing and First Impressions

Here is the video review of the device.

Design and Build:

The highlight of Lumia 532 is the design, it is a combination of the design language of Asha series and also the Nokia X. The phone has curved rear panel with matte finish and has sharp edges which has glossy finish like the Asha phones. The phone feels solid in hands and is compact since the size is small. Although the thickness is on a higher side, it does not create much problems with regular usage.

On the hardware front, the phone has the power and volume keys on the right side, 3.5mm audio jack on the top and the micro USB charging slot at the bottom. The front panel has the three capacitive touch buttons, 4 inch display and the front facing camera along with the sensors. The rear panel has matte finish and feels really solid with the build quality. It houses the 5MP camera, Microsoft logo and the speakers at the bottom. The rear panel is removable and it has the dual SIM cards and the micro SD card. The only difference between the Lumia 435 and Lumia 532 is the glossy finish on the sides of Lumia 532. Overall, we were pretty happy with the design and build quality of this budget Lumia.

Display:

Lumia 532 comes with a 4 inch WVGA display and the resolution of the display (480 X 800 pixels) is pretty low in the price point. But having said that since the display size is low, the pixels per inch is high and is at 235. The display is pretty good and is vibrant as well. The touch response on the device was excellent and we didn’t have any issues. But the viewing angles were not that good and the color changes when you tilt the display. The device also comes with ambient light sensor and sunlight readability mode and you can tune the display to get better performance when you are using it outside.

Overall, the display performance was pretty good and we would say it is much better than Lumia 535 and the Lumia 530.

Software and Performance:

Lumia 532 comes with Windows Phone 8.1 out of the box along with the Lumia Denim update which is the latest software from the company.  With 8.1 update, Microsoft has added lots of new features and the most prominent one is the notification center. Apart from this, there are other customization options in the start screen along with storage sense, Wi-Fi Sense, Data sense, VPN support and many more features.

With Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft has bridged the gap between Android and WP in terms of feature set.

You can also customize the start screen with background images and also has the ability to manage one more tile. Additional tools like data sense allows you to keep control on your data usage. The storage sense app is very handy to manage the storage and set the default location for saving photos, videos, apps and more on the phone.

The start screen allows you to add the third row of tile on the device which is pretty handy if you want more tiles on the display. The phone also comes with options like double tap to wake, brightness and color profiles along with sunlight readability. Lumia 532 also comes with the popular glance screen which shows notification and clock even when the screen is turned off.

The device runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 Quad core chipset with 1GB of RAM. The performance is really good with no lag or issues. The gaming performance of the device is pretty average and the display is not really suited for gaming as it is very small. But there was not too much of heating while playing the games. Since it has 1GB RAM, it will play almost any game available on the Windows Phone store.

Multi tasking was also good on the device as Windows Phones can even run on dual core processors.

Related Watching: Gaming Review of Lumia 532

This is also dual SIM Windows Phone and Microsoft has added a dedicated section for managing dual SIM. You can have two tiles on the start screen for two SIM cards and also link it to make it into one tile. The phone has an capacitive touch buttons unlike the recent Lumia phones which came with on screen buttons.

The call quality on the device was good and we didn’t have any issues with the signal strength. The speaker volume is pretty decent and the quality is good if you listen to songs. The device comes with 8GB of internal storage and is expandable via microSD card to 128GB. You get around 4.5GB of storage in the first boot. Another great feature of WP8.1 is that you can install apps directly on to the card, saving the internal storage. The phone cannot play 1080P videos and it is restricted to 720p by the hardware. Another important aspect about getting this device is the set of Lumia apps which are exclusively available for Lumia phones.

Built in apps like Storage Sense, Data Sense and Wi-Fi senses provides additional useful features. Another good thing about Lumia 532 is that Microsoft will be providing updates directly for next two years and the device will be getting the Windows 10 update later this year.

The device also features Cortana, but it works only if you change the region and language. There are lots of bundled apps which includes Truecaller, BBM, Food Panda, Redbus, Jabong, Star Sports and Paytm.

Camera:

The device comes with 5MP rear camera which has fixed focus and lacks a flash. There is also VGA front facing camera for video calls. With the latest update, Microsoft has removed the default camera app on the device and replaced it with Lumia camera. So even though the phone has only 5MP camera, you get some controls and options with the Lumia camera. The 5MP camera on the device is similar to other Lumia phones with 5MP shooter.

The photos taken in daylight had decent amount of color, but it lacked sharpness and detailing. The 5MP camera performance in daylight was average. Photos looks either blurry or grainy even in daylight. The lack of auto focus further makes the camera worse as close up shots have gone blurred.

The low light photos were noisy, but the quality improved with adequate artificial lighting. The software processing for low light is pretty decent even though it is noisy. Another issue with the device is lack of flash which means without good amount of light, it is better not to use the camera. The phone also comes with video recording which is at 480P. While most of the Android phones offer 720P and 1080P recording in this category, the 480P video recording is very poor. The video was noisy and lacked details. Here are some of the shots taken with the camera.

Battery Life:

The phone comes with 1560mAh battery and the performance was pretty decent. The phone also has removable and user replaceable battery. We tested the battery performance with average usage which included calls, browsing, causal gaming, music, and few social networking apps running in the background. With these usage, we could get a day of battery backup. Since Windows Phone OS is not a battery hog, battery performance shouldn’t be a big issue on this device.

You can also manage the apps running in the background and improve the performance.

Verdict:

So is the Lumia 532 value for money at Rs 6499? We think Microsoft should have priced the device ideally at Rs 5500 especially when we have tough competition from Lava and Celkon in the sub 5k range. The phone delivers good performance and comes with a solid design and build. But the weak links for the device is the low display and also the average camera performance. The device is still a good choice and better than Lumia 530, if you are looking to for a budget Windows Phone with the exclusive Lumia apps adding to the overall experience.