Nokia Lumia 635.. 4G for under £120

I have been lucky enough to borrow Lumia 635 to use for a few weeks to see how it fares up as one of the cheapest 4G phones around. I ditched my current and only 2-day-old LG G3 to spend a few days with the Lumia 635 and to test to see if the 4G capabilities of this phone are held back by its specs, or if it is really worth buying. Specs-wise the phone is pretty much identical to the Lumia 630, so if you want phone specific details and more on Windows Phone 8 then check out Leigh’s review HERE. He’s got plenty of pictures to keep you going and a great review of the phone as well as Windows Phone on a budget device.

But now onto the 635’s main selling point except for the price, 4G LTE connectivity on a below-£120 device, and a Windows Phone Device at that. Microsoft/Nokia are branding this as one of the cheapest 4G phones available. I took the phone “with my G3 in tow, but switched off” to Birmingham City Centre to test out the 4G on the Three network as it’s currently not available where I live in merry little Tamworth. Not long after I got off the train the icon changed from 3G, to 4G. I was quite excited to be honest (simple things).

So this phone had jumped onto the 4G network and was working just as before, albeit with a quicker data connection. So I decided to do what all us geeky techy types do, a speed test using speedtest.net’s app. Now to say I had some puzzling results was an understatement. So much so I had to get out the G3 and run some speed tests to compare to check to see if the differences were the Phone or the Three Network. Check out the results below:

There were a few odd results but I think some of this may be down to the 4G network.  But the fact I could get 10Mbps standing outside a train station … Thats faster than some home broadband providers and with a 9 Mbps upload I was really quite impressed.  I’ve got no excuse once I’m on 4G not to be writing these articles and uploading images immediately.

Whether the phone can make full use of the high 4G speeds, I’m not 100% sure, and some of this may be down to the OS, but overall it was a great test to be able to see 4G on a phone for under £120. It is a bit of a line in the sand to say to other manufacturers that they can do it to on most of their devices from now on, so my hat goes off to you Nokia/Microsoft/Windows Phone/Microsoft Phones Division… What ever you want to call yourself.

And I wouldn’t be a courteous writer if I didn’t say thank-you for the loan of the device from AxiCom.

Here are some photos of the Lumia 635 inside and out if you’re curious to have a browse and don’t want to take one apart in your local phone shop.