Nokia Lumia 720 review

The keystone to Nokia's Windows Phone 8 onslaught

Nokia Lumia 720 review
The middle kid has its say

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Contacts

Nokia Lumia 720 review

All your contacts are stored in the People app on the Nokia Lumia 720, which is one of the main Live Tiles automatically pinned to your homescreen when you boot the handset up for the first time.

Sign into your various social and email accounts and you'll see the Lumia 720 will pull in all your buddies to the People app, including those from Google, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Things such as profile pictures also make the jump and on the whole the Lumia 720 does a pretty good job when it comes to matching your contacts with their various social profiles, although we did have to lend a helping hand with a few of them.

All your mates appear in a similar vein to the app list, with a cheeky picture appearing next to their name in an alphabetical list.

Nokia Lumia 720 review

You can quickly skip to a person by hitting the lettered tile at the start of each section of contacts, which brings up a grid of the alphabet allowing you to jump to a particular letter.

Dive into a contact's details and the first screen which greets you has that person's key details including phone numbers and email addresses as well as things such as their profile picture and latest status update.

A tap on any of the contact details displayed will launch the associated app, be it Phone, Messaging or the email client.

Slide sideways within a contact card and you'll be able to see your friend's social updates stream, photos from various their social galleries and your personal contact history with that person.

Nokia Lumia 720 review

The large display on the Lumia 720 means you get a decent amount of information on screen at a time and it's all very easy to see and manipulate.

Back to the main page of the people app and the same sideways swipe will see you scroll through a stream of all your social feeds in one place, your recent contacts and the Rooms and Groups panel in Windows Phone 8.

Adding a new found friend is just as easy on the Lumia 720, a quick tap on the "plus" icon at the bottom of the screen will take you to the new contact form where you'll be able to enter all manner of things about your latest buddy.

There's nothing different here to what you find on other WP 8 handsets, but the Lumia 720 does at least provide a smooth and almost flawless way to manage your contacts.

Calling

Unsurprisingly the Phone app is your main port of call when it comes to, well, actually calling someone.

Nokia Lumia 720 review

The recent calls panel is what you're greeted with upon launching the Phone app, and it allows you to immediately call anyone back with a simple tap of the phone icon next to the person's name.

At the bottom of the screen is a small menu tray with links to the People app, dial pad and the voicemail service.

The dial pad is very basic, with no smart dial or contact suggestions, leaving you to merrily tap a number in without any form of distraction.

Connection wise we didn't have any issues with dropped calls or a lack of signal, with the Lumia 720 managing to keep hold of a few bars at all times.

Call quality was acceptable and we could clearly hear what the other person was saying and vice versa.

John McCann
Former Global Managing Editor

TechRadar's former Global Managing Editor, John has been a technology journalist for more than a decade, and over the years has built up a vast knowledge of the tech industry. He’s interviewed CEOs from some of the world’s biggest tech firms, visited their HQs, and appeared on live TV and radio, including Sky News, BBC News, BBC World News, Al Jazeera, LBC, and BBC Radio 4.

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