Amber Review: My Lumia 720 has an always on clock, its time for Amber

Yesterday I shared the news about my Lumia 720 getting the Amber, and after a full day with it, I’m ready for my initial assessment.

The Lumia 920 update was a candy land with Nokia Smart Cam, Pro Cam, Glance screen and double tap to wake, an owner of the Lumia 720 should feel a little bit down.

But its not all bad news either, the Lumia 720 on Amber is delightfully fast, where before Amber the screen will light up after a second of pressing the power button its now instantaneous, navigation across the OS is faster and apps are loading twice as fast.
I’m sadden to confirm what already was confirmed by Nokia, but double tap to wake is a no go for the Lumia 720, which is a bit sad considering how much I use it now on my Lumia 920 and the inconsistencies that’ll face me.

On a positive note however the implantation of glance screen is a much better one of that on the Lumia 920, where the transition from the black screen to the glance screen usually involves a white blink out of the Lumia 920 at night, the Lumia 720 handles the glance screen graciously with a brighter clock and no white blinking.
Nokia Smart Cam “lite” is also present and  you can set it as your default camera, only it’ll take 7 pictures only with a resolution of 1mp.

As expected all of Microsoft’s GDR2 candy is present like data sense and…  For the life of me I can’t remember, WOW without Amber this update wouldn’t even be worth reporting.

The camera feels a lot more improved at well lit situations but I can’t help but feel its gotten worst at night shots even prolonged exposure shots in ProShot seem to misbehave if you crank the ISO.

If you flashed this you might notice that some features are missing like the Peek option in the Glance screen setting or call+ SMS filter, fear not they are available if you wait for a day or two they’ll show up as updates in your store.
Its possible to force update them, browse this article using your phone and click on the following two links (Extras+ Info & Display + touch)

Finally and for now, the Lumia 720 seems highly capable of running the GDR2 software even out performing GDR1 in almost every aspect.

GDR2 however is not a feature rich update so we’ll see if Microsoft can deliver a feature rich update on the low end without sacrificing performance in both GDR3 and Blue 8.1.

Thanks for reading and I’ll be happy to answer your questions bellow to the best of my abilities.

Tags: amber, Lumia, Review

Category: Nokia