Microsoft Lumia 640, 640XL: They're NOT the same, mmmkay?

Microsoft’s latest mass market Lumia goes on sale today, Friday, for under £100, and its big brother — the 640XL — appears at the end of the month. The 640 is this year’s successor to the popular 630/635 models launched last May, while the impressive 640XL is a solid successor to the phablet-sized Lumia 1320, but with much …

[Jay 2]

“We wanted to make the naming convention easier for consumers,”

Well that failed miserably then didn't it?

It's beginning to look like the mess HTC got into when it launched a load of phones with the name along the lines of One *something*.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: “We wanted to make the naming convention easier for consumers,”

How many different phones called Galaxy did Samsung release, from the Note to Sn versions that each had many variations, along with low end crap like the Ace? They did that successfully for years, so their recent difficulties certainly can't be blamed on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

So MS got perpeptual rights to Nokia's fucked-up numbering "schemes"?

I'd assumed they only had a three-year licence, as they did for the name "Nokia". They must have negotiated very hard to get the Finns to give up this piece of their corporate DNA, the ability to utterly bamboozle customers trying to guess whether a phone represents an upgrade, downgrade, or just the Infinite Improbability drive being switched on...

[Tenacal]

OK, I can see the tadpole and I can see the boiled egg but how on earth do you get a man in a hammock from the number 4?

[Captain DaFt]

"how on earth do you get a man in a hammock from the number 4?"

Yeah, it's obviously the end of a suspension bridge, so the pictogram actually reads: "Sperm travels to egg".

Sounds like someone got screwed!

[stucs201]

Why the same number?

Well we all know that there have been problems going past 640 before. The 640XL should probably have been the 704, but that would only have been possible by using non-standard tricks and sacrificing some display capabilities.

(Coat? The one with the MS-DOS boot disk in the pocket).

[big_D]

Re: Why the same number?

Microsoft did release an MS-DOS app for Windows Phone on April 1...

Even comes with Win 3.1 and Paper Rock Scissors DOS based game... :-D

[Terry 6]

Re: Why the same number?

And I suddenly realised we've been going backwards for years.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Nokia had a reasably decent set of names. In that there was a 600, 700 and 800. Even if they then added a 900, a 1000 and a 500. Also for some strange reason they started with the 800, but then the next release was the excellent 720 (why not 700?).

Now it's a mess. I was trying to help my Mum decide between the 630 and 635 when her contract comes up. They seem to have come out within a few months of each other - and in fact their naming is now a confusing number soup. I actually think they've inherited Nokia's horrible obsession with having a million different models, all with only one tiny feature difference to distinguish them.

Surely all you need is a range name, and then a model number (starting from 1), to tell you which is the latest model. So they could have the Cheapskate (VGA camera, no flash, little RAM), the Pensioner (big screen, cheap, tartan fluffy cover), The Self-Obsessed Wanker (dedicated Facebook button, extendable selfie-stick, 5 cameras), The Eye of Sauron (100 megapixel camera that's amazing at low-light photography) etc.

Anyway one of these is looking tempting for my next work phone. The iPhone 5 has already been repaired once (all our batch had dodgy docking connectors), and the button is now going on the replacement. Something bigger, that's actually readable in sunlight, doesn't keep breaking and has an address book not coded by gibbons is attractive.

There's some great 'Droids, and I'm tempted by a Galaxy Note, but I find them a bit complicated, and I want my phone to be as simple as possible. Big writing, big buttons make me happy. I don't like Metro on my PC, but it's great on a phone, and I'd imagine it's pretty fine on a tablet too.

[AMBxx]

Come on Microsoft

You've a nice range of mobiles (happy with my 1020), a decent OS.

Now just sack your marketing department and do a relaunch.

[Terry 6]

Re: Come on Microsoft

Personally I'd have ALL marketing departments rounded up and taken round the back of the building.......

Show me a marketing "executive" that can't find a good idea and f**k it up until it's useless.

[cambsukguy]

Re: Come on Microsoft

The DIlbert board game - in the Marketing room - Welcome to Marketing, two drink minimum.

[Ian Michael Gumby]

@AMBxx Re: Come on Microsoft

The OS sucks.

They require you to set up a hotmail account or import everything from your hotmail account in as contacts, whether you like it or not.

As phone, physically the Nokia 1020 is solid.

As a camera, it rocks.

I have several shots that I took using it blown up to 17 x 14 without losing detail or looking grainy.

Good luck doing that with any other phone camera.

Of course the damn auto focus gets in the way sometimes....

[Beornfrith]

I surely can't be the only person who initially interpreted that picture as containing a woman next to a dog that had lovely, long flowing hair. Can I..?

[Spaceman Spiff]

Good, bad, and ugly

It's good that the 640xl has a replaceable battery, because all Lumias suck at battery life! I have two, and they have to be recharged continuously otherwise they die after a few hours of doing nothing! My Samsung Galaxy 5 and OnePlusOne both run for 2-3 days without needing to be recharged, even when being used constantly. And they charge faster!

Disclaimer: I worked at Nokia Mobile Phones when Microsoft took over that organization, and I and about 12,500 other employees were let go. No joy there!

[MNB]

Re: Good, bad, and ugly

I had Lumia foisted on me by my employer, battery life sucked big time. That is until I turned the WiFi off, now it lasts 5 days between charges. :)

[cambsukguy]

Re: Good, bad, and ugly

The default WiFi setting used to be "Seek new WiFi networks" or something.

This is replaced by WiFi Sense, which means that it 'helps' you by locating loads of networks you can't use.

To be a bit fairer, they do hold a database of logins for open networks and the passwords are automatically shared with people you know who have successfully logged in (I know, I know, it's optional though).

Anyway, switching this off may help although I have it on without this battery drain issue.

I rarely go all day without a top up because I have wireless charging pads all over the place but I definitely still get a full day of normal (for me) use without a charge. Using navigation and maps is a killer too, I think is normal, worse for phones that must also download the mapping data in order to display it I presume.

I keep BT, NFC and WiFi enabled. Using the Cortana location based reminder system adds a hit and WhatsApp and Skype can really drain the battery, WhatsApp particularly seems to want to maintain instant status without even a tiny latency, burning data and battery like no tomorrow.

[jimbo60]

Re: Good, bad, and ugly

I get two days battery life from my Lumia with normal use (actually fairly heavy). That's with wifi, wifi sense, gps all on, and push email from my work Exchsnge account. Cortana is also running, as is Skype. I don't run WhatsApp.

[JDX]

Under a ton

Bloody hell, you do get a lot for your money these days. I just hope W10 for Mobile doesn't ruin everything (happy WP7, 7.5 & 8 user).

[Andy00ff00]

Ah, Microsoft. 640 ought to be enough for anybody.

[James 51]

Still waiting for the follow up to the 1020. Or if they still made that (preferably the 64gb model).

[cambsukguy]

Me too, can wait a bit - still happy with the performance, the screen and obviously the camera but would like the sensorcore functionality.

I read somewhere they may have a 50 mega pixel camera unit in development - hope it has more memory to use it and still the hi speed shot-to-shot stuff recent models got.