At IFA, Nokia announced the last of its Windows Phone devices, before it sold the whole handset business to Microsoft. Last week, we tested the Lumia 830, and found out that it was a rather well balanced device. This week, we’ve been tinkering around with the Lumia 730, and we’re glad we got more time to spend with it than the 30 odd minutes at IFA.

So is this just another mid-range Windows Phone? Not really. Nokia has the Lumia pegged as its own selfie-specialist smartphone. Sure, HTC was one of the first companies to realise that the front camera is to be taken just as seriously as the rear-facing camera. And soon after, Sony launched the C3! Hence, it was about time that Nokia, the manufacturer with the best cameras on its smartphones, came up with a contender for the top selfie phone in the market.

And while Nokia may not make its own handsets until 2016, we think that the last Nokia (for now) is actually one of its best, for the following reasons.

The basic formula How do you decide what’s a good mid-range smartphone? It should have the five basic things in the right amount – display quality, design, build quality, performance and a good camera. The Lumia 730 packs a 4.7-inch, 720p screen, and along with Nokia’s ClearBlack display technology, you are treated to crisp colour presentation both indoors and outdoors.

In terms of design, it feels like a ‘Greatest Hits Mix Tape’ of the best Lumia designs. The body design looks much like the Lumia 920, with its curved edges and brilliant ergonomics. Thankfully, it’s got the lightness of the old 520, and the build quality, though ‘plasticky’, feels surprisingly reassuring, like the 820. And thanks to the slimming down of the camera sensor’s form factor, the 730 is quite thin by Windows Phone standards.

Like all new Lumias, the 730 runs on the Windows Phone 8.1 platform nicknamed Denim, which is the best tiled interface from Windows yet.

It’s cheerful, and there are more tiles on the page, with more options to customise. On the inside, there’s a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 chip which is paired up with 1GB RAM, 8GB of internal storage. These specs come together to deliver a very smooth performance. There’s also microSD card support for up to 128GB.

The camera We’d like to start by saying that the cameras of the Lumia 730 Dual SIM are probably the best in class. The USP of this device is definitely the front-facing 5MP, which has a wide-angle lens.

The wide-angle lens lets you have a bigger field of view, which essentially means that you can cram in more people into the frame. And in case you want to touch up your selfies further, there’s a new Selfie app that packs in a lot of effects. This app will also make its way to other Lumia phones in some time.

The rear-facing 6.7MP camera is also a delight to use. Don’t let the low pixel count put you off – the sensor is quite brilliant and works pretty well in low-light conditions too. In fact, both cameras produce some really nice colours, and even when you decide to use the cameras indoors with scanty lighting. The images retain a lot of sharpness and were surprisingly good with suppressed noise levels.

Verdict We mentioned five things that one should look at while picking out a mid-range phone. The Lumia 730 Dual SIM excels in all five areas. So does it mean that this is the best device to go for in its price? In our honest opinion, despite us loving this piece of tech, it’s a only slightly overpriced, considering that the Windows app store is still quite deficient as compared to Android, and mid-range Android devices such as Moto G (2{+n}{+d} Gen) and the ASUS Zenfone offer way more value for money than the Lumia 730 Dual SIM.

But, if you don’t mind that and you absolutely love the Windows experience, look no further. Nokia saved its best package for the last.

₹15,299

Love – Camera; Performance; Build

Hate – Deficient app outlet

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