It's a budget battle this time round with Nokia's Lumia 620 squaring up to the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2
We compare two low-cost handsets with the Windows Phone 8-based Nokia Lumia 620 taking on Samsung’s Android-powered Galaxy Ace 2.
Form
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 - 118.3x62.2x10.5mm, 122g
Nokia Lumia 620 - 115.4x61.1x11mm, 127g
In terms of looks the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 doesn’t exactly inspire. That’s because it’s barely changed from the original Galaxy Ace and is very much part of the ‘old guard’ of Samsung’s designs.
The Ace 2 is short but not exactly compact as it’s both thick and a little on the wide side. The bezel around the display is quite thick and the device is made from typical Samsung plastic, which isn’t exactly great, though it does have a textured back panel which helps somewhat.
All that said, it’s a budget model, so compromises have clearly been made to keep costs lower. Taking that into consideration it’s not a bad little phone really, it’s just not amazing either.
However, the Nokia Lumia 620 is proof that it’s possible to create a low-price smartphone with personality.
Like the rest of its Lumia cousins it has a brightly coloured plastic bodyshell, although in this case it’s closest to the Lumia 820 in that the back panel is removable and can be swapped out.
The shape is quite rounded and curvy but features-wise is fairly minimalist which works in its favour, together with the bright colour choices of green, orange, cyan, magenta and yellow. There’s also white and black if you’re after something a bit more conservative.
There isn’t a lot more to say about the Lumia 620’s design as the back panel pretty much wraps around everything except for the display and capacitive controls, although there is a slightly bulky black bezel either side of the touchscreen. The Lumia 620 is also the thicker of the two devices at 11mm.
We have to say that the Nokia Lumia 620 is far more appealing than Samsung’s Galaxy Ace 2.
Winner – Nokia Lumia 620
Display
Both handsets have pretty much the same display setup with 3.8-inch LCD touchscreens at a 800x480 pixel resolution and 246 pixels-per-inch (ppi).
For budget handsets that is reasonably sharp and should deliver decent visual quality.
However, the Lumia 620 does have a trick up its sleeve in the form of Nokia’s ClearBlack technology, meaning it’s a more viable choice for outdoor use and has richer colour, better contrast and generally superior picture quality overall.
Winner – Nokia Lumia 620
Storage
Samsung’s handset has 4GB of built-in storage and microSD capability for cards up to 32GB, but the Nokia Lumia 620 has a better setup with 8GB onboard and support for high-capacity cards up to 64GB.
Winner – Nokia Lumia 620
Processor
The Galaxy Ace 2 is equipped with an ST-Ericsson NovaThor U8500 dual-core processor clocked at 800MHz.
It’s based on ARM Cortex-A9 architecture, 45 nanometre (nm) semiconductor technology, 768MB of RAM and a powerful Mali-400MP graphics processing unit (GPU).
All of which means it’s a very capable setup for a lower-priced device and it should have little trouble running reasonably demanding apps and games, along with decent multitasking.
The Lumia 920’s setup is also better than you might expect for the price point.
It uses a Qualcomm S4 Snapdragon dual-core MSM8227 chip with a 1GHz clockspeed.
This is also an ARM Cortex-A9 number but with more efficient 28nm architecture, 512MB of RAM and an Adreno 305 GPU.
While there’s a slight loss of RAM compared to its opponent the rest of the processor spec is much better and generally performance should be noticeably quicker on the Lumia.
That said, the operating system is already efficient and well-optimised, while the Windows Phone app ecosystem currently doesn’t offer much in the way of demanding or intensive content. In short, you’re unlikely to see the Lumia 620 taxed to its limits.
Winner – Nokia Lumia 620
Operating System
Samsung’s Galaxy Ace 2 ships with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but fortunately it has been kept up-to-date with the introduction of a 4.1 Jelly Bean patch.
Version 4.2 is currently the latest build, but on 4.1 you’re not missing out on a huge amount of stuff and you still get some of the best Android features so far.
It’s a much faster and smoother platform than previous builds, as well as being more reliable. Plus there’s the advantage of over 700,000 apps to choose from, of course.
The interface has been refined into something very slick, intuitive and rewarding with sensible menu layouts, tasteful UI elements and useful gesture controls. Multitasking is now much more accessible with a quick-access app carousel and notifications have been expanded with more information at a glance.
Notifications have also been improved with the introduction of Google Now which provides you with search services, location services and some nifty tricks such as recording your daily commute and sending you traffic and weather reports relevant to you without you even needing to ask.
With the Lumia 620 you’re dealing with Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform, which has evolved considerably from Windows Phone 7.
It’s faster and features better multitasking, quicker app load speeds on the whole and many of the great features from the earlier build have returned, including the People Hub’s social networking and messaging aggregation.
One welcome change is a greater variety of customisation options to make the phone a bit more personal. You can resize Live Tile shortcuts, link apps to deliver content to the lock screen and there are more theme colours to choose from.
However, the main let-down is there’s still a distinct lack of apps in the Windows Phone Store compared with established platforms such as Android and Apple’s iOS.
The last count showed around 120,000 apps and although this number is likely to have increased by now it must still be miles off the 700,000 of Apple and Google.
But it’s not just the overall quantity, there are some truly awful apps on Windows Phone while crucial titles considered a necessity by many users on other platforms remain absent.
As things stand currently, Android is still a more cohesive option to go for, particularly as it has now shed many of the problems it used to be hampered by.
Winner – Samsung Galaxy Ace 2
Final Thoughts
For the most part the Lumia 620 comes across as a better option: it’s more attractive, has an enhanced display, more storage (both onboard and via cards) and a faster and more efficient processor.
The stumbling block is the Windows Phone 8 operating system which is limited by having so few apps available to it.
However, while this is a pitfall to an extent it shouldn’t be seen as a death sentence to the phone because there is still a lot to like about Windows Phone 8 and it’s still a perfectly usable platform for the majority of typical smartphone tasks.
Conversely, the Galaxy Ace 2 is a mixed bag: it’s not the best looking phone around and the onboard storage is relatively low, however, it’s got a decent display and processor and the updated Android 4.2 operating system provides a brilliant experience.
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