Nokia Lumia 1520 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Hands On


Nokia announced their first phablet – Nokia Lumia 1520 at the Nokia World event held in Abu Dhabi. Nokia Lumia 1520 is not only the first phablet from Nokia, but it is also the first Windows Phone phablet and the first Windows Phone device to run on a quad-core processor. Nokia is using the best quad-core chip in the market for it – Snapdragon 800. We bring you the hands-on comparison between Nokia’s first phablet and Samsung’s latest flagship – Samsung Galaxy Note 3. Samsung was the first to introduce the phablet category and now are in the third iteration of their flagship phablet while Nokia are just taking their first step in the phablet territory.

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We made a quick hands on comparison video right from the event floor which you can check out right below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5FS52ZWCJY

In terms of looks, the phablets are quite different. Nokia Lumia 1520 comes with a typical Nokia Lumia build that consists of a polycarbonate matte-finish unibody while the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 comes with a typical Samsung build except for the back where it uses faux leather. Nokia Lumia 1520 has a 6inch Full HD IPS LCD display with Nokia’s ClearBlack technology with a pixel density of 367ppi while Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has 5.7inch Full HD SuperAMOLED display with a pixel density of 387ppi. In terms of dimensions, the Lumia 1520 is wider, taller and thicker than the Galaxy Note 3. In terms of weight, the Lumia 1520 weighs a hefty 209g while the Galaxy Note 3 is considerably lighter at 168g.

Nokia Lumia 1520 is powered by Snapdragon 800 SoC clocked at 2.2GHz, has 2GB RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is powered by Exynos 5420 Octa-core processor , has 3GB RAM and Mali T628 GPU(this is the global variant and the LTE variant runs on Snapdragon 800 SoC along with Adreno 330 GPU). There is also a microSD card in both the phones and the Lumia 1520 has 32GB internal storage while the Galaxy Note 3 has 16/32/64GB internal storage options. Camera is also one of the key factors that sets these two phablets apart as Nokia Lumia 1520 comes with a 20MP PureView camera that produces 16MP images and over-sampled 5MP images while the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has a very good 13MP camera. There is a dual-LED flash on Lumia 1520 while Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has just an LED flash.

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Nokia Lumia 1520 runs on Windows Phone 8 Black while Samsung Galaxy Note 3 runs on the latest version of Android – 4.3 JellyBean. It comes with a plethora of software features that set it apart from Lumia 1520. It also comes with a stylus called as S-Pen which is great for productivity. The rich set of software features complement the Galaxy Note 3’s S-Pen.

What do you think of these two phablet flagships? What would be your pick? Let us know in the comments below.


Author: Monish Kumar

Monish is passionate about smartphones who is also interested in User Experience and Design. He is currently using Samsung Galaxy S3. You can follow him on Twitter and Google+