Nokia Lumia 1320 Review: Big Screen, Small Price, Serious Media Muscle
The Nokia Lumia 1320 turned up in Australian shops for a couple of hundred dollars, and for a short while it was the cheapest genuine Lumia you could buy outright from a counter at JB Hi-Fi or Harvey Norman rather than a prepaid bundle. The pitch was straightforward: a large-for-the-money screen, a pair of speakers, a removable battery and Nokia's navigation suite on a device that didn't demand a carrier discount. It was the model that gave Windows Phone buyers a reason to look past the Lumia 520 without stretching to the 625. Learn more about Oneplus One India Launch The 2014 Flagship Killer At A Disruptive Price.
Calling it a six-inch Windows Phone for media lovers was never accurate, and that deserves clearing up before anyone goes hunting. The panel measures 4.5 inches, not six, and it runs at 480 x 854 rather than anything close to full HD. Even so, the media promise had a grain of truth to it. At the time this handset sat at the bottom of the range, that screen was the biggest available below roughly AUD 250, and Nokia's speakers were unusually loud for the money.
For Australian buyers specifically, the hardware is only half the conversation. Dual-SIM handsets have quietly become normal here, because keeping a prepaid data line separate from a work number is cheaper than a single contract, and because international calls to family overseas are easier to manage when the second slot runs on a local plan. Jack in your Telstra, Optus or Vodafone SIM and this phone becomes a genuinely useful tool rather than a nostalgia piece.
Our verdict after a run with the handset: the Lumia 1320 nails the fundamentals of consuming media on a budget, and the battery will comfortably outlast a day of video, music and navigation. The camera is adequate rather than good, and the app ecosystem that once made Windows Phone interesting has since thinned out considerably. Buy it for the screen, the speaker and the navigation; do not buy it for photography.
Build quality and a screen that isn't six inches
Nokia's cheapest Lumias were always plastic, and the 1320 is no exception. The unibody-style shell is glossy, fingerprints collect immediately, and the removable back cover hides a microSD slot alongside the SIMs. At 146 grams and 10.2mm thick it feels substantial in the hand, closer to a small feature phone than to the slim slabs that were fashionable by 2014. Colours included white, black, yellow and orange, with the yellow being the one most likely to turn up in an Australian second-hand marketplace.
The screen itself is an IPS panel with Nokia's ClearBlack treatment, which on lesser hardware means an ambient light layer rather than a true polarising filter. Outdoors in a bright Sydney summer, brightness is usable but not stellar, and the 480 x 854 resolution makes text a little soft next to a 720p handset. Viewing angles are respectable, colour shifts slightly at extreme angles, and there's no sunlight mode trick on the cheap variants.
Windows Phone 8.1's scaled display handling helps here. Small tiles get sharp text, and the on-screen navigation bar can be moved to the bottom, which is the sensible choice on a device with this much chin. Fingerprint smudging on the glossy plastic is the real complaint, and a cheap matte screen protector solves it overnight.
Windows Phone 8.1, Here Drive and the app gap
The software story is where the Lumia 1320 either wins or loses depending on what you need. Windows Phone 8.1 with the Amber update runs on a 1.1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 with 512MB of RAM, which sounds pitiful on paper and feels entirely adequate in practice. Live Tiles remain the best notification system Android has had, the app switcher handles live audio properly, and the whole thing is fast enough that you forget the silicon isn't current.
Nokia's own apps are the reason to stick with a cheap Lumia. Here Drive Plus delivers full turn-by-turn navigation with downloadable offline maps across Australia, so a run through the outback doesn't require signal. Here Transit covers timetables for Sydney buses and Melbourne trams, and Nokia MixRadio offers free ad-supported streaming over 3G. These are the tools that made the 1320 feel like a phone from a slightly better decade.
Then the app gap bites. Banking, social and food delivery apps still arrive late on Windows Phone, and some never arrive at all. Storage is 8GB internally with microSD expansion, so photos and music are fine, but you should install what you can to the card straight out of the box.
Camera and multimedia performance
The rear camera is a 5-megapixel sensor with a single LED flash, and video capture runs to 720p at 30 frames. In good daylight the stills are perfectly serviceable, with natural colours and reasonable detail for sharing to a group chat or uploading from a café. In low light the sensor struggles, the flash fires a bit harshly, and grain shows up in anything darker than a pub interior.
That puts the 1320 light years behind the competition of its moment, and the gap with modern flagships is enormous. The waterproof Xperia Z1 we looked at elsewhere on the site paired a 20.7-megapixel camera with IP55 and IP58 sealing, which meant you could sling it in the pool without thinking. The 1320 will not survive an Aussie summer downpour, and its photos will never be the reason you keep it.
Audio is the better story. The stereo speaker setup at the bottom edge is genuinely loud without turning to distortion, which makes the phone a decent companion for AFL highlights, Big Bash clips or a podcast on the drive to the coast, and the 3.5mm jack means proper headphones are trivial. Combine that with a microSD card full of music and you have a credible media player for the price of a weekly grocery shop.
Dual-SIM, battery life and Australian network reality
The 1,920mAh battery is removable, which in 2014 still mattered, and it delivers a genuine day and a half of mixed use, stretching to two if you mostly listen to music. Charging is via micro-USB and takes around three hours from flat, which is where the bundled Nokia charger earns its place. A software update even enabled Qi wireless charging, a nice touch for an inexpensive phone.
Connectivity is the significant compromise. The 1320 is a 3.5G HSPA+ device with no LTE radio at all, and in a market where Telstra, Optus and Vodafone were pushing 4G hard, that eventually becomes the deal-breaker. It is also why unlocked 3G-era hardware now needs careful buying. Australia's 3G networks have been progressively switched off, so a Lumia 1320 purchased without checking network support is a paperweight with a beautiful screen.
Dual-SIM variants arrived separately from the single-SIM model, so check the box before paying. Australians juggle these slots for cheap international calls and cheap data, and dual-SIM also serves as a handy backup for regional areas where coverage is patchy. Telstra's rural coverage expansion has helped that, but there are still blackspots between towns where nothing works, and no phone fixes that.
Pricing and how it stacks up against rivals
The 1320 launched in Australia at roughly AUD 200 unlocked, sandwiched between the very cheap Lumia 520 and the pricier Lumia 625, and it competed more directly with Android budget hardware such as the Moto G and the Galaxy S4 Mini. Our current budget phone picks give a better idea of what that money buys today, but in its own era the Nokia was well priced for the screen it carried.
| Specification | Nokia Lumia 1320 | Nokia Lumia 520 | Nokia Lumia 625 | Motorola Moto G |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Display | 4.5in IPS, 480 x 854 | 4in IPS, 320 x 480 | 4.7in IPS, 480 x 800 | 5in IPS, 720 x 1280 |
| Processor and RAM | 1.1GHz dual-core, 512MB | 1.2GHz dual-core, 512MB | 1.2GHz dual-core, 1GB | 1.7GHz quad-core, 1–2GB |
| Storage | 8GB plus microSD | 8GB plus microSD | 8GB plus microSD | 8GB or 16GB plus microSD |
| Camera | 5MP with flash, 720p video | 5MP without flash, 480p video | 5MP with flash, 720p video | 5MP, 720p video |
| Battery | 1,920mAh, removable | 1,700mAh, removable | 2,000mAh, removable | 2,130mAh, removable |
| Mobile data | HSPA+ 3.5G, no LTE | HSPA+ 3.5G, no LTE | HSPA+ 3.5G, no LTE | 3G, LTE on some variants |
| Typical 2014 street price | About AUD 200 | About AUD 150 | About AUD 250 | About AUD 230 |
Against the Moto G, the Nokia wins on speakers, navigation and the quality of the software it ships with, and loses on screen resolution, camera and the entire app ecosystem. Against another Lumia, the 1320 is the sensible middle pick, and the 520 is the one to buy if the budget is genuinely tight.
Who should buy the Lumia 1320
Three groups of people should consider this handset. First, a first-time smartphone buyer, or anyone moving up from a feature phone, who wants a familiar interface, a physical home button and a screen that comfortably shows a website. Second, travellers and commuters who need offline navigation more than they need an app ecosystem. Third, Windows Phone loyalists, because this is the last generation of Lumia hardware worth recommending, and collectors will want one with the original cover.
What you should not do is expect the value proposition of a modern flagship. The OnePlus One's disruptive launch pricing turned the market on its head around the same period, and even discounted, a Lumia 1320 was never going to compete with that kind of hardware for photography, gaming or longevity. Windows Phone itself has had no meaningful updates in years, and with 3G being retired around the country, buying one now is a specialist decision rather than a sensible one.
If you do want a Nokia from this era, buy it as a second handset. A 1320 in the glovebox, running a prepaid SIM with generous data for navigation and music, is a perfectly sensible arrangement, and the removable battery means you can carry a spare.
Where to find a Lumia 1320 in Australia
Second-hand stock is the realistic route now. Expect to find examples through Australian classified sites, cash-for-phones buyers in Melbourne and Sydney, and marketplace sellers listing handsets with unknown history. Check the IMEI before paying, confirm the model is the dual-SIM variant if that matters to you, and make sure it has a healthy battery, since a two-year-old lithium pack is often the weakest part of the package.
The smart move is buying a handset that still works on current networks and treating the Lumia as a bonus, so check what 4G-capable budget hardware looks like in our guide to budget phones before you commit. If you do pick up the Nokia, the bundled stereo speaker and the free offline navigation are the two things that will keep you reaching for it, and you can chuck the rest of your media kit on a memory card with no worries about storage.
Read more reviews and buying guides on New Mobile Arrivals, compare the current crop of affordable handsets, and grab a Lumia 1320 for your secondary phone while unlocked stock is still around.