Over the years I have owned a number of Nokia mobile phones but with the competitors offering up more for my money I have not had a new Nokia for a few years now so having decided to give them another chance with there Nokia Lumia 710 offering would I go back to picking them when my contract is up?

Positives:

- This is a great looking phone with the ability to have a bright and colourful back to the phone thanks to changeable covers which also enable you to make the phone personalised to suit your individual tastes. The back covers themselves feel very soft and give a good level of grip so that the phone feels comfortable in your hand.

- The screen is a quality 3.7" bright and vibrant one that enables you to have an immersive experience. The screen size is somewhat smaller than many other phones in the marketplace nowadays but don't let this put you off as the screen size is still of a level where you can do all of the things we now class as normal on our mobile phones (eg social networking, browsing the internet, text messaging, etc). I love the quality of this touchscreen as it is very responsive to all touches which enables you to control and navigate your way around your phone so that you can get the most out of it.

- The phone uses the Windows Phone 7 operating system (this is upgraded on ocassion by Microsoft but this will soon cease due to the release of Windows Phone 8) which is a very simply to use and clever operating system that uses a tile based home screen on the phone. You choose the colour of your tiles, which ones are to be on the front screen and which order they should be in which enables for you to have a very personalised feel to your phone. The tiles will also give updates (when you receive a text message it will show how many unready messages you have on the tile, news updates will show on news tiles, updates available through marketplace, etc) which means that your front screen is truly a home screen where you can obtain a large amount of information without needing to scroll through all of the apps and screens themselves.

- The Windows Phone marketplace enables you to purchase games and apps for your phone. The marketplace is well designed and laid out which is broken down into different categories (eg social, entertainment, music + video, lifestyle, etc) so that you can find what you are looking for quickly and easily. I am not a huge fan of paying for apps so I love the marketplace as you can select to only look at the free apps and see reviews, ratings and even screenshots to enable you to see what you are downloading before doing it.

- I love the simplicity of the button layout of this phone as it enables you to have a large amount of control without a large amount of buttons. There are 3 buttons on the front of the phone (a back button to enable you to navigate to the last screen you were on, a Windows button to take you to the front screen and a search button to enable you to use Bing to search the internet), 3 buttons on the side of the phone (one for the camera operation and two for volume control) and a power button at the top which is also used to lock/unlock the screen of the phone.

- The internet on the phone is very quick with Internet Explorer inbuilt (although you can download other internet browsers through the marketplace) which allows for quick and easy internet browsing which is very smooth in comparison to other mobile phones I have used recently.

- A 5MP camera with auto focus and flash in-built allows for you to take photos of an ok quality but for me I rarely use this as I normally have a camera on me. If you do take photos on this phone then you can easily share these with the options coming up when you select to say you will be sharing and offering you the options for social network sharing, messaging, email, SkyDrive, etc and so it is very easy and quick to share your images. You can also use the camera to video things although I have not used this function so can't comment on how good this is.

- The earphones that come with this mobile phone are brilliant and amongst the most comfortable ones I have ever owned so that you can use your handsfree or listen to your music on the go easily and comfortably.

- The phone is very clear on calls and has a good volume level available to enable you to have a conversation without needing to keep on asking for the person you are speaking with to repeat themselves.

- A high quality and quick wi-fi connectivity means that you can easily do updates and browse your internet without using all of your data allowances.


Negatives:

- The marketplace is good and well laid out but does offer much less choice than is on offer for the iPhone or for Google Android phones so if you are someone who is very much into your apps then Windows Phone is not likely to be for you.

- The Windows Phone operating system does have some severe limitations with adding of ringtones a lot of work and hassle when compared to other operating systems out there and also the lack of video compatibility being a draw back so these are things to keep in mind if you are considering Windows Phone (this is based on Windows Phone 7 with updates rather than the new Windows Phone 8 operating system).


Overall I love this phone as the feel and quality of the phone are what I used to have with Nokia phones years back but have missed recently. The changeable rear covers is something I really love and am thankful to see Nokia are wishing to start doing again as this was something I loved with my older mobile phones I owned. A great quality touch screen enables you to have quick and easy text messaging and email so that communicating on the go is quick and easy. I find this to be one of the best phones I have owned in a long time for the voice call quality and the fact the phones has such quick and stable internet all add together to make this a truly great phone and one I can't recommend highly enough.