Microsoft Lumia 650 review: Great design, terrible chipset

Microsoft Lumia 650 review: Performance

Sadly, all the Lumia 650’s hard work comes completely undone by Microsoft’s choice of processor. Running on just a quad-core 1.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 and 1GB of RAM, performance is decidedly below par, even for a phone at this price. Even your average smartwatch can match up to the Lumia 650, and I haven’t seen a phone with a Snapdragon 200-series chip since Microsoft’s terrible Lumia 535, which came out in 2014 and was by far the worst Windows phone I’ve ever tested.

Admittedly, even the Lumia 950‘s hexa-core Snapdragon 808 couldn’t quite run Windows 10 Mobile as smoothly as I would have liked, but the OS’s sluggish tendencies are only exaggerated by the Snapdragon 212. While I couldn’t run our normal Geekbench 3 benchmarks to assess its single and multi-core performance levels, it was clear from everyday use that it struggles with even Microsoft’s basic suite of apps.

The Photos app in particular took an age to load, and I had to wait a while before the Windows Store became usable as well. Drilling down into the Settings menu was equally laggy and menu animations often jerked and stuttered.

It redeemed itself slightly when it came to browsing the web. Despite a measly Peacekeeper score of 303, most web pages loaded reasonably quickly and even media-heavy sites weren’t too troublesome to scroll up and down while it was still loading pictures.

However, it’s definitely not equipped to deal with games. In terms of benchmarks, it didn’t support GFX Bench DX’s Manhattan test, and even the offscreen T-Rex test only returned a pitiful score of 184 frames, which equates to just 3.3fps. In practice, I couldn’t even play a game of Threes, as the frame rate almost ground to a halt when a new number card appeared onscreen. 3D racer Beach Buggy Racing was also nigh-on unplayable due to its chugging frame rate, and even Candy Crush proved rather taxing. The actual game was fine, but the menu screens between each level were very slow to load and animate.

It’s also worth noting that since the Lumia 650 only has a Micro USB port for charging rather than a USB Type-C port like the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, it’s not compatible with Microsoft’s Display Dock accessory and doesn’t support Continuum, which is arguably one of the best features in the entire Windows 10 operating system. However, given that Continuum was still a little juddery on the Lumia 950 XL, I doubt that the 650’s processor would be able to handle it even if it did come with a USB Type-C port.

Microsoft Lumia 650 review: Conclusion

This is such a shame, as this would have been a great Windows phone if only it had a decent processor inside it. Battery life was very respectable at 11h 36m in our continuous video playback test with the screen brightness set to 170cd/m2, and its screen and build quality are practically second to none in its price range.

However, when it’s so crippled by its bad choice of chipset, the Lumia 650 just can’t measure up to its infinitely superior predecessor. If you’re looking for a cheap Windows handset, the Lumia 640 is still your best choice, as you can now pick one up for £120 SIM-free or £90 on pre-pay. The only silver lining is that this could be the basis for a great mid-range Windows phone just around the corner.

Buy the Lumia 650 now from Microsoft