Nokia's first tablet isn't a bad device by any means. It delivers impressive gaming performance, has built-in cellular support, an incredibly bright screen, and includes a suite of Nokia-only apps.
Nokia Lumia 2520
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
However, I couldn't figure out why the 2520 is so thick. The Microsoft Surface 2 has just as much girth, but earns its corpulence with a kickstand and a full USB port.
The Lumia 2520's screen also has a distracting yellow tint, and the $149 keyboard/cover accessory isn't nearly as comfortable to type on as Surface 2's Type Cover.
It's great that it comes with a full version of Microsoft Office -- as all Windows RT tablets do -- but because it's running RT, that also means it's incompatible with legacy Windows programs and lacks app support compared with Android and iOS.
At $499, the 2520 is about $50 more expensive -- for the off-contract version -- than the Surface 2, placing it squarely in the shadow of Microsoft's RT tablet.
Design
If Nokia were going to make a tablet, based on its recent phone designs, the Lumia 2520 is almost exactly how I'd imagine it to look. The Verizon version we got for review has a striking red chassis and a thick jet-black bezel on the front. There's also an unmistakable plastic feel to its body, but it doesn't necessarily give off a cheap tablet vibe. The back is slightly sloped so that the edges of the tablet are a couple centimeters off your desk when laid down flat.
In light of recent tablet releases like the Apple iPad Air and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9, the Lumia 2520 feels a bit heavy. To be sure, it's not quite as heavy as the Microsoft Surface 2, but with the lack of a kickstand, I found myself holding the 2520 in my hands a lot more than I did the Surface 2. So its heft was probably more noticeable to me.