Nokia Lumia 830 Review
by Brett Howse on November 25, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Lumia
CPU Performance
Performance is where the “flagship” name falls apart. The internals of the Lumia 830 are essentially identical to that of the Lumia 635, and that model is cheaper. The Lumia 830 does have 1 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of onboard storage, but the MSM8926 cannot be the SoC in any device labeled as a flagship.
The Lumia 930 with the 2.2 GHz quad-core Krait CPU is very fast, and changes the way you expect Windows Phone to operate. Microsoft has done a great job with the UI and animations of Windows Phone to make them fast and without the jitter of some platforms, even on low end hardware. But that does not help in-app performance, nor the app loading times. The Lumia 930 was a breath of fresh air in regards to performance of a Windows Phone, and unfortunately the Lumia 830 lags behind.
To test CPU performance, we use some standard web based benchmarks as well as BaseMark OSII from Rightware. This gives us a comparison across operating systems. For the graphs, I have tried to get a representation of devices that might be shopped against the Lumia 830 in order to keep the graphs reasonable and meaningful, but if you are curious to see how it compares against any other device we have tested, please check out our benchmark comparison pages in Bench.
Performance is poor across the board. The Snapdragon 400 with quad-core Cortex A7 just cannot compete with many other phones in a similar price range.
Next up, we will take a look at the GPU performance. This is measured with Basemark X 1.1 and GFXBench numbers, and with a caveat – the current GFXBench version is 3.0, but only 2.7 is available on Windows Phone at the moment (3.0 is listed as coming soon) so we do not have as large of a list of comparable devices for the GPU results.
GPU Performance
The Lumia 630 with only 512 MB of RAM is unable to install GFXBench, but we can still compare the 830 to the 930, 1020, and a couple of other devices. The Adreno 305 GPU in the Snapdragon 400 can be compared to the Adreno 225 in the Lumia 1020, but regardless is quite a step down from the Snapdragon 800’s Adreno 330 GPU found in the Nexus 5 and Lumia 930. Apple has consistently pushed for a better GPU in their products and that shows again here even though these are not the current flagship models from Cupertino.
The biggest disappointment with the Lumia 830 is performance. The Lumia 1020 outperforms the 830 in Basemark X 1.1, but both devices fall well short of the Snapdragon 800 Nexus 5. With a device marketed as an “affordable flagship” it would have been nice to see a step up in performance here. The Snapdragon 600 for sure seems like it would have been a perfect fit to fill out the Lumia lineup.
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kspirit - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
In addition: I am aware that the design of the 830 probably hadn't started at the time of the acquisition. But I can't believe the same Nokia who put glance and camera buttons on even the 620 two years ago wouldn't do it in the x30 refreshes. Especially considering that those were unique, signature capabilities that competing manufacturers don't offer. MS must have had some input in this phone. I'm sure they would have cared about cost cutting on the company they were just on the brink of acquiring. No?cheshirster - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
Glance and camera button obviously presented on L830 :)You should be really high on something to blame it for having features that 730 and 630 are missing.
retrospooty - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Yeah, I dont think he is grasping the Tiered model#'s and the concept of price points. He seems to be assuming newer is always higher end, even on a lower end model.Now if the 925 replacement came out and was lesser than the 925 he would have a great point. But the 830 is NOT the 925 replacement model.
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Keep in mind that Microsoft/Nokia hasn't released anything intended to be more than a midrange or low-end phone since the Icon/930. It may look like they are cutting back to those of us interested in flagship devices - but it isn't really the case. :)close - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Well... they are using the same low-end SoC on 4 of their product lines which is disappointing (5xx, 6xx, 7xx, 8xx). And for a smart phone some CPU performance is a must otherwise the experience is really frustrating. More so than not having some niche features like glance. I'm not talking about intensive 3D games, but it should allow the user to comfortably run applications without feeling the performance hit. I was expecting the 830, maybe even the 730, to have the 600 series SoC. MS/Nokia have skipped the mid-range and went from low-end to high-end. Although the premium build and other features don't really compensate for the distinct lack of snappiness in applications.It's like building a premium sedan with a 1l engine.
melgross - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I imagine they're trying to save money. Considering g how small sales are, they need to buy fewer parts in larger quantity to have any hope of a profit, which, from looking at Microsoft's financials shows isn't likely happening.They are also concentrating on lower priced models in order to attempt to get sales in China, where they've fallen to 0.6%, and India, where sales are down as well. Samsung seems to be working on the same strategy, from their last announcement.
PubFiction - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
They need to stop thinking about making money and start thinking about releasing an attractive product and actually getting people to buy their stuff. Nickel and diming right now is not going to work.cheshirster - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
Their sales are two-three times larger then HTC and larger then Moto for many quarters (if you think moto g's and e's are selling in BIG quantities you a wrong)Alexvrb - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Doesn't sound like you've really used one. :/ Don't get me wrong, I do game and I wouldn't buy one as a result. But you specifically said "I'm not talking about intensive 3D games". So, taking those out of the equation... even with the "slow" CPU, it does everything you're talking about just fine. They really run great, and the OS has superb SD card support - which negates the only major drawback I could hurl at this phone, the lack of storage.But again, since I do game occasionally on my phone, I would want a flagship. The Icon and M8 are both very nice models. However even those are going to need replacement in the not-so-distant future, and I hope Verizon stops being a Big Red Baby and works hand in hand with MS on future phone releases and updates alike.
close - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
Actually I did get the chance to test drive one of these (I do some hardware compliance so I get to test drive most relevant devices on the market, at least to get a rough idea about them). The OS itself is more than snappy on this CPU. But try to use it as any normal person would use a smartphone and it starts to choke. Loading applications or switching between application takes a long time. It's just not the experience I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, the device doesn't become unusable. It's just that at this price point at given the 8xx series position in MS's product lineup I have some higher expectations when using the phone.MS was careful to create an OS that runs great on low-end hardware but this isn't the case for software makers. And your smartphone is defined by the applications it runs and how it runs them.
Bottom line, it's a nice phone but given the competition it's too expensive for its worth.