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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CaedenV - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Totally agree, with SD800 I would not hesitate to pick this device up. The issue is that this was supposed to be launched along side new flagship and phablet devices that had the SD800 (or 801/805?) which had all of these features, better specs, plus 'hey cortana' and 3D Touch support. Sadly the 3D touch was not ready, so both devices were scrapped and we get the 830 by itself which is an OK device... but would make more sense in a larger product lineup.MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
The 830 could not easily be recommended with a price adjustment. Canada has it right, the Blue Deathstar does not. American carriers don't do WP any favors by mispricing or poorly supporting available models. Verizon did a bad job with Icon, though it doesn't seem like it's that great of a phone. The 1520 is the best thing you can get, IMO, provided you can deal with the size.MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Edit:"The 830 could easily be recommended with a price adjustment."
Price is too high. Mark it down and it would be a good phone.
Alexvrb - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Verizon is the worst offender. Not so much with pricing (well, on-contract pricing anyway), but with sales and support. If you walk into a Verizon Wireless store and ask about a Windows Phone chances are very high they are going to fight you tooth and nail, even if you just want to look at and play with a particular model. If you already know you want a certain model of WP, just order it online and save yourself the headache.Then there's situation with Verizon and WP updates. When every other major carrier worldwide has pushed 8.1 and Cyan to their Lumia devices (the ones they planned on updating in the first place anyway) and VZW still has zero ETA? Not cool.
Brett Howse - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Just got word that the Lumia 735 will be shipped soon, so keep an eye out for that.BMNify - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
Awesome, waiting for your Lumia 735 review.djds20 - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Comparing this to the Moto G (2014) should be $250.BMNify - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Moto G should not be compared with Lumia 830 as there are a lot of other factors in a phone apart from the SOC, you can compare Moto G with Lumia 630 or Lumia 730.Infact Moto G ($250) can be compared with another Android giant Xiaomi Redmi 1S ($89), Xiaomi is selling 100k Redmi phones every week in India apart from few thousand sales in Indonesia and Millions in China and HongKong.
Flunk - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Yes, this actually sounds a lot like a competitor to the Moto G as basically the only two mid-range phones worth buying.Gunbuster - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Not to mention they should be selling them like the Moto G... From their own website (Microsoft Store) unlocked with GSM/LTE bands for the major carriers.