Nokia Lumia 830 Review
by Brett Howse on November 25, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Lumia
Design
The five inch display size seems to be what device makers have identified as being what people want in a normal smartphone. A good chunk of the smartphone market now has a display at or around five inches. Any larger, and the device can become unwieldy and require two hands for use (which is fine if that is what you are after) and once you use a five inch phone, those around four to four and a half inches seem kind of small. So the Lumia 830 comes in with the same display size as the Lumia 930 right at five inches.
Where the Lumia 930 started to go wrong, at least for me, was that it was too thick and too heavy. It could have likely gotten away with the thickness if the sides were rounded off, but the Lumia 930 took cues from the Lumia 928 and had squared off sides, with a slightly contoured polycarbonate back. The premium feel came from the metal edge wrapped around the phone.
The Lumia 830 shares the same basic design as the Lumia 930, with a squared off side made of aluminum, and a contoured polycarbonate back. The 830 is a bit thinner and a bit lighter than the Lumia 930, and it sounds small on paper but it really changes the in-hand feel of the phone. The 930 would slightly dig into my hands with the sharp contours, but the Lumia 830 does not do this at all. In hand feel is very good. To make this device as thin as they did, the manufacturer has designed its thinnest Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) system to date. The thinner OIS is likely in part due to the smaller main camera sensor.
The Lumia 830’s polycarbonate back comes in several colors, as is the norm for Nokia phones. The 830 is available in white, black, green and orange. Devices sold with a black back will have a dark grey aluminum strip around the outside, whereas the other colors come with a bright silver band. One great feature of the Lumia 830 over the 930 is that on the 830, the back is removable. Simply pry up at the bottom where there is a small slot, and the back pops off to expose the 2200 mAh battery, SIM tray, and microSD card slot. The 930 did not have microSD, so this is a bonus for the 830 for sure. People who swear by removable batteries will also be happy with this change. It gives the 830 a similar, but somewhat better in-hand feel over the 930, but keeps the perks of a removable back. Hopefully this is something we will see continue on future Microsoft branded handsets.
At the top of the phone we have our normal 3.5mm headset jack, and for the first time in a while on a Nokia Windows Phone, the USB port is also at the top. I prefer the port at the bottom myself, but it certainly is not a big enough deal to worry about. The Lumia 830 supports Qi wireless charging in the case, perhaps indicating a potential usage shift for the Lumia market. In order to make this shift more palatable, it would make sense if some vendors may bundle a Qi charger.
On the right side is the three Windows Phone hardware buttons which are the volume, power, and a two-stage camera button. Nokia's Windows Phones below the 830 have gotten rid of the camera button, which is a poor choice right now since the operating system is not set up to handle this very well, so it is great to see it on the 830. As far as the range of Nokia phones goes, it appears those branded with “PureView” cameras will have OIS and a camera button, so the Lumia 830 fits the bill here.
On the left side, there are no buttons to take away from the aluminum feel. On the bottom, there are also no buttons and no features at all except the two plastic strips which separate the aluminum bands to allow them to be used as antennae.
The design is one of the highlights of the Lumia 830, and perhaps this is where they get the “affordable flagship” name from. It has a premium feel about it with the aluminum strip, but loses none of the benefits of phones such as the Lumia 930 and keeps the removable back.
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cheshirster - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
Moto G can barely fight with 630. Definetly not with 735 and 830.CaedenV - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
like others here I have a 2 year old Lumia 920 and am looking for an upgrade, but there are limited options available. When I was essentially running a business out of my cell phone I was looking to upgrade to the 1520 (or better yet the long rumored 1525 what seems to have gone up in smoke), but now that I am a student and have a laptop a normal sized phone sounds much more appealing.I was looking really hard at the Icon/930, but the lack of Glance and SD card support are in fact deal-breakers. I use glance all of the time on my 920 (especially now that weather shows up on Glance... best simple feature ever!), and if I had SD support then I could fit my whole music collection, as well as more pics and vids of the kiddos to show off to friends and family. Plus the fact that it is only available on VZW, and I am not going there and will stick with ATT/T-Mo for service.
So then that leaves the 830. Playing with it in person, it is a great little device, and if you sell off the useless bundled fitbit for ~$80+ then the price is more than reasonable. It is a step down from the Lumia 920... but only a minor step down, and some things (like SD support, much lighter weight and slimmer design, significantly better camera, bigger display/less bezel, etc.).
But at the end of the day it is not a flagship. The processor is slower than the 920 for most of my uses (may be different if you play more games), the screen quality/resolution is lower, the build quality is not as good... it is exactly as advertised: an "affordable flagship" with all of the features, but at lower spec. The other issue is that it is not going to get the 'next gen' features like "Hey Cortana", or the 3D touch tech that MS is working on.
For myself at least, the only issue that my 920 has is that the GPS has lost it's mind and it refuses to narrow my position down closer than a 2 mile radius which makes navigation useless... but everything else on the device works fine and is in great shape. Unless there is some sort of crazy Black Friday deal, I think I am going to stick with the 920 until next summer when the next gen devices hit with Windows 10. It would be nice to have GPS again from time to time, but I would rather muddle through with GPS-less maps which still work and buy one high-end device later rather than a midrange device now and a high-end device in 6 months.
Wolfpup - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Since Windows Phone like most Android devices normally gets updates from the carriers...which is to say, they don't get updates- I'm wondering if we should all be running Windows Phone in developer mode is it gets timely updates. I have my 928 set like that and it's gotten probably 4 updates since 8.1, BUT it hasn't gotten any updates to the Nokia specific software yet.Still...I assume that means I'm getting security issues fixed.
(For that matter, I have no idea why my Nexus 7 tablet always takes months to get OS updates...)
synaesthetic - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
The reason your N7 takes so long to get updates is because that much time actually passes between Android version updates. Google has placed most of their functionality into Google Apps and the "Google Play Services" app, a move both intended to strengthen their ecosystem and fight device fragmentation.The OS itself only gets updated for major changes to low-level OS components, or when a new mainline version of Android is released.
Wolfpup - Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - link
No, what I mean is that after an Android update is supposedly released, and other Nexus devices are getting updates, my Nexus 7 takes MONTHS to get them. It was supposedly updated in November, for example, and STILL hasn't been updated.Busterjonez - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I believe that your 2G/3G web browsing battery life is missing the iPhone 6. Since many people don't live in an area where LTE is constantly available, it is suspect to omit this information.My guess is that the battery life for an iPhone 6 2G / 3G browsing session is bad to very bad, and you have left them off the charts to obfuscate this.
Brett Howse - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I didn't compare the iPhone 6 in any chart since it's not in the same price range. As for 2G/3G for the iPhone 6 in particular, I did not review that device but my suspicious is that it was due to the time crunch for that phone, since battery life testing takes the longest for any of our benchmarks.Busterjonez - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Fair point about the 6, I hadn't noticed it's absence on the other tests.Why include an iPhone 5s / 5c in the WiFi battery test, but not in the 2G / 3G battery test?
Brett Howse - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
The iPhones are not in bench for the 2G/3G battery life is the only reason they were not included. They were only tested as LTE:http://anandtech.com/bench/PhoneTablet14/989
The iPhone 5 was the last one tested for 2G/3G and it isn't sold anymore so I did not include it in my charts.
TheFlyingSquirrel - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Looks like a good phone that is priced way above its price range. You can buy a HTC Desire 820 of expansys or Newegg now for around $360-380 about the same price you can find a Lumia 830.I would bet that the Nokia would have a better camera but if you're just looking at numbers the HTC has the 13mp rear camera vs the 10mp Nokia. Has a 8mp front camera vs the .9mp Nokia.
Snapdragon 615 vs the Snapdragon 400. 2GB LPDDR3 vs the 1GB LPDDR2 Nokia. Depending on what floats your boat 5.5" display vs 5" Nokia. Both are 1280x720 16GB storage and microSD support. I think it would be hard on salesmen to pitch coupled with the poorly supported Windows Phone app store.