Nokia Lumia 830 Review
by Brett Howse on November 25, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Lumia
The Lumia 830 was launched by Microsoft at the IFA trade show in September. As seems to be the norm for most Nokia phones, it has taken a short while for announced phones to be generally available, but the Lumia 830 can now be found in many markets. When it was announced in September, it was marketed as an “affordable flagship” and we will take a look and see how it lives up to that kind of marketing. But marketing phrases aside, what we are left with is one of the best Nokia phones launched this year.
Unfortunately for fans of Nokia phones, there has not been a real flagship phone announced since the Lumia Icon/930 which came back in February. We did review that phone, and while it was quick and had a nice 20 MP camera, the battery life was subpar and it felt very thick and dense to carry around. It lacked Nokia’s Glance display, which is a big downside when coming from previous Nokia phones that support it.
The Lumia 830 is not going to fill a gap here as far as performance, which is a shame. The Lumia 830 shares the same SoC – the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 – as the Lumia 630, 635, 730, and 735. There is no substitute for performance, and the quad-core Cortex A7 at 1.2 Ghz is not the quickest chip around. In the Lumia 630 review, I found the quad-core A7 design slightly slower than the dual-core Krait of last year’s Snapdragon S4 Pro in pretty much all benchmarks. It is a shame due to the marketing and price of the Lumia 830 that it did not jump up to at least the Snapdragon 600. With that SoC, perhaps the moniker of “affordable flagship” could have held up.
Let us take a look at what makes up the Lumia 830.
| Nokia Lumia 830 | |
| SoC | MSM8926 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 400 |
| RAM/NAND | 1 GB LPDDR2, 16 GB NAND + microSD 128 GB |
| Display | 5.0” 1280x720 IPS ClearBlack LCD Corning Gorilla Glass 3 |
| Network | GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSPA/LTE up to 150 Mbps |
| Dimensions | 139.4 x 70.7 x 8.5 (mm) |
| Weight | 150 grams |
| Rear Camera | 10MP, 1.1 µm pixels, 1/3.4" 16x9 CMOS, f/2.2, 26 mm focal length, LED Flash |
| Front Camera | 0.9MP wide angle, f/2.4, 1280x720 video resolution |
| Battery | BV-L4A 2200 mAh, 3.8 V, 7.04 Wh |
| OS | Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim Firmware |
| Connectivity | 802.11 a/b/g/n + BT 4.0, USB2.0, DLNA, FM Radio |
| Location Technologies | Cellular and Wi-Fi network positioning, A-GPS, A-GLONASS, BeiDou |
| SIM Size | Nano SIM |
As you can see, we have pretty standard fare for a Lumia phone launched this year. The previously mentioned Snapdragon 400 is paired with 1 GB of memory, and 16 GB of internal NAND. The Lumia 830 supports microSD card expansion up to an additional 128 GB. With the Windows Phone Storage Sense app, storage should not be an issue - Windows Phone has moved from having practically zero support for microSD to now having the best support of all of the mobile operating systems.
A big part of any smartphone experience is the design of the phone, and Nokia (now Microsoft of course) has crafted one of their best experiences yet.
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TheFlyingSquirrel - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
The phone would have been so much more compelling if this came out last year or even more 1st half of the year before the newer Qualcomm chips started showing up in mid-range devices.PubFiction - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
You can pretty much chalk up almost every windows phone to this same statement, would have been good if it was 6 months to a year earlier. They seriously cannot expect to do anything with their last place priority for phone development.tralalalalalala40 - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
It's silly to mention megapixels when comparing cameras. By eye, a camera would have to be 4*8= 32 mp to be obviously better than an 8mp camera. What matters is more is sensor size/light intake/signal to noise/etc which has nothing to do with mp. (hint, 1080p is less than 2 megapixels...)ToTTenTranz - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I don't think Qualcomm sells the Snapdragon 600 in large quantities anymore, probably because the final price ended up too close to the Snapdragon 800/801, since it required an external baseband processor. My guess is the FireTV is the last "new" device getting those chips, as it doesn't need the extra baseband processor.I understand that getting the S610 could be too early for this Lumia 830. Though it's harder to understand why they didn't use the S410, since there are already lots of devices on the market using it and it's quite a bit faster than the old S400.
This makes me think that the Lumia division is still suffering from the same "inertial" problems as the old Nokia. This model would've made total sense during last year when the Moto G was reigning over the mid-end market.
Drumsticks - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I thought that the 830 was too early for S610 as well, but it's already available/shipping in several HTC Phones (their desire line or something?) and presumably some other OEMs as well.cheshirster - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
What is the point in S410? It is not faster.S600 is older then first gen WP8 phones( 920 and 820). Imagine Nexus 4 battery life tests instead of actual L830 numbers and you will understand why it has S400.
simard57 - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I recently swapped my original Moto X for a Lumia 830. The X was my third Android phone and this is my 1st Windows Phone. I am pleased with the 830 and feel it gives me a longer time between charges than my X did. Having a replaceable battery is a nice perq as well.One "issue" I have stuggled with is a way to import my google favorites from google Map. I exported the favorites into a KML file and was able to import them into www.bing.com/maps but regrettably, the web Bing Maps do not sync with Windows Phone Maps or Windows 8.1 Maps. I googled it and learned that Phone Maps syncs with Windows 8.1 Maps - and it does BUT there is no apparent way to import a KML file (or any file) into the Windows MAPS or Phone MAPS program. Please do not tell my I have to manually enter each of the entries!
What's up with that Microsoft? This IS a required feature!!!
cheshirster - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
Phone maps sync with here.com. Maybe this would help.simard57 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
is there a way to move my location library from the Google ecosystem into the Microsoft one?I will keep looking - but I do not see a way to import KML or any file into here.com
simard57 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
also - does here.com sync with windows 8.1 maps?sure feels like the maps situation in the Microsoft ecosystem is bit fragmented.