back to article Hello Moto... It's the Nokia Lumia 630

Nokia’s cheap-as-chips Windows Phone the Lumia 520 finally gave it a hit after years of decline, and the new 630 is itching to take the baton. The timing and the price of the Lumia 520 were spot on. BlackBerry had failed to update its BB7 phones for almost two years, and had nothing new to offer the budget segment of the …

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  1. jason 7

    Very much first world flaws though...

    I think one could survive.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Very much first world flaws though...

      Clearly a much better camera output on the Nokia - that alone would make it the favourite for many people.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If it was Apple...

    Lack of brightness control would be a "feature".

    NO wonder I did not get an orgasm , reading about it.

  3. Robert E A Harvey
    Thumb Up

    "shown the door, preferably from a few floors up"

    Nice. Been reading the BOFH?

  4. Longrod_von_Hugendong
    Go

    Looks like a solid...

    Entry right in to the cheap end of the market. This might do more to get people into windows phone than anything else. I wonder if the screen still burns in like the more expensive models?

    Will be interesting to see how this sells compared to low end Driod handsets. I suspect the sales stats will be the most sort after things when it comes to this phone. If I am in town over the weekend I think I will try to see if there are any in the earphone whorehouse.

  5. Cornholio

    Camera button

    I'm dissapointed that there's no camera button. I thought I'd read somewhere that it was a requirement for WinPhone hardware. Oh well.

    1. John P

      Re: Camera button

      MS have relaxed the rules recently, this and allowing an absence of hard nav buttons were two of the bigger changes. They also made WinPho free for phones below a certain size.

      The only gripe I have with that review is that the Live Tiles haven't been deprecated, they're just no longer the only way to get information to the user. These two things are not the same. In certain scenarios, Live Tiles work better than the Notification pulldown and vice versa, so having both is the best of both worlds in my opinion.

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: Camera button

        Totally agree John. Live Tiles + Notification drop down are complimentary, not either or and make the experience better.

      2. Robert Grant

        Re: Camera button

        Yes exactly, Live Tiles are in no way deprecated.

    2. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Camera button

      Requirement removed with version 8.1.

      The same goes for the physical buttons and the back button.

  6. Paul 98

    how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

    I have a SGII that is over 2 years old now, how would this (and other current budget phones) compare to flagships from a few years ago? (I'm not interested in the camera performance)

    1. Zane

      Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

      At least for me that's easy:

      - no automatic brightness

      - takes 20 secs to look up a contact

      - music player WIP

      That sucks, compared to my SGII.

      I'll have another Android, not sure if it will be a Samsung or a Motorola.

      /Zane

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: takes 20 secs to look up a contact

        Eh?

        1. big_D Silver badge

          Re: takes 20 secs to look up a contact

          My GS3 slowed down a lot with 4.2. After about a year the phone took around 10 seconds to get from the home screen to mail or contacts and about the same to get back to the home screen. We have 3 of them at work, all bought at around the same time and all suffered the same problems.

          Rooted them and Cyanogen Mod Android 4.4 installed and they are fast again. But I still prefer my Lumia.

    2. apyule

      Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

      Camera aside they are very similar. The SII is slightly smaller and faster but not by much. The displays are very similar and the SII will have a few more sensors. Add in the camera though and the 630 will be quite a long way behind.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

        "SII is slightly smaller and faster "

        Running Android I seriously doubt it is faster in general use.

        "Add in the camera though and the 630 will be quite a long way behind"

        And you mean a long way ahead surely when you add-in the 630 camera - the pictures are clearly much better on the Nokia.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

          No, I'm afraid not. The SII has a far better cameras. There is no contest for the SII front camera given it's missing on the Lumia 630. On paper the SII main camera is better, with higher resolution, LED flash and the ability to record 1080p video. The SII also has less noise and more accurate color reproduction than the Lumia 630. Nokia knew how to make amazing cameras, but they didn't put one in the Lumia 630.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

            Having used both phones, I can tell you that - as the picture on this review also clearly show - the camera and image quality on the 630 are vastly superior.

            As you would know had you bothered to read the article:

            "But it turns in a handsome effort beating the imagery returned by the Motos G and E, even though the G sports an LED flash. That said, the flash is so spludgy, you don’t really want to use it.

            Unlike the Moto E, the Nokia Lumia 630 camera does have the benefit of autofocus and higher resolution video capture – 720p at 30fps."

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

          Yes, SGS2 IS faster. My SGS2 has Android 4.1.2 IIRC. And the camera app doesn't load for 5 secs like in this slow Lumia.

    3. big_D Silver badge

      Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

      Pretty well. The SII would seem a bit of a dinosaur in comparison - we have an SII here and my other half has the Lumia 620 (last years model) and it runs rings around the SII.

      It depends on what you want to do with the phone / how deeply buried you are in the Google universe. If you have invested heavily in apps for Android or you are a dedicate GMail user, then the Moto E or G would be a better bet.

      If you aren't so tightly bought into the Sauron's kingdom, then the Lumias are a nice alternative.

      I have a SGIII and a Lumia 1020 (company phone and private respectively). The SGIII is now relegated to just being the company phone and company email device, all my apps are on the Lumia.

      I put the developer preview on the 1020 and 8.1 is very nice. I feel it is a nice move forward. The live tiles are still there, the Facebook integration never bothered me, as I don't have an account, so I can't comment on how that has changed in 8.1, although I believe there is now a separate Facebook app.

    4. Hellcat

      Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

      Not sure why you got a downvote for that question - It's perfectly valid.

      I also have a Galaxy SII which I replaced with a Lumia 1020. The main problem I was having with the GSII was the speed of the OS. Just moving from home screen to SMS messages took a few seconds, and it seemed to get slower with every update to the OS and Apps. Of course Jellybean was a long way from Gingerbread, and brought many great features but really demanded higher performing hardware. I would have said stay on Gingerbread to avoid the slow-down but you must stay up-to-date if you want to be able to install and update many apps.

      So this brings onto your question. How does this perform against a GSII? Probably on par with the GSII when both were new. WinPhone seems to get away with much lower hardware and remain zippy. Comparing to the Fully patched GSII I think you would find the Lumia noticeably faster.

      Best plan is to run the 'can I help you Sir' gauntlet and go and try them for yourself alongside your current fondleable, and ignore all the advice here - especially this one.

      1. getHandle

        One word...

        Cyanogen mod. Er, 2 words...

        1. SteveCarr

          Re: One word...

          Or Slimbean - my old SII has trickled down to my wife, and SlimBean has vastly improved battery life and seen a considerable performance boost as well, over the stock Sammy bloated software. That, and it also runs JellyBean, and has enabled connection of Bluetooth 4.0 LE devices as well!

    5. b166er

      Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

      I reckon we'd be pleasantly surprised with either the Moto or Nokia budget phones, but I have 2 SGS2s with extended batteries and I'm inheriting another soon hopefully.

      Should last me 6 years with any luck, before the buttons all wear out on them.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

      In my opinion SGS2 still completely destroys these cheap phones in every way. It has an awesome camera as well.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No front facing camera

    No sale, useless for Skype.

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: No front facing camera

      I skype a lot, but I've never used the front camera on my 1020...

    2. Jim 48
      Thumb Up

      Re: No front facing camera

      Oh, you went there!

      (Have an upvote)

    3. Adam 1

      Re: No front facing camera

      Meh, I have kit kat which is pretty useless for Skype too.

  8. joeW

    Removable battery and SD slot

    Good to see.

    Wonder if there will be any after-market high capacity batteries available for it? A lot of people, myself included, don't give a flying fuck about how thin a phone is if it can go a week between charges.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There's far too much blue in the Nokia photo of the plant and space hopper.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No, there is an orange cast to the photos from the Moto - probably a poor white balance. The pictures from the Nokia are much better - as it specifically states in the review.

  10. Ol' Grumpy

    Question

    Does it still require that 'orrible Zune program be installed to backup photos etc? I quite like Windows Phone but Zune completely killed the experience for me.

    1. hammarbtyp

      Re: Question

      i'm pretty sure that has been dropped, although I agree it was one of the reasons why I did not get a 520

    2. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Question

      They killed off Zune with the release of Windows Phone 8. There is a separate Windows Phone app and application now (also a version for OS X users). Additionally photos can simply be copied off the phone using Windows Explorer.

    3. Hellcat

      Re: Question

      No, that was killed off with Windows phone 7. I agree it was traumatic.

    4. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Question

      No. Zune went over a year ago, with Win Pho 8.

      I had the Zune software for my WP7 Lumia 710. And it was buggy, slow, ugly, really confusing, didn't look anything like a standard Windoes Vista / 7 app - and generally made iTunes look like the best piece of software in the world. I hope someone at MS danced on its grave.

    5. GitMeMyShootinIrons

      Re: Question

      Fortunately, no. My daughter has on old Nokia on WinPho 7.x and we both hate Zune. With WinPho 8.x, you can do pretty much everything through a file browser if you want, though the newer Windows phone software is OK (The Windows 7/8 software will talk to iTunes if you want to enter that level of hell).

    6. RyokuMas
      Thumb Up

      Re: Question

      Zune hasn't been needed since WinPhone 8 launched. Thankfully!

    7. Stacy

      Re: Question

      My 820 wouldn't even connect to Zone. You needed the Windows Phone application to do a phone back up. However, for pictures you just open File Explorer and drag and drop...

      My biggest gripes with the 820 were the screen resolution, the fact that I could not have different volumes for the ringer and music and the fact that my thermostat doesn't have a windows phone app, and they are not planning on making one. And the last is hardly the fault of the phone ;-)

      It's a good phone though, best overall interface of the three main platforms for me. Shame about the above issues I had...

      (typed on a Z1 compact though because of them...)

  11. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Screens

    Having had a large percentage of Nokia Lumia's come back with broken Digitisers I hope its more robust, unsure why but we must apply butter or something to the phone before we give them out.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why that number?

    I don't understand, I thought that Nokia used their numbers as ranges with the 820 succeeding the 800, 925 the 920 and so on, so why isn't this named the Lumia 530?

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Why that number?

      I would think the 630 is the replacement for the 620 and 625... The form matches the 620 better than the 520.

  13. Anonymous Coward 101

    "Well, quite amazingly, Nokia omitted an automatic display brightness control, requiring you to fiddle with the display manually."

    It cannot be! My monocle has just tumbled from my eye socket!

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Andrew,

      I'm sure that the Lumia 710 (old WP7) didn't have auto display brightness. The 800 had OLED, so it didn't matter, but the 710 was crap outside without setting brightness to full.

      If it did, it wasn't changing things enough, becasue I remember setting mine to full brightness after 2 days. You couldn't put a link to the brightness setting on the main screen like Android, and I couldn't see the menu to do it manually once outside otherwise. Wasn't great for battery life, and was too bright of my reading glasses indoors. But it was £120, and at the time there wasn't an Android to touch it for under £250.

      As for your comment on muting the phone, don't you still just tap the bar at the top of the screen with the battery and signal indicators, then tap on the volume to mute it? And I thought 8.1 was supposed to allow you to pin any setting to the homescreen?

      1. veti Silver badge

        The 710 was from medieval times (well, 2011 anyway). More recent models - including the dirt-cheap Lumia 520 - have excellent automatic display brightness adjustment.

        That's what makes this decision so strange - for no apparent reason, a feature that was popular and working well has been taken out...

  14. Dinky Carter

    Live tiles deprecated in 8.1 ?

    ... er, what?

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Live tiles deprecated in 8.1 ?

      My thoughts exactly. They are still working on my 1020 with 8.1. Although I believe MS want people to start using the notification drop down more.

  15. MrWibble

    No more landfill?

    So from this, and the Moto E review, I get the feeling that all mobes are pretty much good enough for most people - given the only things identified in the reviews are pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things (slow, low, powered, crap screen, etc that plagued last year's landfill).

    1. Adam 1

      Re: No more landfill?

      I am personally wondering when the time may come whereby phone reviews mention how the phone copes when making or receiving phone calls. That is important to some people.

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