Lumia 830: Microsoft hopes to seduce with slim 'affordable' model The Lumia 830, which is already available in the UK, is another midrange Lumia (from Microsoft, but it retains the Nokia brand) fighting for your attention. It squeaks in at under £300 SIM-free (it's £279 on PAYG at EE) or is free on contracts at around £25/month. I must admit, before the device arrived, the omens weren't …
They've got the same chipset as the cheapie Moto G which is half it's price, it's got 1Gb of RAM, the display is 720p, the camera is 10MP and starts up slower than my Xperia S from two-and-a-half years ago. The price is flagship, not much else is.
Did you not catch the bit about how people who make judgements based purely on specs without looking at the product are easily misled? The screen is superb, despite being 720p, and the phone does most things very quickly despite being on a "slow" System-on-chip.
The price quoted is SIM-free. What "flagship" mobile phone sells for £300 without contract or lock-in?
It's what it is: a good value mid-range phone whose performance is better than the spec-sheet numbers would suggest. Basically, the sort of "crap on paper, but really good in use" kind of phone that Nokia have always done well. The one thing they've never really done well was "flagship" phones...
Windows 8.1 isn't as resource-light as Symbian so they can't get away with cutting back on the specs like they could with the N8 or 808. The review has already said that the camera is slow to start up and it's slow applying visual effects to photos. Windows 8.1 is also an albatross compared to other mobile operating systems concerning battery life...
http://allaboutwindowsphone.com/features/item/19780_Windows_Phone_81_battery_woes-.php
I'm sure if you want a flagship phone which has calendar/contact sync, Twitter, Facebook, and can start up a handful of apps relatively quickly it's very nice. That's not what most people would call flagship though.
I don't know where people are getting these stories that 8.1 is a battery hog. I'm using a Lumi Icon with the developers preview 8.1.1/ No Cyan or Denim. And I easily get a full day ( 8 am to 12 pm), with at least 20% remaining out of my phone, if I don't play games too much.
What does the reviewer mean by "Tiles in Folders don’t follow the same behaviour semantics as Tiles outside Folders"?
They seem to work exactly the same way to me? They are just lumped together in a named group that can be collapsed to a smaller form. The way the collapsed form displays itself depends on how many tiles you push into it. When you expand it, the tiles behave just like all the other tiles. Or am I missing something?
"Here Maps for Android has killed any reason to own/'like' a Windows Phone, "
Windows Phone Lumias still have exclusive use of other Nokia tech. that can't be yet obtained on other platforms. Via Nokia they have the best touch panels, the highest contrast and lowest glare displays, the best cameras, the best microphones, etc., etc. Also the Windows Phone OS is leagues ahead of Android in security, performance, battery life and resource requirements.
where a phone that ships with half finished software, unpowered CPU that makes applications lag, and vastly overpriced, gets a glowing review...
Had this been an Android phone that had these serious deficiencies, it would have been slammed as "Landfill Android".
None of the other issues that Windows Phone suffers from get a mention. Still regular reboots, they still havn't make it possible to reliably stream to a bluetooth speaker without dropouts, the proximity sensors still have a mind of their own if you need to use the keypad during a call. The lack of apps is also massively downplayed,pretending as long as it's got a Facebook and Twitter app, all is OK.
I'm running the 8.1 Preview for Developers (have been since April) on my 920, and regular reboots are not something I experience. I'm not saying it's never happened.. but I couldn't tell you when it last did. Haven't experienced any issues with the proximity sensor when using the keypad during a call either.
I also stream to my Sony bluetooth car stereo all the time and don't experience any dropouts (and, incidentally, it sounds like a better codec is being used than when I've tried Android devices with the same car stereo).
I do get the odd dropout when streaming to the Sony bluetooth receiver which is hooked up to my hi-fi at home.. but then again I've had that issue with every smartphone I've used with it, most of which were Androids.
By what measure of "good"?!
You can't turn it off when charging. You can add a profile picture but you can't remove one. You're forced to create all your contacts in the cloud. It locks the screen when you're driving. The battery meter is frequently out by a factor of 50%. Every now and again it gets massively hot and runs out of power. Bluetooth connectivity (for me at least) is flaky. You scroll through a list, click on a contact to view their details and it calls them. Web browsing sucks. The mail client is limited in the type of authentication it supports. The file system is impregnable and connectivity to the PC is a pain. The quick launch bar looks like it was knocked together in a shed, and allows you to switch on "some" services (ie. not the GPS), but to switch them off it whisks you off to the settings page, where it will sit "loading" for an age while, for instance, turning off the wifi. The whole thing looks like it's been designed by a four year old with a pack of crayons, and a bag of jellybeans and the Teletubbies for inspiration. And that's before we start on the apps. Don't believe me? I used to be the nicest, mildest mannered chap you could hope to meet. Since getting the 1020 I've taken a couple of nice pictures and shot up a burger bar because they wouldn't serve me breakfast at 11:01am.
Lovely phone. I have one for sale if anyone wants to make me an offer.
"Lovely phone. I have one for sale if anyone wants to make me an offer."
You really should do some homework before you buy a phone. By the sound of your post, not only didn't you read any reviews, you didn't even look at the pictures in any reviews. Honestly, did you expect static icons like the iPhone or maybe widgets like Android?
Your initial comments made me think that you had maybe used a dodgy device (I've once had one that heated up hot enough to grill bacon -- or so it felt) but then you went on and shot yourself in the foot.
Your rant comment like buying a car only to complain a week later that it's green and you hate green and the steering wheel is square and the roof is missing. Did you look at it before you handed over the money?
Either that, or you're telling little fibs. Hmmmmmm, I wonder which it is....
Bull.
Nothing you've listed there has got anything whatsoever to do with Windows Phone - those problems could easily be experienced on any handset no matter what the operating system. And what about the apps? Yes some are missing but if you read up and know what you're getting into there are plenty of alternatives that get the job done. Using it as the anti-Christ poster boy to lambast Windows Phone is tiresome, unimaginative and old.
Forgive me for feeding the troll, but after using seven different models of Windows Phone;
"Still regular reboots"
I've never had this before and I expect this to be fixed in the next update. Still, it isn't good.
"they still haven't make it possible to reliably stream to a Bluetooth speaker without dropouts"
I stream to Bluetooth headphones and speakers and my car's Bluetooth attachment and never had a dropout once.
"the proximity sensors still have a mind of their own if you need to use the keypad during a call"
I've not seen that.
"The lack of apps is also massively downplayed, pretending as long as it's got a Facebook and Twitter app, all is OK."
I don't think the messages from Microsoft are giving the impression that it's Ok, but to be honest, I've got all the apps I want. Mind you, the only time I wouldn't recommend a Windows Phone to someone is if they're the kind of person who is desperate to try the latest game before never playing it again, or to have five free votes on The X-Factor.
I'm often amused when people quote the raw numbers, saying "My phone's app marketplace/store has over one beeeeelion apps I can install". My response to them is to ask how many they have got installed and point out that reality is that this is the number of apps they need in their app market place of choice. And, nine times out of ten, when I look at the apps they have, the size of their super-massive-market has nothing to do with their day-to-day 'lives'.
"where a phone that ships with half finished software, unpowered CPU that makes applications lag, and vastly overpriced, gets a glowing review..."
Sounds exactly like most low end Android Phones. Btw - on Windows Phones the applications don't lag like they do on Android. It has a much more efficient OS kernel.
Great review. As always, very insightful. In fact, based on my inability to afford an 'affordable flagship' and your review, I went for the 735 and see what you mean, the 735 has been hampered by the marketing.
With regards to the live folders, I think they're very well implemented and not sure what you mean by them not being very WP-ish. I'm impressed by how the tiles in these folders behave exactly the same as tiles not in folders, even when the folder is closed and the tiles are showing on the folder preview.
Also (slightly OT), I'm not having any issues at all with the Soft Nav Bar, I swipe it when I want it and know the option is there to make it permanent should I want it.
But you're very right about the crashes. They don't happen enough to annoy me, maybe once a week if that, but more than one would expect from a modern device.
Had two lockups on my 1020, never had any on the 800 or 920.
This is the inevitable problem of releasing too many models. This is a list of all the WP8 lumia devices:
520
525
620
625
720
810
820
822
920
925
928
1020
1320
Icon
1520
Total: 15.
How on earth can all of these be supported?
Now Apple has to support all of these for iOS 8, but that's devices from 2011-2014. The list of Lumia devices is 2012-2014.
iPhone 4S
iPhone 5
iPhone 5S
iPhone 5C
iPhone 6
iPhone 6 Plus
iPad 2
iPad 3
iPad 4
iPad Air
Total: 11.
iPad Mini
iPad Mini 2
iPod Touch 5G
I have a 735 too, but I haven't had any random crash/resets. What are you all doing? Maybe it's calls, I haven't made many yet.
In general I'm very pleased with it, but a couple of things to note:
The battery takes AGES to charge, at least on USB from a pc. However it lasts about twice as long as my previous Lumia 620.
And the sound quality from the headphone socket isn't as good as the 620. Sounds like there's a hole in the frequency response towards the bottom end, playing with the eq doesn't fix it.
Nokia made too many models just like HTC used to do. Microsoft needs to do a high, mid and low end phone, that's it. Many of these other phones complicate decisions on what to get and make supporting the OS with updates costly.
High end, excellent camera, best screen and hardware. Biggest storage.
Mid range, good camera, similar resolution to the high end, smaller, slightly slower CPU. Medium amount of storage.
Low end, okay camera, okay screen, slower CPU than mid-range. Entry level storage (expandable).
I think the 735 does as well.
The best Lumia phone was the 620 by a mile. It was a great size for a phone - not a phablet- and included all the sensors and hardware you need at a sensible price point.
As usual for Nokia, someone seemed to notice they built a really great handset and as ever started leaving bits out of it's 'newer replacement'. This isn't an MS thing, it's standard for Nokia, they make a really great handset and then everything after drops bits or requires a jump up the range with unnecessary bigger bits to justify the price.
The 630 dropped the compass, front facing camera, LED flash amongst other things and increased the screen size :(
The first current Lumia model I've found in the range to include all the bits the 620 had is the 735, but sim free it's a bit of a price jump and brings a stupid big screen and thinness. It has some nice things like QI charging and keeping the MicroSD and removable battery, but I really don't need a phone with a screen that's nearly 5". The 630/630 are missing too much to be considered successors to the 620 :(
Unfortunately a visit to a solid floor did my 620's screen in and now they are scarce the prices are on the rise it's going to have to be a 735 to replace it. Having to use my Galaxy Nexus while sorting out the new phone is like a step backwards. :(
Your 820 needs a wireless charging shell - it's not built-in.
I like my winpho (Lumia 920) but I do seem to be part of a small population.
I've found the OS rock solid, the only thing that ever crashes the phone is the Nokia music app and that's pretty rare.
I'm not an app junky so the smaller number of apps doesn't bother me, although the store has improved a lot since 8.1 came out.
Not sure I'd pay £300 for the reviewed phone though. The reason I like my winpho so much is that it was a bargain.
Even though it is definitely good to have competition in the mobile arena, MS really need to up their game. Android especially, but iOS as well are moving on so quickly, Windows Phone is being left in the dust while they decide how they are going to integrate Windows Phone with Windows 8.1.
MS don't have a great track record with hardware, so I expect they will make some fatal mistakes over the next couple of years which will ensure they are always thought of as 'also run'.
The single thing that will bring the largest improvement to MS phones right now: Make the {great} Word Flow available for all languages! Even if it's a bit downscaled to guess a little less accurately. The current one obviously looks at sentence context too. But the "lite" versions won't have to!
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