Nokia Lumia 830 - Review

As Nokia's phone making business completes its transition into Microsoft, we witness the birth of one company's last Lumia handsets — the Nokia Lumia 830. The Lumia 830 is a beautifully crafted device, with a premium metal build combined with the colorful personalization of the Lumia range. But the highlight is clearly its 10MP PureView camera, which allows the device to offer high quality photography at an affordable price.

Despite being marketed as a flagship device, Microsoft packs the Lumia 830 into a modest box with only the basics — a charger, a microUSB cable and the usual manuals. There is no bundled headset. While the handset supports wireless charging out of the box, you will have to purchase the wireless charging plate separately.

The Lumia 830 design is clearly inspired by the flagship Lumia 930 and originates from the Lumia 925. You feel it exude Nokia's premium build quality as soon as you pick it up. The display curves slightly, almost seamlessly blending into the aluminum frame that runs around the sides.

Having reviewed the Lumia 925 previously, I notice the Lumia 830 frame is sharper to the touch while the 925 was smooth and curved comfortably. I am also not a fan of the silver metal color, which looks a little cheap. An issue I found on both the Lumia 930 and the Lumia Icon, though I do prefer the AT&T variant which features a dark metal band.

Nokia has slimmed the frame down to 8.5mm from the 9.8mm of the Lumia 930, making the Lumia 830 the thinnest Lumia ever.

The removable rear panel comes in orange and is available in green, white and black. The polycarbonate material is easy to grip and resistant to fingerprint smudges. The noticeable cutout in the rear houses the main attraction — the 10MP PureView camera — with PureView and ZEISS logos clearly visible.

Overall the handset has a generously sized display but remains usable with one hand. The sharpness of the side frame can get irritating at times, but not overly so. The Lumia 830 is easily one of the best designed smartphones from Nokia.

The Lumia 830 comes with a 5 inch ClearBlack display at a 720 x 1280 pixel resolution. It's not the 1080p display found on the flagship Lumia 930, but its 294 ppi pixel density provides excellent sharpness and great image quality.

Nokia continues to make the displays super sensitive, allowing users to interact with the Lumia 830 even with gloves on. The ClearBlack technology helps minimize reflectivity during outdoor use, however the relatively low brightness does hurt outdoor performance.

Above the display is the 0.9MP front camera, the earpiece and a couple of sensors. The front camera choice is somewhat disappointing — the Lumia 830 is clearly not designed for great selfies.

Below the display are the traditional Windows Phone capacitive buttons — Back, Start and Search. Holding the Back button brings up the multitasking menu, while holding Search summons Cortana or the Bing Search app. The primary microphone is located just below the Start button.

The left side is completely bare, while the right side houses the volume rocker, power/lock key and the camera shutter.

The 3.5mm headphone jack is found at the top center of the device, next to the microUSB port. The bottom of the device is completely bare.

On the back you will find the 10MP camera with LED flash and the speaker grill on the bottom. Removing the panel reveals the hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 128GB) and the nanoSIM bed. The battery can also be user-replaced if needed.

The Nokia Lumia 830 supports quad-band GSM, 3G, and LTE Category 4 (up to 150Mbps downlink / 50Mbps uplink, carrier-dependent). Local connectivity includes dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n (2.4GHz and 5GHz), DLNA, stereo Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS with GLONASS support.

NFC lets you share content with other NFC-enabled devices or use the Wallet app to pay at participating retailers. You can also cast content wirelessly to a TV, monitor or projector via the settings menu, and the internet sharing feature lets you share a connection with a custom broadcast name and password. The rear panel is wireless charging-enabled — just pair it with a compatible charging plate.

The highlight of the Lumia 830 is its 10MP PureView camera with a ZEISS lens. It also features optical image stabilization (OIS) for both still images and video, allowing shots at lower shutter speeds than regular cameras.

The Lumia Camera app offers white balance, focus, ISO, shutter speed and exposure settings. Expanding the top menu activates Pro mode with a real-time slider interface. Camera Lenses add further functionality — highlights include Lumia Cinemagraph, Panorama, and Refocus, with many more downloadable directly from the Lenses interface.

The 10MP samples are of high quality with accurate exposure and color. Both daylight and low-light photos appear crisp and detailed with very little noise. Using the Lumia Panorama Lens you can capture high-res panoramas in both portrait (30+ MP) and landscape (35+ MP) modes.

The Lumia 830 captures 1080p video at 30fps. By default, videos use dual-channel AAC audio at 256 Kbps, but you can enable Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 at 384 Kbps in six channels (AC3 codec). The OIS greatly improves video quality, dampening hand shake and making camera movement look smooth and professional.

The Nokia Lumia 830 runs Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1, which also includes the latest Lumia Denim software expansion package. Update 1 adds folder support, customizable snooze alarms, Cortana in more regions (UK and China) and various under-the-hood improvements.

Here's all you need to know about Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim

Microsoft's Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 includes Lumia Denim customization for Lumia smartphones.

The Lumia 830 features a lockscreen with time, date and important notifications. When idle, Nokia's proprietary Glance Screen takes over, providing latest notifications while preserving battery life.

Unlocking the screen reveals a collection of resizable live tiles providing up-to-date information from the apps they represent. With Windows Phone 8.1 you can set a background image for transparent tiles. Update 1 introduces folder support — drag tiles onto each other to create folders that continue to show live updates.

The Action Center is Microsoft's notification center, accessed by pulling down from the top of the screen. It manages alerts from calls, messages, emails and more, and provides four fully customizable quick-action toggles. Available options include Airplane mode, Bluetooth, brightness, camera, internet sharing, location, quiet hours, rotation lock, Wi-Fi and more. Notifications can be customized per-app for banners, sounds and vibration.

Press and hold the back button to view a list of open apps. Swipe through to close or resume them. Certain apps — Navigation, Cortana and Battery — continue running in the background unless specifically killed.

Microsoft's Do Not Disturb mode blocks calls and messages over pre-defined intervals, or automatically during calendar events. An Inner Circle feature lets priority contacts break through, and repeat callers within three minutes can also be allowed through.

IE 11 brings private browsing, Reader mode, unlimited tab support, password saving, tab and bookmark sync across devices and inline video playback. Back and forward gestures are added via left and right edge swipes. Reader mode strips articles down to text and images for clean, distraction-free reading with configurable background color and font size.

Word, Excel and PowerPoint viewing and editing is free and integrated into the OS. With OneDrive integration, documents sync automatically between your phone and computer. OneNote supports multi-level lists, photos, voice memos and OneDrive sync.

Microsoft includes its Bing app suite: Travel, Sports, Finance, Food & Drinks, Health & Fitness and News. The Weather app is also Bing-powered and offers a live tile and lockscreen widget.

Microsoft apps for Windows Phone

Microsoft's own lineup of apps for Windows Phones — previously called Bing apps — are available as universal apps on both Windows and Windows Phone.

Nokia Lumia smartphones come with an exclusive selection of Nokia apps including Storyteller, Creative Studio, HERE navigation and Nokia Camera lenses.

Nokia Collection for Windows Phone 8

Nokia has stepped forward to offer a very rich experience with their camera and navigation suites for Windows Phones.

HERE Drive+ offers free lifetime voice-guided navigation worldwide with offline map downloads. HERE Maps acts as a city exploration tool with place discovery, photos, reviews and Lonely Planet guides.

Xbox Music and Xbox Video offer content from the Xbox marketplace directly on your device. Your Xbox Games hub brings over your profile, avatar, friends and achievements from your console.

The Calendar app supports color-coded sub-calendars with day, agenda and weekly views including weather forecast icons. Storage Sense tracks internal memory and configures where content is saved. Battery Saver tracks battery usage and allows per-app background controls. Files for Windows Phone provides full file management. The Microsoft Store supports automatic app updates over Wi-Fi or cellular.

This is not the end for Nokia. We have already seen the Nokia N1 tablet with Android, and we hope to see much more when the company's non-compete clause expires on December 31, 2015.