Review: Nokia Lumia 830

Now that Microsoft Devices owns the “Nokia” name, there aren’t likely to be many Nokia phones to come out, replaced with Microsoft’s badge in the months to come. So how does one of Nokia’s last handsets perform, and does it have the potential to be your next phone?

Features

Not quite a flagship but still packing specs, Nokia’s Lumia 830 is — on paper — a cut down version of Nokia’s Lumia 930, a phone touting a similar design with slightly different innards.

The design is close and so is the screen, with a 5 inch high-definition 720p (1280×720) In-Plane Switching LCD touchscreen display, instead of the Full HD 1080p (1920×1080) AMOLED found on the 930. With this difference in size, the display shows off 294 pixels per inch, instead of the 441 pixels per inch seen on the Lumia 930.

Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 protects the display, too, helping keep the phone scratch free some of the time, though not all, dependent on how much of a scratch or tumble the handset takes.

Under the screen, you’ll find a bunch of internals, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor, a chip that is clocked at 1.2GHz and matched with 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, and a microSD in case you’re itching to expand this with more storage later on.

Windows Phone 8.1 runs on the Nokia Lumia 830 out of the box, and the phone comes with 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi support, DLNA, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0 with Low Energy and Apt-X, Near-Field Communication (NFC), Category 4 4G LTE (150/50), and support for wireless charging if you have a compatible charger.

If you do not, the Nokia Lumia 830 will take charge from the standard microUSB charger.

Cameras can be found on the phone too — of course these days — with a 10 megapixel PureView shooter on the back and 0.9 megapixel camera up front Video can be captured on both, with Full HD 1080p on the rear camera, while 720p on the front camera.

Buttons on the handset are typical for a Nokia phone, with three soft buttons below the screen for back, home menu, and search, while the three hardware buttons can be found on the right edge for volume, power, and camera shutter, the latter of which will activate the camera from any screen — even off — when held down.

Ports can also be found, though only two on the exterior of the phone, with both the 3.5mm headset jack and a microUSB charge port sitting at the top of the handset.

The phone’s rear cover can also be removed, and this will show the battery, as well as the nanoSIM slot and the microSD slot.

The battery is rated for 2200mAh and is removable.

Performance

If you’re in a mobile phone or electronics retailer and are looking at both the Nokia Lumia 830 and 930, it might be hard to see what the difference is. Indeed, the two are both 5 inch 4G smartphones with colourful exteriors, and outside of a few very minor cosmetic differences — thickness, port placement, the size of the camera module on the back — look practically identical.

But they are different, and it’s something you can easily discern when you break them down and start using them, with different specs and a different screen, despite the similar size and design across both of them.

In the hands, Nokia’s Lumia 830 feels very much like Nokia’s Lumia 930, though a touch thinner and a little lighter, and that’s because both of these are true.

Nokia's Lumia 830 on the left, the Lumia 930 on the right.

Plonk the two models down side by side and you’ll find the Lumia 830 is a little over a millimetre thinner, and a good 17 grams lighter, which is more noticeable than you might think.

The design, however, is more or less the same, with the same aluminium frame used on this model, making the otherwise colourful polycarbonate (plastic) body look a little classier and more in line with the Surface computers Microsoft makes.

Nokia's Lumia 830 on the left, the Lumia 930 on the right.

It even has the same plastic line accents inside the aluminium just like the Lumia 930, solidifying the colourful look Nokia and Microsoft Devices give to its phones and making the whole thing look a little less like a gumball machine.

You’ll still see some bright colours though: gone are the yellow, cyan, and magenta, with Nokia sticking with its orange, green, and black phones, that are just as striking, though very eye catching. We happened to like the yellow Nokia smartphones previously, happily using them, but the green Lumia 830 we’ve been reviewing is even flashier in public, with its neon green exterior acting like a beacon to the world.