IFA 2014 saw Nokia take to the stage under the big umbrella of Microsoft Devices to announce two new colourful handsets: the Lumia 830 and the selfie-obsessed 730.
Neither are quite the follow-up to the 1020 that many of us had hoped for, but that’s also sort of the point. Microsoft wants to show us that we can have a great camera on a phone that won’t cost the Earth, and the 830 hopes to be proof of this.
Officially, this is a high-end Nokia with a more affordable price tag. And while not all of the guts reflect a premium handset, the superb camera and rich screen come together to make one of the most appealing Lumia phones yet.
Design
When it comes to the look and feel of the phone, your best comparison is the Lumia 930; it’s just as thick (about 8.5mm) as Nokia’s and shares the 930’s squared edges. At 150g it’s a little weighty compared to some of the competition but then you do have to consider that the 830 isn’t a small device.
The affordable price tag means Microsoft has sacrificed some screen quality, but while the 830 doesn’t sport full HD, I believe the 5-inch 720p is more than sufficient for this phone. Everything looks crisp and vibrant.
Speaking of which, you’ll be able to pick one of these up in a choice of orange, green or black, continuing Nokia’s line of luminous hues.
So let’s get into the guts. Inside is a quad-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor, which makes the 830 quite underpowered by today’s standards, but it was easily up to the challenge during my play time with the handset.
Meanwhile the 1GB of RAM is unsurprising for a phone of this price, but not detrimental. And of course, you’ll be pleased to hear that the internal 16GB of storage space on this camera-focused phone can be boosted to 128GB via MicroSD if needed.
Features and camera
But the camera is what we’re all here to see. Microsoft wants to show us that a high-quality camera doesn’t mean we have to pay dearly for the phone on which it sits.
The asking price is 330 Euros, which converts to about £260/$425. No, you’re not going to get results on par with the 1020‘s 41MP snapper for that sum, but the 830’s camera could blow rivals like the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the iPhone 5S out of the water.
In fact, at its IFA press conference, Microsoft wasted no time in directly comparing the quality of the 830’s images to that of said competition. In what we saw the 830 came out trumps, mostly thanks to some neat post-photo edit features – but we’ll need to spend some proper time with the camera in order to truly put it to the test.
One of those post-photo features is particularly clever. The dynamic flash function allows you to switch the flash “on” or “off” after the picture has been taken. To do this it takes two pictures – one with the flash, one without – and allows you to slide between the two until you hit the perfect gradient.
The 830 also arrives with Lumia Denim, the latest Windows Phone 8.1 update. The upgrade’s biggest improvements lie in the camera aspect. The PureView camera now boots up much faster, while a new hands-free feature for Cortana means you’ll be able to wake up the voice assistant with a simple ‘Hey Cortana’ – very Google Now.
Like the 730, the 830 also comes with a new Selfie Camera app, which more of less speaks for itself (You know, that trend that’s apparently a new “thing” when in reality people have been taking self-portraits for years but apparently now it’s got a name we’re just going to ignore all of that.)
The app comes with a few features for editing your face post-snap, and an automatic capture mode that will detect your face and start counting down before grabbing that self-portrait.
Early verdict
Given the affordable price tag, the 830 could turn out to be a real winner in the Lumia range. In a time where everyone relies on their smartphone to function as a camera, offering a PureView for this cost makes for a really appealing proposition.
The main problem, of course, is the not-so-popular Windows Phone operating system. With Lumia Denim it’s getting better, faster and stronger. We have faith that as long as Microsoft and Nokia keep giving us reasons to invest in the hardware, it won’t be long before the software starts proving to be just as brilliant.
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