Nokia Lumia 930 Review

Final Words

I feel like Nokia (now Microsoft of course) has done a lot right with the Lumia 930. The 5” 1080p display is a nice addition, and every time I use a larger phone it makes it hard to go back to one with a smaller display. I do not find it too awkward to use, and the increase in real estate on the home screen is a welcome change.

The design of the phone is also striking, especially when equipped with the more vibrant green or orange backs. The aluminum frame around the outside certainly gives the phone a premium feel. The Corning Gorilla Glass has a fantastic coating applied to it which makes it very easy to slide your finger over, and the curved edges of the glass really make the display feel like is part of a single cohesive unit.

The performance of this device is also spectacular, and finally gives Windows Phone some hardware parity with Android. Everything feels so much quicker on this phone than older models. While not quite the latest and greatest SoC from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 800 is a huge step forward from the Snapdragon S4 as clearly seen in the benchmarks. Benchmarks are not how we use the device of course, but they quantify how the phone responds to our actions.

Nokia has built a reputation on its phone cameras, and the Lumia 930 is a solid camera. While not as outright ridiculous as the Lumia 1020, it can still capture fantastic images and has decent low light performance. The new ISP helps here too, with much faster focus and capture latency. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Lumia 930 sports a 20 MP camera, when the Snapdragon 800 supports up to 21 MP using the built in ISP. Unlike the Lumia 1020, no custom silicon was required, and the result is a much faster camera. The Nokia Camera application also sets the benchmark in the mobile phone space with regards to manual control. If they would just add HDR, 4K video, and more FPS support on the video capture they would pretty much have the gamut covered, and it looks like that is finally coming later this year with the Lumia camera update and Lumia Denim firmware.

Windows Phone itself has also come a long way since the 8.0 release, and while there is certainly an app gap between Windows Phone and iOS/Android, it is less of an issue than it used to be if you can live without Google services. Microsoft spent so much time re-inventing the underlying operating system that it found itself in the unenviable position of being behind in not just apps, but also features and hardware. They have a lot of work to do in order to catch up, but Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1 is a big step in the right direction, and only a few short months after 8.1 was released.

There are of course some detractions from the Lumia 930. The form factor, while visually appealing is not a perfect fit in the human hand. With sharp sides and almost no taper to the device thickness, it really does feel somewhat unwieldy. The one missing feature which is most missed is Nokia Glance screen. Perhaps if you are new to Lumia phones you would not miss it, but as someone who is used to having Glance, not having it anymore is very difficult to get used to. We are used to progress moving us forward, and any regressions are difficult to cope with.

When evaluating an evolutionary device, we need to compare it against the previous version. Other than Glance support, the Lumia 930 is a fantastic upgrade over the 920/925/928 of the previous generation. The camera is good, the display is larger and crisper, and the design is a new take on the polycarbonate unibody design. But we also have to compare it with other devices in the same market, and here things are not so clear. The Lumia 930 has a camera which is one of the better cameras put into a smartphone, so that is a win, but with its thick body, it is less comfortable and possibly less appealing than something like the HTC One (M8) which is now available with Windows Phone as an option. If the Lumia 930 had Glance support, this would likely be an easy win for Microsoft, but right now the battle comes down to individual aspects of the competition and what you value more.