Nokia Lumia 830 Review
by Brett Howse on November 25, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Lumia
Display
Features such as two-stage camera buttons, multiple microphones for noise cancellation and surround sound video recording, and LTE connectivity are all great, but the one thing you use on any smartphone the most is the display. This means that a good display is something that all manufacturers should focus on. The improvements to smartphone displays over the last several years have been pretty dramatic, but it is still one area where a phones with similar internals can differentiate themselves from the competition.
The Lumia 830 has a five inch 1280x720 resolution IPS LCD. The Lumia line has alternated between Organic LED displays and Liquid Crystal Displays for many of their models. This particular device did end up with a LCD though, which brings the strengths and weaknesses of LCD along with it. Generally, color reproduction is better on a LCD but black levels and contrast cannot match OLED displays, with only the most recent Samsung OLED panels bucking that trend. The resolution of the Lumia 830 is a bit off the 1080p displays we see on higher end phones, but at 294 pixels per inch it is reasonably sharp and falls just under the iPhone 6 and its 326 pixels per inch.
As you can see in the above image, another advantage of LCD is that they are generally a RGB stripe, so there are no extra pixels or pentile matrices to deal with.
As with the Lumia 930, the Lumia 830 also supports “sunlight readability enhancements” which is a method of doing per pixel based content-adaptive backlight control from Apical which helps the perceived image when the device is used outdoors. The brightness is much higher on the 830 than the 930, but these additions can make the device much more usable outdoors.
One of the issues I had with the Lumia 630 when I reviewed it was the display had an almost matte texture to it which caused your finger to catch and drag when using the touchscreen. The Lumia 830’s ClearBlack display suffers none of this, and has a wonderful smooth coating on it which is also easy to clean. One other feature that seems to be somewhat exclusive to Lumia phones is Super Sensitive touch which allows the device to be used with gloves on and still interact with the touch screen. As you will see in the upcoming camera section, this is appreciated in colder climates.
To test the display accuracy, we turn to Spectralcal’s CalMAN 5 software package with a custom workflow. We utilize the X-Rite i1Pro Spectrophotometer for color accuracy and saturation, and the X-Rite i1Display Pro for contrast ratios.
At almost 500 nits, the Lumia 830 is plenty bright for most situations. However the relatively poor black levels result in a contrast ratio that is not spectacular. The black levels are the one thing I noticed while using this device especially when my daily phone is OLED.
The white point on the Lumia 830 is a bit under what we would be looking for, however you can see from the Calman results that the green starts to shift quite high as the white level rises. That combined with the blue falling away results in a less than amazing 5.207 grayscale average dE2000 score. It is not a great result especially when compared to the Lumia 630, which was one of the better scoring phone displays we have tested and is in a much cheaper device from the same manufacturer. It is clear that the Lumia line has not yet taken display calibration seriously.
The saturation sweeps are a bit better than grayscale. We are looking for values under 3, and the Lumia 830 is not too far off this mark. At 3.85, it is still quite a way from the Lumia 630’s 2.18 though.
The Lumia 830 does fairly well in the GMB checker, despite the poor grayscale. It comes in with a good, but not great result, and still falls short of the Lumia 630.
The Lumia 830 does support the recently added options for an advanced color profile, which will allow a user to adjust the display to one of three presets (Standard, Vivid, Cool) or to choose Advanced and manually adjust color temperature, tint, and saturation. We are still without a mobile operating system with full color profile support, but this is a good step in the right direction.
Using these settings, you should be able to pull the green down a bit in order to correct the display. The disappointment is that the display is not correct when it leaves the factory though.
The Lumia 830 ends up with a middle of the road LCD. Black levels are not the greatest, but the overall accuracy of the display is not so far off the charts as to be unusable either. The white point is a bit low, but better than some displays which come from the factor with a huge blue shift.
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Daniel Egger - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Well, I called it months ago that this phone is in many ways inferior to its predecessor. Would have been nice to include the benchmarks for the 820 but I already have a good idea on how that would compare.@Microsoft, sign me up for the next phone with a <5" OLED display that is run by something else than those measly entry level Cortex A7s, no problem if it's "just" a dual-core...
BedfordTim - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Add me to the list too. Changing to a smaller phone was a revelation and I don't want to go back to carting a tablet around all the time.LittleB69 - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
Been waiting for a new flagship model with Glance support from Microsoft. It has not arrived yet so I am sticking with my 920. Actually I have been thinking about going back to Android. Moved from Apple to HTC (Android) and from Android to Windows Phone. Was pretty happy as an Android user. After being without my WP for less than a week and using a S4.. I am staying on WP for sure :-)Gunbuster - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I'm in pretty much the same boat. Waiting for an upper end SOC, Qi charging, Glance, and Hey Cortana, and a good camera. How hard is it to just check all the boxes.P.S. they need to figure out cross carrier WiFi calling and then just sell it unlocked through the Microsoft store supporting ATT and T-Mobile.
tolgerias - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
As the owner of a Lumia 920 I am very interested in this phone. I know it's not a flagship, but I love the design and I prefer the 5" screen even though it is only 720p. If I could find this phone for $300 off contract I would buy it instantly, so I'll keep an eye out for it. There are a few things that would be an upgrade for me:1. 5" vs 4.5" screen
2. Sensor Core
3. Thinner and lighter design
4. Newer SoC
Last year I bought an iPhone 5s on my contract renewal, but even though I like iOS 8, I find myself going back to my 920 most of the time. I just love the amount of information WP 8.1 provides me at a glance. Live tiles, glance screen, and wireless charging are absolutely brilliant and always miss them when I am on a phone that doesn't have them.
So I'll stick with my 920 for now and will either jump on an 830 if the price is right, or I'll wait for the next true flagship to appear in 2015.
MarcSP - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I know Anandtech is known for its extensive benchmarking, but I think the performance section should include also a subjective assessment of the performance during "normal" use. Just looking at the numbers someone could understand that the device lags badly or even that the user experience must be quite frustrating. None of the reviews on other sites said so, on the contrary, they praised the general fluidity of the system except in a few high end games or very specific CPU/GPU intensive apps.cheshirster - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
+830Brett Howse - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
Hi. I wanted to address this comment because it's important.I did mention this in the performance section: "Microsoft has done a great job with the UI and animations of Windows Phone to make them fast and without the jitter of some platforms, even on low end hardware. But that does not help in-app performance, nor the app loading times."
Windows Phone has been fluid since practically day 1. They really nailed that part. But it is all of the other areas where the performance is a let down. You just see a lot more "Resuming..." screens on a device like the 830 than a much more powerful system like the 930. Opening apps can take far longer.
Performance is important even if the UI is smooth. There seems to be a common misconception that due to the OS being well designed for a smooth UI, the performance is not as important but really that's never the case.
I can give the Lumia 630 a pass by having Snapdragon 400 - that phone is now selling outright for under $100 in some places. I get it. But a device like the Lumia 830 has that same SoC yet costs 3-4 times more money than the Lumia 630. It needs to have something better. I mentioned Snapdragon 600 because the quad-core Krait is quite a bit more powerful even if it likely isn't the perfect choice due to no integrated baseband, but the OnePlus One comes with Snapdragon 801 for $299. For the price range the 830 came in at, it needs to be quicker.
So yes, it's fluid when using the OS, but once you get past the OS and launch an app, it's not as good as it needs to be for this price range.
cheshirster - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
Please don't bring Cyanogen phones in compartion.830 is obviously not for extreme spec and adrenaline seekers.
Do you have any tests on hands to post FAR longer times?
There were no such evidences between last gen 520 and 920.
S600 is not just "is'n perfect", it is largely outdated power-hungry SoC with no Sensor Core support (which you completely missed in the review).
Basically even you can not provide the name of hypothetical "better soc for 830" so I don't understand where all those complains are coming from.
Brett Howse - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
Snapdragon 800. There you go.