Nokia Lumia 830 Review
by Brett Howse on November 25, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Lumia
CPU Performance
Performance is where the “flagship” name falls apart. The internals of the Lumia 830 are essentially identical to that of the Lumia 635, and that model is cheaper. The Lumia 830 does have 1 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of onboard storage, but the MSM8926 cannot be the SoC in any device labeled as a flagship.
The Lumia 930 with the 2.2 GHz quad-core Krait CPU is very fast, and changes the way you expect Windows Phone to operate. 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. The Lumia 930 was a breath of fresh air in regards to performance of a Windows Phone, and unfortunately the Lumia 830 lags behind.
To test CPU performance, we use some standard web based benchmarks as well as BaseMark OSII from Rightware. This gives us a comparison across operating systems. For the graphs, I have tried to get a representation of devices that might be shopped against the Lumia 830 in order to keep the graphs reasonable and meaningful, but if you are curious to see how it compares against any other device we have tested, please check out our benchmark comparison pages in Bench.
Performance is poor across the board. The Snapdragon 400 with quad-core Cortex A7 just cannot compete with many other phones in a similar price range.
Next up, we will take a look at the GPU performance. This is measured with Basemark X 1.1 and GFXBench numbers, and with a caveat – the current GFXBench version is 3.0, but only 2.7 is available on Windows Phone at the moment (3.0 is listed as coming soon) so we do not have as large of a list of comparable devices for the GPU results.
GPU Performance
The Lumia 630 with only 512 MB of RAM is unable to install GFXBench, but we can still compare the 830 to the 930, 1020, and a couple of other devices. The Adreno 305 GPU in the Snapdragon 400 can be compared to the Adreno 225 in the Lumia 1020, but regardless is quite a step down from the Snapdragon 800’s Adreno 330 GPU found in the Nexus 5 and Lumia 930. Apple has consistently pushed for a better GPU in their products and that shows again here even though these are not the current flagship models from Cupertino.
The biggest disappointment with the Lumia 830 is performance. The Lumia 1020 outperforms the 830 in Basemark X 1.1, but both devices fall well short of the Snapdragon 800 Nexus 5. With a device marketed as an “affordable flagship” it would have been nice to see a step up in performance here. The Snapdragon 600 for sure seems like it would have been a perfect fit to fill out the Lumia lineup.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
98 Comments
View All Comments
sandman74 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I've been tempted to try a lumia for a while now but Nokia (now MS) just keep on releasing disappointing phones.I'm not interested in the low end and the majority of their high end phones are very old now with recognised flaws mentioned in every review.
I find it amazing how many long term lumia owners are willing to side grade (down) to a phone like this from almost equivalent hardware and then be locked in for another year or two.
Talk about being taken for a ride.
The off contact price us just too much as well.
The only lumia that makes sense is the 735 which can be found for as little as £150 in the UK and is very similar spec wise to this. It may also be a middlle end phone but atleast it's priced right.
The biggest turns off for me about this phone are the slow processor, and the metal band styling with square edges... It may not dig into the hands as much as the 930 but it's not that comfortable to hold either (tried it this weekend).
Good review though. I'm looking forward to the 735 one.
tralalalalalala40 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
These devices will have very limited importance until we start seeing blockbuster releases of gadgets and useful services that aren't just iOS/Android compatible.Harry_Wild - Saturday, December 6, 2014 - link
I hope Anandtech does a review of the 735 too! I like it much more then the 830 here. It strange that the reviewer used last year's models on the iPhone 5S and 5C along with Moto X 2014 this year's model and HTC M8 for comparison sake. Only one graph on iPhone 6 if I recall!cheshirster - Sunday, December 7, 2014 - link
http://www.windowscentral.com/lumia-camera-update-...New camera app on video
Seems faster.
nickolas - Thursday, December 11, 2014 - link
I have a Nokia 520 having had iphones and a Nexus device in the past. My only gripe with the 520 is the loading times and crashes of apps like Skype and Viber I use often. I would be REALLY interested to know the performance on loading apps (open for the first time or resuming) of the 830. This metric alone if it could match an Iphone 5 would make me buy it.I am sure many Windows phone users are interested in this, because it is the only problem with the user experience in this great platform.
lalcha - Saturday, December 27, 2014 - link
Well said everyone but I love windows phone as they don't hang say not like androids . Androids as u know wen it gets old after a long run they become slow unlike windows they don't atall . So the only thing they lack ryt now is that say 830 even I'm not happy with its price and all for a flirty ship the core is way too low snapdragon 400 n that for 27k.. he'll no!! N the front camera , pppfftt wanna hang myself.. well as for 1 GB m ok.. but front camera and the core that they should come up with something .. n ofcourse the ppi way too low it sudve atleast reach 314 or something.. windows r good phones with smooth UI except they lack some apps which the android has .lalcha - Saturday, December 27, 2014 - link
Still better phone than iPhone 4. Ppfftt !!Darsh - Sunday, February 28, 2016 - link
How does the front camera perform?