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.
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TheFlyingSquirrel - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
The phone would have been so much more compelling if this came out last year or even more 1st half of the year before the newer Qualcomm chips started showing up in mid-range devices.PubFiction - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
You can pretty much chalk up almost every windows phone to this same statement, would have been good if it was 6 months to a year earlier. They seriously cannot expect to do anything with their last place priority for phone development.tralalalalalala40 - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
It's silly to mention megapixels when comparing cameras. By eye, a camera would have to be 4*8= 32 mp to be obviously better than an 8mp camera. What matters is more is sensor size/light intake/signal to noise/etc which has nothing to do with mp. (hint, 1080p is less than 2 megapixels...)ToTTenTranz - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I don't think Qualcomm sells the Snapdragon 600 in large quantities anymore, probably because the final price ended up too close to the Snapdragon 800/801, since it required an external baseband processor. My guess is the FireTV is the last "new" device getting those chips, as it doesn't need the extra baseband processor.I understand that getting the S610 could be too early for this Lumia 830. Though it's harder to understand why they didn't use the S410, since there are already lots of devices on the market using it and it's quite a bit faster than the old S400.
This makes me think that the Lumia division is still suffering from the same "inertial" problems as the old Nokia. This model would've made total sense during last year when the Moto G was reigning over the mid-end market.
Drumsticks - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I thought that the 830 was too early for S610 as well, but it's already available/shipping in several HTC Phones (their desire line or something?) and presumably some other OEMs as well.cheshirster - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
What is the point in S410? It is not faster.S600 is older then first gen WP8 phones( 920 and 820). Imagine Nexus 4 battery life tests instead of actual L830 numbers and you will understand why it has S400.
simard57 - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I recently swapped my original Moto X for a Lumia 830. The X was my third Android phone and this is my 1st Windows Phone. I am pleased with the 830 and feel it gives me a longer time between charges than my X did. Having a replaceable battery is a nice perq as well.One "issue" I have stuggled with is a way to import my google favorites from google Map. I exported the favorites into a KML file and was able to import them into www.bing.com/maps but regrettably, the web Bing Maps do not sync with Windows Phone Maps or Windows 8.1 Maps. I googled it and learned that Phone Maps syncs with Windows 8.1 Maps - and it does BUT there is no apparent way to import a KML file (or any file) into the Windows MAPS or Phone MAPS program. Please do not tell my I have to manually enter each of the entries!
What's up with that Microsoft? This IS a required feature!!!
cheshirster - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
Phone maps sync with here.com. Maybe this would help.simard57 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
is there a way to move my location library from the Google ecosystem into the Microsoft one?I will keep looking - but I do not see a way to import KML or any file into here.com
simard57 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
also - does here.com sync with windows 8.1 maps?sure feels like the maps situation in the Microsoft ecosystem is bit fragmented.