Nokia Lumia 630 Review
by Brett Howse on July 22, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Nokia
- Mobile
- windows phone
Performance
CPU Performance
The Snapdragon 400 is in a lot of devices these days, and is starting to appear in quite a few Windows Phones as well, but this is the first Windows Phone 8.1 device with Snapdragon 400 we have tested, so it will be interesting to see how it compares to Android and iOS with the move to quad core. Just to clarify what we are working with here again, it’s a quad-core Cortex A7 CPU paired with Adreno 305 graphics. We’ll also compare it to a Lumia 1020, and a Lumia 620, both of which are running Krait cores (1.5 GHz for the 1020, and 1 GHz for the 620) as we need to know if four A7s at 1.2 GHz are a real upgrade over Krait.
Performance is definitely an improvement over the dual-core 1 GHz Krait of the 620, but it’s not spectacular. It’s still slower than the dual-core 1.5 GHz of the 1020. A good comparison though is the Moto G, which is close to the same price, and sports the exact same SoC under the hood. Sunspider is very close between the two, but Kraken and Google Octane are much faster on the Moto G. Windows Phone 8.1 even with IE 11 now still has some work to do to be competitive on Javascript performance. WebXPRT falls into the same situation, with IE just not being as fast as Chrome.
Looking at Basemark II results are a bit closer, with the overall score being close. The Lumia 630 handily beats the Moto G in memory performance, but the Moto G wins the rest of the tests. We’re still looking at a performance deficit for most tasks with Windows Phone 8.1 which is something Microsoft will need to work on going forward.
Windows Phone as an OS has always been very smooth, and this iteration is no different. The 630 is definitely an improvement over last year’s version, but it isn’t going to blow anyone away with its performance.
Graphics Performance
On the graphics side, we generally look at benchmarks which stress the GPU of the device. With Windows Phone, this means Rightware’s Basemark X 1.1. The problem here is that Basemark X requires 1 GB of memory to install, so it won’t run on the 630 with its limited RAM. As stated earlier, this also limits a lot of the gaming apps from being installed. If you play a lot of games, avoid this device.
NAND Performance
Storage performance isn’t likely to be at the top of an engineer’s list when so cost constrained, and it shows with the 630. We’re at a disadvantage with Windows Phone again here because none of the standard storage benchmarks run on this platform. There are several benchmarks available on Windows Phone which do test storage, but they are either very inaccurate or give abstract results. For that reason we’ll look into a storage benchmark of our own for Windows Phone but it’s not available as of yet for this review.
The only numbers I was able to extract off of the 630 was basic file copy speeds. A large file transfer resulted in a sequential write speed of only 7.5 MB/s which isn’t fantastic. Copying small 4 KB files was a very poor 0.03 MB/s. File copies to the device over USB 2 came in at 8.5 MB/s and file copies from the device over USB 2 resulted in 22.5 MB/s. When we get the storage benchmark completed I'll add the numbers for the 630 to bench, but I don't expect it to be very fast.
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LiviuTM - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
Correction to correction: Page 7, actuallyYofa - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
riders fan?! ignore!Wolfpup - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
I've got an iPhone 5s, but I've gotten Nokia 520s for two people now. I love it, they love it. It's really a great phone, and like my iPhone, there's just something pleasurable about using it. It (like real Windows) also runs a lot faster than Android on comparable hardware.The biggest issue I have with Windows Phone right now is that like Android it's stuck getting OS updates from the carrier. Microsoft needs to switch to an Apple/Windows model of controlling the updates themselves. That said, at least so far even the 520 is getting every single update Microsoft does...which I guess still beats Android save for the Nexus devices.
My only complain with this 630 is the RAM. I realize hitting a $100 price point is kind of crazy, and the 520 runs fine, but still...1GB would definitely be the first upgrade I'd want for this.
Considering I still carry an iPod anyway, I'd seriously consider a Windows Phone for myself if my iPhone died, just because of the price, though I think I'd go with the 6" model.
Wolfpup - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
Forgot to mention...I do wonder about the CPU choice. Obviously it works (and as mentioned you can't compare iOS or Windows Phone or even real Windows to Android as Android requires much beefier hardware to get the same performance)...but I am curious about using a quad A7. A7 supposedly tries to get close to A9 performance with a smaller die area, but then Krait is already A9+. Not sure it makes sense to replace 2 Kraits with 4 A7s...but oh well, I'm sure it's fine!Scary how much faster Apple's Cyclone is than everything else. Right now it doesn't even matter...it's mostly overkill for a phone, but probably not for the iPad, and certainly not for a more OS X-like iPad...
rgba - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
In the HTC One mini 2 review, Anand mentioned that Cortex-A7 actually delivers slightly higher IPC than Krait 200. Considering that, quad A7 running at 1190 MHz is a clear improvement over dual Krait 200 @ 972 MHz.ruggia - Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - link
Higher IPC is meaningless when A7 runs on thumb instructions and is In-order, as opposed to Krait which runs full armv7 and is out of orderextide - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
Not true, A7 runs the full ARMv7 ISA, not just thumb. The cortex M series chips run thumb, but ALL cortex A class cpu's run full ARM ISA's. (ARM7 in this case obviously, but the A5x cores run ARMv8).It is in order, and Krait is out of order, but IPC is very much NOT meaningless!
tuxRoller - Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - link
I guess you missed this:The Lumia 630 handily beats the Moto G in memory performance, but the Moto G wins the rest of the tests. We’re still looking at a performance deficit for most tasks with Windows Phone 8.1 which is something Microsoft will need to work on going forward.
So. despite the Android VM deficit it still manages to at least keep up with, and generally surpass, win8.x. Can't wait till the new ART drops.
Flunk - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
"If you play a lot of games, avoid this device."If you play a lot of games, avoid Windows Phone. The selection is just not fantastic.
octonysa - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
Computer World blog says Google search banned from the 630 and 930. That kills this phone (IMO).