Nokia Lumia 630 Review
by Brett Howse on July 22, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Nokia
- Mobile
- windows phone
WiFi
The Wi-Fi department is decidedly lacking, with the Lumia 630 only supporting 802.11b/g/n, and only on the 2.4 GHz bands. While I personally prefer the range 2.4 GHz gives me, people in more congested areas have come to rely on 5 GHz for quality connections. It’s not surprising that this is cut it seems to be one of the first things to go once budgets are looked at. For the budget, I can understand why it was done.
Once again we’re bumping into the easy to cull features on an affordable smartphone. While the Lumia 630 is 802.11n, it has a single 2.4 GHz antennae which results in connection speeds that max out at 65 Mbps. With overhead, I have yet to see sustained speeds of over around 27 Mbps, though I’ve seen the occasional peak speeds of around 40 Mbps. Certainly not great but it gets the job done I suppose.
Cellular
The Lumia 630 utilizes the Qualcomm MSM8226 SoC, and is therefore limited to 21.1 Mbps HSPA+ speeds. If you want LTE, you need to go with the Lumia 635 which uses the MSM8926. The 8226 is definitely a known part at this point, with it being the heart of quite a few smartphones including the Moto G. Download speeds are right what you’d expect for a HSPA+ device. As always, these numbers are skewed by the current load on whatever cell site you are attached to, so keep that in mind. The theoretical maximum speed is never going to be reached.
GNSS
Again, with the Qualcomm silicon at the heart of this device, we’re working with well known, and well tested parts such as the GNSS. The Lumia 630 supports Cellular and Wi-Fi assist and supports GPS, GLONASS, and BeiDou for location, and it locks quickly. Hopefully the days of poor location tracking are over.
Speaker
With just a single speaker on the back of the device, the Lumia 630 is not great for playing music. The quality of the sound is typical of most smartphones – tinny and very low dynamic range. The overall volume is decent though, assuming the speaker isn’t covered by your hand, which it normally would not be with the placement of the speaker grille.
For notifications, the speaker is adequate and provides ample volume so that you won’t miss a call or notification. The same can’t be said of the vibration mechanism. It’s too weak, and if the phone is on vibrate and in your pocket, it is very easy to miss a notification.
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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).