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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cashnmillions - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
I have the 635 after having an HTC DNA and then a Google Nexus 5. So far the phone has grown on me, there are definitely fewer features than some of those Android phones. Win Phone 8.1 takes a bit getting used to. It is simple though and runs pretty smooth. The thing I probably like the most is the size and feel of the phone when you hold it. I will probably switch back to android though in the next year and probably will get a compact or mini version of one of the bigger phones like the Xperia Z1 or S5.Alexvrb - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
A lot of the mini versions are gimped in terms of specs. Sony is usually better about that than most. Nokia has some good small phones that are higher end than the 6xx series. There's also talk of a 1520 V (smaller version) that might be good those those looking for something compact. Personally I'd be more interested in the 1820.kyuu - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
Thanks for the review, Brett. It's great to see real Windows Phone coverage return to Ars. I only wish there were some flagship phones to review. Newest one is the Lumia 930, and that's not even available in the US market.Oh how I wish they'd release a successor to the 1020. Hell, they could use the exact same camera module and it'd still be a winner. Just modernize the rest of the phone and address the 1020's chief shortcomings (white balance problems and lack of mSD).
Gunbuster - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
The really bizarre thing is they have done a ton of marketing for the 1020 in the past few weeks. It's like no one told them the phone has been out for over 6 months and is soon to be discontinued...skiboysteve - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
return to ars?kyuu - Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - link
Yes...? Unless my memory is completely out of whack (which isn't a possibility I ever discount), Ars hasn't had any real reviews of Windows Phone hardware/software since the initial review of WP8 and the HTC 8X. Note that pipeline articles don't fall under my definition of "real reviews".noblemo - Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - link
This is AnandTech.hahmed330 - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
This is a downgrade from nearly every aspect... Rather cough up 20$ extra buy a Moto G and not be this cheap... Only thing good I can say is well great reviewVengenceIsMine - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
In spite of the #, this isn't really a sequel to the 620, significantly lower price point. If this thing was at $150 or better $129 then it's a solid phone for the $ but it's currently overpriced. I expect it to drop soon much like the 520 did, that thing came out at $129 but was under $99 within 3 months of release practically everywhere & often below that.512mb is definitely the weak point in this phone, kind of unforgivable and short sighted, hopefully now that MS has control they will but a stop to the 512 mb madness. Screen res is ok and performance is actually pretty good for the price point and Lumias are generally pretty well built vs competition in these cheaper market segments.
Microsoft has to wake up and stop paying $ for Qualcomm in this market segment & get onboard with a cheaper SOC like MediaTek and spend the $ on ambient light sensor and extra RAM.
jimjamjamie - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
I thought the 630 was a pretty conservative configuration for Nokisoft. If you compare it to the Nokia X2, the X2 beats it soundly and for a better price. Funnily enough it's only for select markets.