Nokia Lumia 630 Review
by Brett Howse on July 22, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Nokia
- Mobile
- windows phone
Final Words
Designing an affordable phone is always going to have compromises. In this case, Nokia has hit on some reasonable compromises but gone too far in others. The lack of a proximity sensor was something that I didn’t miss at all, and the phone has no issue relying on the touch screen to know if it’s against your face for a phone call. This worked flawlessly in my experience, so it was the right call. The lack of an ambient light sensor was too much for me though, as I’ve come to count on it for using a device outdoors.
Another such compromise was the 512 MB of RAM, which is definitely one that went too far. It limits a good chunk of the app store’s game library from being able to be installed at all, which is just not acceptable in 2014. But again the storage of only 8 GB is no problem at all due to the included microSD card being able to add another 128 GB if needed, and Windows Phone 8.1 supports SD cards better than any other mobile OS.
The display is yet another compromise. Here we have a display which is almost at the top of our charts for accuracy, yet has a lowly resolution of 854x480. The lack of Glance screen support is another knock against it especially when the 620 of last year did include this feature.
One thing that Nokia nailed though is both the size and design. A 4.5” phone is a nice fit in the hand, and doesn’t run into any of the issues larger screened devices do with one handed use or being able to fit in your pocket. The phone is also nice and light, and with a great feel to it. I love the texture of the polycarbonate for this model with its matte finish. It never felt like it was going to slip out of my hand. The colors, as usual with Lumia phones, have a great range from pedestrian black to eye popping orange.
Using the 630 as a daily driver for a couple of weeks wasn’t a bad experience, and that says a lot about a phone with a retail price of around $160. Unfortunately for me, I found the phone had compromises in certain areas that were just too painful and would be issues for everyone. The first is the display resolution, which is just too low for 2014 and a device of this size. The second is the lack of RAM, which compromises the Windows Phone experience by limiting the number of apps available in the store.
I’ll admit my expectations were high when I received this phone after a good experience with the 620, and they were not quite met. Going forward in time, we generally expect progress and there’s not a clear case of progress here. As a successor to the 520, it does fairly well, and with the price of the 630 it’s much closer to the initial price of the 520 than the 620. The device is certainly faster than last year’s model and that’s a good thing, but the loss of features like the ambient light sensor and dedicated camera button make for a phone that’s not always a pleasure to use. If you don’t do a lot of gaming on your mobile device, you can get by with the 630. It’s always difficult to get the compromise just right, and in this case I think it’s very close but comes up a bit short in a few key areas. Price isn’t one of them though, and once again you get a decent smartphone experience for not a lot of money, but it’s just not the clear upgrade I was hoping it would be.
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hughlle - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
It's a budget phone, with low specs. If the app store can determine that with 512mb of ram it will not be able to play certain games, why should it let you install it? It seems sensible to me that the store should stop you from wasting your time and possibly data allowance downloading something you can't play. Or do you believe it should ahve been spec'd so that it could play every game in the store? It's a budget phone, i'm not sure what you're finding unacceptable about this, and what has 2014 got to do with anything? I can buy a budget laptop that can't play titanfall, i can buy a budget tablet that can't play real racing. Is the issue solely that it will not let you install it, as opposed to just letting you install it to find it doesn't run?Hrel - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
I want to upvote you.ColinByers - Monday, September 29, 2014 - link
Me too, this is a budget phone with a OS that's missing most of the really good apps. I recommend going for some of the top Android phones, it's worth the money. /Colin from http://www.consumertop.com/best-phone-guide/Malih - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
From what I know:- Phones are not laptops, the difference between cheap to game capable laptops is the CPU/GPU, but the only spec that halts game installation is RAM, the GPU/CPU will run most games just fine.
- Furthermore even the Lumia 525 (which is also a budget phones, released after 625, before 630) started to include 1GB of RAM, but Microsoft seems to be retracting back to 512MB of RAM, puzzling.
- Thus: a few more dollars (for 1GB of RAM) would enable better experience on this phone, but why aren't they doing that, I feel this is a silly and ancient strategy.
StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
I have a Lumia 525 and a 920.1Gb of Ram really should be the minimum across all Windows Phone devices these days, the light sensor too,
It's one of my favorite features on my Lumia 920 as I'm outdoors allot, the screen brightens up and the contrast and gamma increases so that sunlight readability is a non-issue.
However with that said, many games and apps which have a 1Gb Ram version also have a 512Mb version, a-la. - Spartan Assault, so for some users, having 512Mb of Ram is a non-issue.
If we go farther back though to the Lumia 610 on Windows Phone 7.8... That also has a light sensor, which worked fantastically, just unfortunate that the phone due to having only 256Mb of Ram and a single core processor was slow.
codecore - Friday, July 25, 2014 - link
I see that the Chinese versions of these (635 and 638) have 1GB. It'd be nice to get one of these if it were compat with US standards (LTE, etc).Brett Howse - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
Just to be clear I didn't say it was bad the store stops you from installing games you can't run.What's bad is it is 2014, and this phone has the same RAM as a Windows Phone 7 device from 2010.
1 GB of RAM would open this device up to the entire Windows Phone store, so I can't see how that would be a bad thing.
bhima - Sunday, July 27, 2014 - link
Its a budget phone yes... but its 2014. I DO expect a budget phone of almost $200 to play every game in the app store because, well, Motorola has already made a phone that can do just that for basically the same money in the Moto G.Notso - Wednesday, August 6, 2014 - link
I bought the 635 on newegg fo $90. For that price with no contract I think this is a great deal.PsychoPif - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
Great review!It's nice to see such a indepth review for a Windows phone. Keep up the good work.