I have an 810. Need help deciding b/w 830,930 or1520.3.

[gabejw54]

Coming from a Lumia 810, I'm interested to hear some feedback from the forum and your opinions on whether or not the 830 is truly a substantial upgrade over the 810, kr should I just opt for a 930/1520. And what's the deal with the "1525"?

 

[worldspy99]

What is your budget like?
What are your main needs on a smartphone?
Perhaps an answer to those two questions will help us offer you better suggestions.

 

[hasasimo]

It'll be easier to answer once the 830's specs are confirmed tomorrow.

I'm on a 1520.3 right now. Has everything you want in a WP flagship. Only issues are the infamous swipe/tap/scroll but which you generally get used to but is a nuisance; and then the size is a bit tedious at times but you also more or less get used to it.

930 is great, but no Glance. I'd get it if they offered a GSM version that supported U.S. LTE bands.

I'd say go with the 830 if and only if it comes with a SD 800 processor (looks very much like it'll be a SD 400 though) and Glance.

 

[gabejw54]

Ok. I see. My main desires in a smartphone upgrade would be a much better camera and an HD screen to really view those pics and other media in HD. I would like to have 2gb in ram, but I doubt the 830 would have all of that.

As far as budget is concerned, cheaper is always better of course, but if the better phone costs more then I think it would be worth it in the long run.

What I don't want is a phone that feels obsolete soon after I buy it. I want a phone that one year from now I still feel somewhat "current".

 

[worldspy99]

Nothing high end right now would meet your "not feel obsolete" requirement both the 1520 and the 930 have slightly dated hardware. The 830 will not have HD and more than likely not have 2GB in RAM as well. You might as well ride the storm out till 2015 or make do with a used Lumia 925 to tide you over or if you do not mind the form factor get a used 1520.3.

 

[hasasimo]

If you don't care about Glance but don't want a huge phone, get the 930. I personally love Glance. If you don't mind the size and won't be too annoyed by the swipe/tap issue, go for the 1520 and its industry leading battery life. The 830 is actually rumored to have 2gb RAM, but "only" a 720p screen, which is HD but not the 1080p of the 1520 or 930.

 

[worldspy99]

Just wait for less than 24 hours, you will know if the 830 has 2GB RAM, an 800 processor and the 720p screen. All of those should be pretty decent specs for at least 18 months from now.

 

[worldspy99]

BTW, I started a thread about who is going to get the 830, if the phone meets your requirements tomorrow please go and post there I think I am definitely looking to getting the 830 as a new WP device.

 

[The Lard]

Nothing high end right now would meet your "not feel obsolete" requirement both the 1520 and the 930 have slightly dated hardware. The 830 will not have HD and more than likely not have 2GB in RAM as well. You might as well ride the storm out till 2015 or make do with a used Lumia 925 to tide you over or if you do not mind the form factor get a used 1520.3.

Just my two cents about high-end hardware and phones feeling obsolete:

My Lumia 920 still performs as it did 2 years ago. Exactly the same. In that sense, I wouldn't say it feels obsolete. Nowhere near.

Assume for now that the 830 has say SD800 and 720p - not the latest bleeding-edge specs now, so surely in 18 months time it'll be a dinosaur? But the specs race has changed in the last couple of years. We're at a point now where you don't need top-of-the-line numbers to get great performance, particularly with WP. SD800 and 720p would generally provide more than enough grunt to quite happily run anything you throw at it under normal day-to-day use, and high enough resolution that you can't discern individual pixels (at least not without really trying). So if the phone performs this well now - and still does in two years - what does it matter how recent or dated the hardware is? There's no reason it should feel obsolete as far as I can see, at least not within the next year or two (unless of course it developed a fault or whatever - different situation).

And I doubt WP9 will increase hardware requirements such that older hardware might perform less well - if anything we seem to be into an era of optmisation and efficiency improvements which mean that hardware requirements are as likely to drop as they are increase (think Win8 vs Win7). Also there shouldn't be any surprises around fundamentally unsupported hardware as we had during the WP7 => WP8 fiasco now WP8 is stable on the common Windows kernel.

What I'm getting at is there's the latest and greatest flagship device on the horizon. You can always be waiting for that next big thing - and let's face it, if having cutting-edge tech the second it's available is your priority, WP probably isn't the platform to be on. But what we do have is a platform that performs exceptionally well - perhaps better than any other - and more importantly that performance DOES NOT DEGRADE OVER TIME. So why spend your life waiting? Get something decent now and enjoy it, and theres no reason you won't still be enjoying it just as much this time next year.

Of course whether or not you might feel like your phone is obsolete from a mindset perspective because it's no longer one of the latest models is a different matter entirely, but I guess most people who think like that are buying iPhones ;o)

Plus as a side note, 1080p will only work the phone harder and chew more battery for almost no perceptible benefit as far as I can see. I think I'd actually rather have 720p, even at 5", and feel that I had that little bit more battery life. 5" at 720p is something like 294 PPI which I think is plenty - 441 PPI is overkill.

Rant over.

 

[a5cent]

Nothing high end right now would meet your "not feel obsolete" requirement <snipped> 830 will not have HD and more than likely not have 2GB in RAM as well.

I disagree.

720p vs 1080p display:
This has a 5" display (or smaller?), and at that size 1080p offers no perceivable benefit in sharpness. A 1080p display would only require users to make sacrifices to both battery life and graphics performance, not to mention that glance apparently isn't economically viable at 1080p. On devices such as this, 720p isn't obsolete, but just plain better. 720p displays will be with us for many years to come. Their manufacturing price may decrease somewhat over time, but that doesn't outdate anything really.

RAM:
2GB on a 720p WP device is pointless, unless you enjoy having 1GB of unused RAM laying around just to make you feel good. For WP, 2GB of RAM only makes sense when paired with a 1080p display, which necessitates more RAM for higher resolution resources and video buffers.

Disclaimer:
Memory management could theoretically change with WP9, so future proofing may be an argument against what I mentioned in regard to 2GB devices, but due to MS targeting the low end market (meaning it will be a long time until we see the last of 512MB devices), it's highly unlikely.

EDIT:
I just know someone will mention the Lumia 1020 as an example of how this statement about RAM is BS, as it is a 720p device with 2GB of RAM, but that would be incorrect. The Lumia 1020 is also just a 1GB device. The spec sheet mentions two, but one of them is reserved for the camera. As far as the OS is concerned, it has 1GB available for its own use. Just to drive the point home, the Lumia 1020 behaves exactly the same as the Lumia 920, no difference whatsoever, and that too is a 1GB device.

 

[The Lard]

But what we do have is a platform that performs exceptionally well - perhaps better than any other - and more importantly that performance DOES NOT DEGRADE OVER TIME.

Just to illustrate my point: iPhone users frequently fork out for the latest Apple device with state-of-the-art hardware and then complain two years later that they just installed that latest update and now their phone is dog slow.

This is such a definite trend that there was actually an article recently which revealed that there is a significant spike in the Google search metrics for the term 'iPhone slow' each time a new iOS update rolls out. Every time. And not just a bit, I mean big spikes. Check it out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/upshot/hold-the-phone-a-big-data-conundrum.html

I'm not aware of any reports that indicate anything like this might be happening on Windows Phone. And if I'm going to spend several hundred pounds on a smartphone, I quite like the reassurance that I can run it for a while and install more than two major updates without crippling it.

 

[worldspy99]

Just to illustrate my point: iPhone users frequently fork out for the latest Apple device with state-of-the-art hardware and then complain two years later that they just installed that latest update and now their phone is dog slow.

This is such a definite trend that there was actually an article recently which revealed that there is a significant spike in the Google search metrics for the term 'iPhone slow' each time a new iOS update rolls out. Every time. And not just a bit, I mean big spikes. Check it out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/upshot/hold-the-phone-a-big-data-conundrum.html

I'm not aware of any reports that indicate anything like this might be happening on Windows Phone. And if I'm going to spend several hundred pounds on a smartphone, I quite like the reassurance that I can run it for a while and install more than two major updates without crippling it.

Thanks for posting this. And thanks for pestering Rubino on Twitter

 

[SAM 77]

If my 820 had come with the S4 Pro with Adreno 320 and 2000 mAh battery

I wouldn't be so eager to upgrade. It has handled all the OS upgrades and worked flawlessly. On top of that its been very durable and easy to fix. I will be sad to ditch it for the 830(if it has >SD400)

 

[Zulfigar]

You know, this has got to be the most useful topic as of late, good information everyone.

Back on topic though, I may look into the 830 if it does have the SD800, Micro SD slot, while all under a 5" screen that has Glance. I'm on a 920 right now, and 720p is perfect in my eyes, I really don't need 1080p when I won't be able to tell the difference. Heck, I'm not even able to see the pixels at a normal viewing distance on a 4.5" phone that has 768x1280.

 

[SAM 77]

Yes 1080p is overkill on the screen sizes we have.

A little over 4 hours and we will finally know if we've all got something to upgrade to.

 

[The Lard]

If my 820 had come with the S4 Pro with Adreno 320 and 2000 mAh battery

I wouldn't be so eager to upgrade. It has handled all the OS upgrades and worked flawlessly.

Yeah, this is the thing - when performance isn't impacted, there's less inventive to upgrade at all. To be honest I don't have much of a reason to upgrade from my 920, especially since I changed the battery recently. Truth is I just want a new boy-toy, though I do feel like I'd quite like a slight bigger screen (again).

 

[worldspy99]

So who is going to get this? I think after seeing everything I am going to get the 830. I know the CPU could have been better but otherwise this phone should be just fine.

 

[SAM 77]

With the 930 being less than a $100 more here in Australia based on the 330 Euro conversion I would be a fool to get the 830.

For less than a $100 more I can have a better camera, better SOC with only Glance missing. No brainer!

 

[worldspy99]

With the 930 being less than a $100 more here in Australia based on the 330 Euro conversion I would be a fool to get the 830.

For less than a $100 more I can have a better camera, better SOC with only Glance missing. No brainer!

I think we'll be able to get the 830 in the USA for quite a bit less money than the 930 so the 830 is a go for me....

 

[hasasimo]

I think we'll be able to get the 830 in the USA for quite a bit less money than the 930 so the 830 is a go for me....

AFAIK there isn't even a U.S.-LTE compatible version.