My comprehensive review - Nokia Lumia 830

[sahib lopez]

OP: Am I getting this right? Your Start Screen downloaded and arranged (Exactly) the way you had it on your other phone? I've always wondered about that.

As long as you back it up to one drive you should have your start screen saved


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[Fred Wilson2]

Yup, mine did just fine. Had backed up the 930 before I setup the 830.


Fred

As long as you back it up to one drive you should have your start screen saved


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[flyingsolid]

Thank you for writing this review. It is helping me make the decision and those IRL pictures also answered a lot of questions I had.

 

[kevm14]

The 830 suits all my needs much better than the 930 did. It runs cool, plenty fast enough for what I do, much longer battery life right out of the box

You know for all the poo-pooing of the S400, I think people are missing a pretty big detail: the MSM8926 is on a 28nm process. That is a HUGE reason for the battery efficiency and relatively cool operation.

 

[Chris_Germany]

You know for all the poo-pooing of the S400, I think people are missing a pretty big detail: the MSM8926 is on a 28nm process. That is a HUGE reason for the battery efficiency and relatively cool operation.

Could you (or someone else) explain that a bit more? So you say, the SD400 is more efficient than SD800? I thought its the other way round. Ok, SD800 is faster and has to handle higher resolution on the screen, but i thought its still more efficient (I think thats what they said on their qualcomm homepage).

If thats true, im happy. I really care about battery life, and 930 is on the limit. A bit (or more) better and its perfect.

 

[kevm14]

S800 is also 28nm. But it probably has a higher TDP than S400, which is why it gets hotter. Actually, apparently the MSM8960 (S4) in phones like the Lumia 920 were also 28nm. So the heat/efficiency advantage of the S400 is just due to the different architecture.

 

[Chris_Germany]

I will find out next week

 

[salmanahmad]

Could you (or someone else) explain that a bit more? So you say, the SD400 is more efficient than SD800? I thought its the other way round. Ok, SD800 is faster and has to handle higher resolution on the screen, but i thought its still more efficient (I think thats what they said on their qualcomm homepage).

If thats true, im happy. I really care about battery life, and 930 is on the limit. A bit (or more) better and its perfect.

In general tasks if a Snapdragon 400 and 800 we're going head to head I'm pretty sure both would heat up equally(unless there is a difference in resolution or the material used in the phone is different) but the 800 would heat up more in more intensive tasks such as gaming, primarily because it will render higher quality graphics at a higher resolution.

But the Snapdragon 800 is more efficient in one key way, voice detection. It has a dedicated low power voice detection DSP(if that's what it is called).

S800 is also 28nm. But it probably has a higher TDP than S400, which is why it gets hotter. Actually, apparently the MSM8960 (S4) in phones like the Lumia 920 were also 28nm. So the heat/efficiency advantage of the S400 is just due to the different architecture.

The Snapdragon S4 Pro used on the 920 came with an Adreno 225 GPU, the GPU is used more in intensive tasks such as scrolling, video playback and gaming and the GPU was made on a 45nm architecture.

The newer Adreno 320 and 330 GPUs are both more powerful and because of 28nm also less prone to heating up, at least on paper.

 

[nemo7]

In general tasks if a Snapdragon 400 and 800 we're going head to head I'm pretty sure both would heat up equally(unless there is a difference in resolution or the material used in the phone is different) but the 800 would heat up more in more intensive tasks such as gaming, primarily because it will render higher quality graphics at a higher resolution.

But the Snapdragon 800 is more efficient in one key way, voice detection. It has a dedicated low power voice detection DSP(if that's what it is called).



The Snapdragon S4 Pro used on the 920 came with an Adreno 225 GPU, the GPU is used more in intensive tasks such as scrolling, video playback and gaming and the GPU was made on a 45nm architecture.

The newer Adreno 320 and 330 GPUs are both more powerful and because of 28nm also less prone to heating up, at least on paper.

Which Adreno has the Lumia 830?

 

[Fred Wilson2]

I'm pretty sure it's the 305.


Fred

Which Adreno has the Lumia 830?

 

[kevm14]

The Snapdragon S4 Pro used on the 920 came with an Adreno 225 GPU, the GPU is used more in intensive tasks such as scrolling, video playback and gaming and the GPU was made on a 45nm architecture.

Unless wiki is wrong, the 920's S4 was also 28nm. And the Adreno 225 was 28nm. Also, the 920 used regular S4. No Windows Phone used S4 Pro.

 

[colinkiama]

Unless wiki is wrong, the 920's S4 was also 28nm. And the Adreno 225 was 28nm. Also, the 920 used regular S4. No Windows Phone used S4 Pro.

I thought the 820,920,925, 1020 and 1320 used the s4 pro but the ones before the 1320 were clocked lower than 1.7 ghz. And that the lower end 512mb phones used the regular s4. Now I'm confused lol

 

[kevm14]

You're kinda close. 920 and those phones used the regular S4. Phones like the 520 used a slower clocked S4 (and less ram). The point is, S400 is significantly more energy efficient than S4 in phones like the 920. And the Adreno 305 is either dead even (worse case) or quite a bit faster than Adreno 225.

 

[salmanahmad]

Which Adreno has the Lumia 830?

The Adreno 305, also a beast in many aspects.

Unless wiki is wrong, the 920's S4 was also 28nm. And the Adreno 225 was 28nm. Also, the 920 used regular S4. No Windows Phone used S4 Pro.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-Adreno-225.116266.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-Adreno-305.110715.0.html

I'm talking about the GPU that comes with the regular Snapdragon S4, which is the Adreno 225. It's based on a 45nm architecture whereas Adreno 305, 320 and 330 are based on 28nm.

I thought the 820,920,925, 1020 and 1320 used the s4 pro but the ones before the 1320 were clocked lower than 1.7 ghz. And that the lower end 512mb phones used the regular s4. Now I'm confused lol

Haha yeah I apologise as well, I may have gotten confused as well, Snapdragon's naming strategy was weird back then.

But to my understanding phones like the Lumia 520 came with the Snapdragon S4 Play.

The 820, 920 and 1020 came with the regular Snapdragon S4, and just as an example the Nexus 4 had the most powerful Snapdragon S4 Pro.

 

[poken1151]

Aside from price (and the fact that I still don't see this as a flagship, especially if the price doesn't change), one of my biggest wants when this was announced was to get good idea of the capture to capture speed of the rear camera.

They tooted this a fair bit, working with firmware and such. And all I could think of is the capture to capture speed of most of the iProducts. Would you say it's caught up to? Closer to? Ahead of? Or still way behind the capture to capture speed of say the iPhone 5s?

I know doing the dynamic flash must be quick, cuz from all the samples I've seen there's no motion variation. But tap-to-tap images still look slow. What has your experience been? Honestly.

 

[hasasimo]

Aside from price (and the fact that I still don't see this as a flagship, especially if the price doesn't change), one of my biggest wants when this was announced was to get good idea of the capture to capture speed of the rear camera.

They tooted this a fair bit, working with firmware and such. And all I could think of is the capture to capture speed of most of the iProducts. Would you say it's caught up to? Closer to? Ahead of? Or still way behind the capture to capture speed of say the iPhone 5s?

I know doing the dynamic flash must be quick, cuz from all the samples I've seen there's no motion variation. But tap-to-tap images still look slow. What has your experience been? Honestly.

My experience with the iPhone 5S is limited, but my sister had it (before upgrading to the 6) so I've seen the camera in action a bit. I would say capture-to-capture speed on the 5S is a little bit faster than with Nokia Camera. However, speeds on the regular build-in Windows Phone Camera app are comparable to that of the 5S. It's also worth noting that said capture-to-capture speed are every bit as fast as they are on my 1520, if not faster.

 

[hasasimo]

On the nokia camera on the 830 does it have the new UI that has the switch to front camera button on screen now instead of digging into the settings?

From what I'm seeing, you have to touch the three dots first to access the front camera using Nokia Camera.

 

[hasasimo]

Hi Hasasimo,
I have read somewhere that denim update does not officially support WhatsApp. Is there any truth in it & are you using WhatsApp? I'm now using a 930 & the only downside is no SD card. 830 has SD card. Also have you tried moving or copying your video clips from phone memory to SD card. AFAIK, all video clips downloaded say via YouTube Downloader are stored in the phone memory. It would be good if you can copy or move it to the SD card as the 830 has a measly 8GB internal phone memory. Seriously thinking of getting the 830 as I don't see any flagship model coming anytime soon. Prior to my 930 I was using the 1520 but just couldn't live with the hefty size. Mind you a damn good phablet it is. Cheers mate & looking forward to your reply soon.

I got that same message on Cyan using my 1520... that WhatsApp "doesn't support this version of Windows Phone" and that some features "might not work." I use WhatsApp all day and it's working just as well as it did on my 1520. No features are missing.

 

[hasasimo]

OP: Am I getting this right? Your Start Screen downloaded and arranged (Exactly) the way you had it on your other phone? I've always wondered about that.

Yup, I think Fred Wilson2 already answered your question but this was a surprise to me too. When I went from my 920 to my 1520, apps and texts downloaded but not my start screen arrangement. But from my 1520 to my 830, it's almost like I was always using the 830 since everything downloaded, synced, and my start screen was exactly the same. Heck, it even transferred over my custom ringtone. The only thing I had to manually do is transfer over my pictures since I didn't have them automatically uploading to OneDrive.

 

[Blkacesvf41]

Yup, I think Fred Wilson2 already answered your question but this was a surprise to me too. When I went from my 920 to my 1520, apps and texts downloaded but not my start screen arrangement. But from my 1520 to my 830, it's almost like I was always using the 830 since everything downloaded, synced, and my start screen was exactly the same. Heck, it even transferred over my custom ringtone. The only thing I had to manually do is transfer over my pictures since I didn't have them automatically uploading to OneDrive.

WOW! That's pretty awesome! Is Windows Phone the only OS that does this? I do have my pictures automatically uploading to OneDrive so we'll see what happens with that. I'm just waiting to see which handset actually lands on Verizon. I doubt that both 830 and 735 will be available from them.