[L830] Would you recommend this phone?

[unity04]

I bought a 930 from Expansys but I haven't been too happy with the build quality (my back panel creaks like you wouldn't believe when the ever-so-slightest amount of pressure is applied.. a real pain when using it at night time since it's so loud). I've been looking at the 830, primarily because it has an LCD panel and the price is pretty good. A few questions for owners:

1. How is the performance? In terms of:
- Navigating through the OS (do you get a lot of resuming screens?)
- IE fluidity (any lag?)
- Any delay when opening native apps?
- Any delay when opening 3rd party apps?
- Any delay pulling down the notification tray?

2. If you had a 920, or have a 930, how's the performance compared to those devices? I had both, and thought the 920 was quick at the time and the 930 absolutely flies.

3. How's sound quality? In terms of:
- Speaker phone
- Earpiece
- Headphones

4. Any bugs that ruin the experience?

Overall, would you recommend the 830?

 

[dysje]

1. No delay anywhere. Only in some 3rd party apps. Native apps, well, the agenda/calendar thing has a weird splash screen still. That's very stupid. But most of it is more fluid than a 925.

2. Slightly faster and more ehm.. solid, balanced performance than 925. It's not faster really always, but it's smoother. Way slower than 930. That's a pretty obvious difference.

3. Sound quality so far comparable to what I had before on a 925. Feels slightly better. Won't break any records, won't disappoint either. I think shutting down most, if not all, of the optimizations is a good start and helped me a lot in getting more out of the audio quality. Speaker is OK... Not impressive. I prefer the 735's speaker, but it's sufficient. Not all that loud, but more than enough for calls and some noise.

4. Yes. A few breaking bugs for sure. Many people (MANY people) complain about random reboots. There's clearly a bug that effects a LOT of people where the device either randomly reboots or loses cell signal or wi-fi signal. Unknown yet to why. But I've seen it personally on at least 10 830's here, and I know of a lot more issues. There are also quite a few people with problems with the build quality. Light leakage, screens letting go of their housing, back covers not closing anymore properly and so on.

So until the bugs at 4 are solved. I would NOT recommend this device. The Lumia 735 is better, with a better price, a better screen and all you miss out on are some bad dolby surround optimizations, a slightly lesser (but very capable and fun) camera and no Glance. So far almost no issues are known for the Lumia 735, making it a great purchase.

Other nice touche of the 830 and 735 are their absolutely brilliant battery life. But a few people have issues with the 830's battery having erratic behavior. Such issues are not as widespread with the 735. I would buy a 735 over a 930 even. That's how awesome the 735 has turned out to be.

 

[tortex73]

I'm probably not the best guy to answer this, because the 830 was my very first Windows phone and I returned it after a few days due to a bad experience. But here goes-

1.) Yes, TONS of delay and lag. This was the main reason why I returned it. My primary phone is a 2014 Moto X, and it is blazing fast, super fluid, and completely lag free. Compared to the X, the 830 felt like a 2-3 year old phone. Apps took a lot longer to load, the UI was more than occasionally jerky, and I became very acquainted with the "resuming" screen. I can understand getting that screen if I'm doing a bunch of multitasking and switching between apps, but I saw it most when returning to the homescreen, and that is unacceptable to me. The keyboard was also horribly laggy at times, often multiple words behind my typing. In all fairness, it was primarily in certain apps, Tapatalk being the biggest offender, and it was not laggy at all when typing in system apps like messaging. The Nokia camera app also seemed to take forever to load. There was a second camera app built in that opened much quicker, but I think the Nokia one had more features so that was the one I used. Also, there was major touch input lag, the worst I have ever experienced on a smartphone. I could move my finger a few millimeters without the screen responding. Aside from the Moto X, I also have a Nexus 5 and an iPhone 6, and the 830 just couldn't hold a candle to any of them. I do realize that the 830 is a midrange phone and just doesn't have the specs that my other phones have, but I was under the impression that Windows phone didn't need the latest and greatest specs to run great. Well whoever told me that lied.

2.) I've never had another Windows phone so I can't answer that.

3.)Sound quality was fine. I didn't listen to music that much in the few days that I had it, but when I did I had no complaints about the sound quality. I will say this though- call quality was absolutely superb and was at least on par with my Moto X. People sounded crystal clear, and said the same about me. This is one area where I was definitely impressed.

4.) Aside from the lag and constant resuming screens, I didn't notice any dealbreaking bugs, but again, I only had it for a few days. My phone never randomly rebooted like some people are experiencing, and the build quality was absolutely phenomenal and was one of the things that sold me on the phone in the first place. It looks great, feels super solid in the hand, and the curved glass screen is a nice touch (the Moto X has a similar curved glass screen).

Overall it was a very disheartening experience for me. I am very unbiased when it comes to smartphones, and was really looking forward to adding Windows phone to my collection. I had waited a long time for a high quality WP device to come to AT&T (I really wanted the 930) and I was super excited to get the 830 when it came out. Maybe I set my expectations too high, because ultimately I was incredibly let down. I'm not giving up on Windows phone just yet, but I will wait for a proper flagship to come around before I pull the trigger on it again. So all this stuff said, I unfortunately cannot recommend this phone.

 

[dysje]

Yea they really screwed up something with the 830. The lag you describe is nowhere to be seen on the Lumia 735 I have here, with similar specs. If anything the touch screen is one of the most responsive I've ever worked with. Though on most of the 830's I've had in my hands so far the lag you describe doesn't exist either, so you may have had a little more of a broken device than most. Especially the keyboard on even the Lumia 735 is more responsive and easier to use than what I've experienced with iphone6 and galaxy S5.

The person that told you that WP needs less specs to run fluid was completely telling the truth, you clearly had a broken device. There are more than enough comparisons on Youtube and reviews of the Lumia series that applaud how fluid WP works. It's been my experience too. Maybe you should, just for comparison, look up a few of those youtube videos and see if those perform better than what you experienced.

What I'm trying to say is; a good Lumia 830 will be nothing like the experience you had. Too bad there aren't many good Lumia 830's by the looks of things. The 735 however is a magnificent device.

 

[tortex73]

Yea they really screwed up something with the 830. The lag you describe is nowhere to be seen on the Lumia 735 I have here, with similar specs. If anything the touch screen is one of the most responsive I've ever worked with. Though on most of the 830's I've had in my hands so far the lag you describe doesn't exist either, so you may have had a little more of a broken device than most. Especially the keyboard on even the Lumia 735 is more responsive and easier to use than what I've experienced with iphone6 and galaxy S5.

The person that told you that WP needs less specs to run fluid was completely telling the truth, you clearly had a broken device. There are more than enough comparisons on Youtube and reviews of the Lumia series that applaud how fluid WP works. It's been my experience too. Maybe you should, just for comparison, look up a few of those youtube videos and see if those perform better than what you experienced.

What I'm trying to say is; a good Lumia 830 will be nothing like the experience you had. Too bad there aren't many good Lumia 830's by the looks of things. The 735 however is a magnificent device.

Well like I said, I'm definitely not writing off Windows phone. I've had a fair amount of hands on time with the 930, and it was a completely different experience than the 830. That is the phone I really want, but unfortunately LTE won't work on AT&T and that's a deal breaker for me. I know there are a lot of people that are happy with their 830's, and that my experience with it was not the norm. That said, at this point it doesn't matter to me anymore, I spent the money I got from returning the 830 on a Surface Pro 3 so I no longer have the money to try again. Hopefully there will be a true flagship coming out on AT&T this year because I still really want a Windows phone, I just know now that I need a flagship device in order to be satisfied.

 

[kristina v]

This is my first windows phone which I got as a gift so I thought I'd post here

No major delays to complain of. Yeah there are some resuming screens (like camera/skype) but nothing ridiculous. No real stutters. Noticed a bit while scrolling (holding with finger while scrolling only, not when letting go) on the youtube video list. However I tried loading same page using IE instead of app and 0 problem. Very smooth. So I'll assume it's the app. Most 3rd party apps are good. Khan Academy for example, loads instantly, not even a half a second delay. No problem with notification tray, very smooth. Games run perfectly though I used just to test it out & dont really game, much less heavily.

Sound is good, nothing to complain of. I'm not the best judge of that.

Only thing that happens sometimes is a problem with the tap wake up. Sometimes you have to tap a few times..doesnt really bother me though.

Overall Im VERY happy with this phone. Very smooth, nice home display, nice camera, nice look etc. I love pretty much everything about it.
I'd certainly recommend it to any casual consumer like me. Maybe not to a heavy gamer or tech geek because I see some people find specs an issue
For my purposes and level of concern for specs & small things like brief resuming screens, its perfect.

 

[Fred Wilson2]

Regarding the double tap to wake up, use two, kind of lighter taps, not two fast taps, pause slightly between to two taps and it only wants a kind of light tap, don't pound it.
Mine wakes 100% of the time using this way.


Fred

 

[mj0]

While it's an amazing phone and I'm not seeing any of the aforementioned performance issues with my device I would not recommend the Lumia 830 right now for two reasons.

First: the phone reboots occasionally and totally randomly. Sometimes it lasts for a week, sometimes it reboots twice a day. Second: it loses wifi connectivity occasionaly and, again, totally randomly. Sometimes it lasts for a week, sometimes it loses connectivity after a day or two again.

There are threads for both problems in these forums and seems like pretty much everybody is affected. Both are issues that will probably at some point get solved since they both seem like software glitches but there are no news on this front yet. Even worse, Microsoft has yet to acknowledge both problems. Therefore, without knowing whether or not and at what point in time these will get fixed I would certainly not recommend a phone that loses wifi connectivity and reboots randomly to anyone, not even my worst enemy (might have to reach them only to realize their phone has once again rebooted and is waiting for the SIM-PIN). In five years none of my iPhones did anything like this and in the three months that I've been using it the Lumia 635 didn't either.

Would I recommend Windows Phone? To a certain degree and depending on the person yes, I might. Would I recommend the Lumia 830? No, not before Microsoft fixes whatever messed up this otherwise very decent device.