REVIEW: Microsoft Lumia 830

The new Lumia 830 smartphone. Source: Supplied

Microsoft's mid-range Lumia 830 smartphone boasts features the premium Lumia 930 doesn't have, but cuts back on costs by employing a lower resolution screen.

The Lumia 830 is a 4G-capable Windows 8 phone that sports a removable battery and a microSD card slot for extending storage beyond 16 gigabytes by up to 128GB. The 930 does not have either of these attributes.

The 830 costs $579 outright while the 930 costs $729. Apple's iPhone 6 by comparison starts at $869 and Samsung's Galaxy S5 officially costs $799, so shop around.

The Lumia 830 has a grippable plastic back cover and sturdy metallic frame. It's compact and easily fits a pocket. Some might prefer it to the heavier 930: 167g to the 830's 150g.

The Lumia 830 also has decent battery life: we clocked more than nine hours watching video with a battery only slightly smaller in capacity.

The 830 camera features Nokia PureView, its high-end standard for on-chip image processing, scaling and sampling, but it's 10 megapixels, not the Lumia 930's 20. But it does have Nokia's optical image-stabilisation feature.

The first compromise is the processor: a slower Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chip set with a 1.2 gigahertz processor instead of the 930's faster 800 chip set with a CPU rated at 2.2 gigahertz. It's not quite as snappy. More noticeable is its lower resolution 720p IPS LCD display, compared with the Lumia 930's 1080p full-HD display. Both displays are 5.0 inches, but at 294 pixels per inch, the 830 has a lower resolution than the 930's 441ppi.

Video viewing quality is fine, however. We're just used to 1080p and getting accustomed to even high-quality QuadHD phone displays.

Software wise, you'll enjoy the same Windows 8 phone features which now include Microsoft's beefed-up Cortana voice-recognition system.

The irony is that you can now buy the Lumia 930 for about the same or less than the 830, so it's a matter of which model you like. We think this phone might find a home among corporate users.

Rating: 8/10
Price: $579 or contract

This is article was first published in The Australian