Lumia 930 Review – Cool and Iconic

Overview and Specifications

Overview

Nokia Lumia 930 being a successor to the Lumia 920 and more to Lumia 925 may be said as the combination of design elements from various Lumia devices released previously. The latest smartphone from Nokia is actually the best I have used in Windows Phone lineup to date, whether it’s build and design or the hardware package inside it. Windows Phone 8.1 with the added support of Lumia Cyan software pushes it right up to the concerns. We’ll see how does Lumia 930 stand up in the competition and how may it (or may not) attract the consumers.

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Lumia 930 Review: Cool and Iconic

If you didn’t know, the Nokia Lumia 930 is the global variant of the early US release of Lumia Icon. Both of the devices are just identical to each other leaving a few bits of network frequencies. Icon was exclusively available on Verizon supporting their CDMA network. On the other hand the Lumia 930 is to serve you out at your place.

We covered the middle east launch of the Lumia 930 directly from Dubai with quick hands-on and first impressions. Following on with it lately we had an unboxing session of Lumia 930 and surprised to see the absence of a stereo headset with such a high-end smartphone. With the sales package you get only USB data/connectivity cable and a charger. Well that was the first bad impression I got. Look at what you get in the sales package.

Lumia 930 Unboxing

The wonderful thing was that in UK, a wireless charging plate is included with the sales package in replacement of the stereo headset. Well that was quite a healthy deal.

For a couple of weeks Lumia 930 has gone through our regular use cases which include primary purpose of phone – calling and texting through out the day and then frequent browsing on WiFi and/or 3G, social interaction, voice/video calling on Skype, video playback, gaming etc.

Before we take it to the next part, checkout the specifications of the Lumia 930 below

The Specifications

  • Main camera: (Page 5: Camera Review)
    • 20 MP, PureView, Carl ZEISS Optics, Aperture: f/2.4, Optical Image Stabilization.
    • 2x digital Zoom, Dual LED flash
    • Video recording: 1080p @ 30fps, 3x zoom
  • Secondary camera: 1.2 MP, 720p
  • Size/Volume:
    • Screen Size: 5” screen
    • Dimensions: Height: 137 mm x 71 mm x 9.8 mm,
    • Weight: 167 grams
  • Display features:
    • AMOLED ClearBlack display and Gorilla Glass 3
    • Display resolution: Full HD (1920 x 1080) pixel density of 441 PPI
  • Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 800 Quad-core 2.2 GHz
  • 2GB of RAM
  • Mass Memory: 32GB internal. NO expandable memory (microSD card) option.
  • Nano SIM card support,
  • NFC: Pairing, Secure NFC for payment, Sharing, Tagging
  • Maximum talk time (3G): 15.5h
  • Battery capacity: 2420mAh
  • Wireless charging: Built-in (Qi standard)
  • Supported networks:
    • 2G/GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900
    • 3G/HSDPA: 850, 900, 1900, 2100
    • 4G/LTE: 800, 900, 1800, 2100, 2600

2GB of RAM is really worth appreciation as it comes right down to Lumia 930 from the 6″ phablet Lumia 1520. Bringing almost everything impressive from that bigger screen phablet to a handy phone is really a brilliant move.

Expandable memory found the phablet is however missing from the Lumia 930 which, if were present, would have been a great option for consumers. Otherwise the fixed on-board 32GB storage is the maximum and only option in the Lumia 930.

Improvement is that, Lumia 930 adopts the AMOLED display with the ClearBlack layer on it and Gorilla Glass 3 protection instead of the IPS LCD and the Gorilla Glass 2 found on the Lumia 1520. Chipset Snapdragon 800 is same which, we think, could also have been replaced with the newer that time Snapdragon 801. But the question is why? Windows Phone 8.1 and all those features it got run perfectly with the current hardware it owns. Unless it fails, there is no need of upgrades. In fact it’s a point that should be given to the OS which performs better on lower requirements.

Next we are going to check the look and feel of the device where we’ll the user controls of the device as well as the design and build of the Lumia 930.