14 DAY TRIAL // One of the several Windows Phone handsets launched on the market by Microsoft this year, Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM, is aimed at the affordable segment. The smartphone is now available for purchase in both emerging and well-developed markets, in order to get a much wider audience.
Aside from the fact that the Lumia 630 Dual SIM is one of the not so many handsets launched by Microsoft this year, it’s also one of the few coming with Windows Phone 8.1 operating system out of the box.
While not the cheapest of the new Lumia series of smartphones that made their debut in the last couple of months, Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM does seem to be an affordable device that offers only a handful of mid-range features, but lacks quite a few others.
However, Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM specs sheet is meant to offer those who never owned a Windows Phone handset before the chance to try out one for an affordable price tag. In addition, the device could be an interesting alternative for those who want to replace both their phones with just one, as the Lumia 630 offers dual-SIM capability.
The single SIM version of the phone is available for purchase as well and it would probably make a great choice as a secondary smartphones for those who want one with decent battery life.
For the time being, Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM can be purchased for around $185 (€145) outright, but the pricing option may vary depending on location and carrier, which means you will be able to get it for slightly more or less.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Lumia 630 Dual SIM has been released on the market back in May and it’s available in multiple color options, such as bright orange, bright green, bright yellow, white and black.
Design
Developed by Nokia’s design team, the Lumia 630 Dual SIM doesn’t go far off the standard rectangular form factor offered by most Windows Phone handsets released by the Finnish company in the past.
Considering its low price, Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM looks nice and the matte plastic on the back does not feel too cheap at all. Moreover, owners who are not content with the color of their phone can change the back cover with another one, assuming they have already bought it separately.
The exchangeable back cover is a great way to make your phone stand out whenever you feel like it. This has become common for Microsoft’s affordable lineup of smartphones and, possibly, one of its strong points.
When it comes to raw numbers, Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM measures 129.5 x 66.7 x 9.2 mm and weighs only 134g (battery included, which makes a rather small and lightweight device.
The front part of the phone is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for extra protection against scratches and accidental drops. The Lumia 630 Dual SIM sports a decent 4.5-inch display and a rather large bezel at the bottom.
The usual on-screen Back, Home and Search touch-sensitive keys are present at the bottom of the display as well, along with the mouthpiece.
This means that your phone’s display may remain lit when talking on the phone if it doesn’t detect your face touching the screen. If that happens, your battery may be drained faster, though this greatly depends on how much you talk on the phone.
Moving on to the left and right sides of the Lumia 630 Dual SIM, the smartphone only has a volume rocker and the power on/off button on the right. On top of the phone, there’s a 3.5mm audio jack, while on the bottom there’s a microUSB port.
The 5-megapixel camera on the back lacks LED flash, but there’s a small loudspeaker grille to the bottom right on the battery cover.
Speaking of which, removing the back cover will reveal the 1830 mAh battery, the two microSIM slots and the microSD card slot for memory expansion.
Overall, Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM looks like a decent affordable smartphone, solidly built and quite colorful at the same time. It definitely isn’t an ugly phone and for those who can’t afford a more expensive device, it’s certainly an attractive choice when it comes to design.
Display and Camera
Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM features a decent 4.5-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen that supports FWVGA (480 x 854 pixels) resolution and Microsoft’s ClearBlack display technology. As mentioned earlier, the smartphone is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 3, which is unusual for such a cheap phone.
Although the phone’s screen only offers 218ppi (pixel per inch), the colors and contrast are above average most likely due to the ClearBlack technology inside the screen. The sunlight eligibility is decent enough, so you can read the screen even under strong light.
Viewing angles are decent as well, but not on par with other high-end smartphone launched by Nokia/Microsoft. However, for a budget-friendly phone, the Lumia 630 Dual SIM does have good enough display.
The phone’s 5-megapixel photo snapper on the back features autofocus and HD (720p) video recording, but it misses LED flash and dedicated camera key, so you will have to use the touch shutter on the screen.
Lumia 630 Dual SIM comes with the usual Nokia Camera UI, which offers numerous additional options in order to make your photos look much better when it comes to quality.
You can choose to take pictures in 4:3 mode (5-megapixel) or 16:9 mode (3.7-megapixel), but these are all the resolution options that you will get in the Nokia Camera app. However, you will be able to set the white balance, ISO, shutter speed or focus.
Thanks to the Lenses application, Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM owners will be able to take advantage of new picture modes like Panorama and Refocus.
When it comes to quality, Nokia has shown us that the number of megapixels inside a camera doesn’t really matter that much, and the Lumia 630 Dual SIM is another example that 5-megapixels is enough to get great pictures.
As you can see from the samples attached, the level of detail and contrast is amazing for a 5-megapixel camera, but Nokia is doing a great job this time around as well. The Lumia 630 Dual SIM has one of the best 5-megapixels shooters available on the market.
Unfortunately, this only applies to imaging, as video recording does not seem to be on par with the phone’s photo capturing capabilities. Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM can capture 720p videos at 30fps, but the quality is only average.
Another disadvantage would be the fact that the smartphone does not come with LED flash, so capturing video in low-light conditions is out of the question and the same goes for photos.
It’s also worth mentioning that Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM lacks a secondary front-facing camera for video calls and selfies, so if you’re looking for a smartphone with dual-cameras, you should look elsewhere.
Menu and Software
The Lumia 630 Dual SIM is one of the first smartphones launched by Microsoft that comes with Windows Phone 8.1 operating system right of the box.
You may wonder what’s the difference between a WP8-based phone and a device that comes with the latest version of Windows Phone, namely 8.1? Well, as it happens, Windows Phone 8.1 comes with tons of new features that basically turn it into a brand new device.
Additional new features are included in the Lumia Cyan update, which brings even more improvements and enhancements that make Windows Phone 8.1 far superior to the older versions.
You can now customize your lockscreen with new themes and notification slots, or you can even add an extra security layer by adding a PIN unlock that only you know.
The Start Background can be personalized and the tiles become transparent in order for you to see the image you chose as background. Keep in mind, though, that not all apps and games have been optimized to offer the transparent tile feature, but many of them have.
Furthermore, you can now add up to six rows of tiles, but you do not want to set your Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM for the maximum number due to the fact that it’s a rather small screen.
The notification center (or Action Center) is another major improvement that’s been introduced in Windows Phone 8.1. Basically, you now receive all notifications in one place for quicker access.
The Action Center also enables quick access to lots of major functions, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Airplane mode, Camera and much more. You can customize these shortcuts that allows you to access these features with new ones, but you can’t add too many.
A new feature that comes in handy to those who do not wish to be disturbed during certain hours is called Quiet Hours mode and works like a DnD (do not disturb) mode that’s already available on both Android and iOS platforms.
The multitasking function has been improved now and you can finally close an application that runs in the background. Simply tap and hold the Back key and the apps that you previously used will appear on your screen in small windows that you can close from the “X” key on the upper right. Obviously, you can use the same method to switch between apps.
The long-rumored Kids Mode has finally been introduced with update 8.1 and is now part of the Windows Phone operating system. With Kids Mode you can set up another virtual account on your phone, which can access only certain apps and games. This is a way to control the content that children have access to while using the smartphone.
But one of the most important new features is Cortana, Microsoft’s digital assistant and the main competitor for Google Now and Siri.
Cortana received so much praise from Windows Phone users that Microsoft had to work even faster to bring alpha/beta version of it in additional countries, others than the United States.
Another Windows Phone improvement that comes in version 8.1 allows users to synchronize all their settings and push them to other compatible devices.
The People Hub is another strong feature that users will be able to take advantage of on the Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM. It allows them to add multiple contacts, including Twitter and Facebook.
The layout of the hub is intuitive and offers lots of info about your contacts and what’s new in your social accounts. Chat rooms and Groups are included in the hub as well, along with the Me tile that allows you to see all notifications and news from your social accounts, as well as post from any of them.
Storage Sense and Battery Saver are two new applications that allow users to keep track of their phone’s internal memory and battery’s percentage. You can also configure them to maintain the Lumia 630 Dual SIM in better shape when it comes to storage and battery life.
It’s also worth mentioning that with Windows Phone 8.1, you won’t have to worry about updating your apps, as the new OS supports automatic applications updates and it allows users to choose how to update them (Wi-Fi or operator network).
But the best Windows Phone 8.1 feature can’t be seen on the screen of the phone, instead you can notice it every day while using the phone. The operating system has been optimized to offer a smooth user experience on a low-end hardware.
There are plenty of other improvements and enhancements in Windows Phone 8.1, which brings it closer to other mobile platforms available on the market such as Android and iOS. Of course, there’s always room for improvement, but as it is, Windows Phone 8.1 is a major step in the right direction for Microsoft.
Communication
Even if Lumia 630 Dual SIM is considered a budget-friendly device, the smartphone still offers quite decent features in the communication area, as well as other departments.
First of all, as the name suggests, the phone offers dual-SIM capability with dual standby support. It also comes packed with HSDPA (21Mbps) and HSUPA (5.76Mbps), as well as microUSB, GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP are also included.
Software-wise, the smartphone comes with the latest version of Internet Explorer (11), which isn’t something that you would want to use while browsing the Internet. Even though it has been greatly improved to the point that Windows Phone 8 users will really like it a lot, there are other browsers that offer a much better experience.
Nevertheless, you still get plenty of useful features in IE 11 as well, such as private and reader modes, tab support (unlimited), bookmark sync across devices, gestures support (forward and back) and a new UI for the tab manager.
Another useful feature that comes with the Internet Explorer 11 is called inline video playback and allows users to watch an embedded video right within the article without having to open another video player.
Just like Android smartphones offer Google apps and services, most Windows Phones come with Microsoft’s suite of Bing apps, but also Nokia’s HERE Maps for navigation.
We were a bit disappointed by Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM’s telephony features. While GSM signal reception is quite good, the in-call sound is mediocre at best.
Processor and Memory
The affordable Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM is equipped with a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor inside, which is the norm these days. In addition, the phone packs an Adreno 305 graphics processing unit and 512MB of RAM.
The fact that it doesn’t arrive with at least 1GB of RAM is one of the phone’s downsides, as many important apps and games may not work on the Lumia 630 Dual SIM.
Concerning synthetic benchmarks, Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM definitely shows its limits, but that’s due to the low-end hardware that’s been included.
Those looking for a cheap Windows Phone will not have anything to say about its performance, as Lumia 630 Dual SIM does the job well thanks to a very well optimized operating system.
Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM packs only 8GB of internal memory, but Microsoft also added a microSD card slot for memory expansion, so users will be able to further expand storage up to 128GB. You can find the microSD card slot under the battery cover.
Multimedia
Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM is definitely aimed at music lovers. The smartphone doesn’t even come with a headset in the sale package, not to mention that the quality of the sound is well above average.
You won’t be able to listen to WAV and FLAC files, but Lumia 630 Dual SIM reads just about any other music format. You can make playlists and sort your music based on artists, albums, songs and genres. The default music player in Windows Phone 8.1 is Xbox Music application.
With the Xbox Video app, on the other hand, you will be able to watch videos. The application does not read MKV files, but most of other video formats are supported, except those using the AC3 audio codec.
Last but not least, the Lumia 630 Dual SIM comes with FM Radio with RDS function, but it will not work unless you insert a headset into the 3.5mm slot. This means you will have to purchase these separately if you want to take advantage of this function.
Keep in mind that while the smartphone lacks equalizer for music player, both Xbox Music and Video apps are updated twice per month with new features and improvements, so the user experience may change in time.
Battery
Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM is powered by an 1830 mAh removable battery, which is rated by the manufacturer for up to 648 hours of standby time or up to 16 hours of talk time (13 hours in 3G mode). It should also last for about 58 hours of music playback.
We’ve been able to keep it going for slightly more than 3 days on a medium use, which is quite a lot for a smartphone given that these days the average is only 1-2 days.
However, it is common knowledge that Windows Phone devices offer better battery life than those powered by Android. Obviously, we’re talking about the final version of Windows Phone 8.1, which has been very well optimized for battery life.
Sales Package
Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM handset Compact charger Leaflet
