It lacks some of the features included in Lumia 1520

Sep 29, 2014 14:20 GMT  ·  By

US-based carrier Verizon Wireless got the first Nokia flagship smartphone earlier this year when the Lumia Icon went on sale. Although it wasn’t the sequel to the Lumia 1520, the company’s previous flagship smartphone, it was bringing the same features in a smaller chassis.

However, the Lumia Icon was only available in the United States and on top of that only Verizon customers could get it. It took Microsoft about 5 months to make the Lumia Icon available internationally, but under the Lumia 930 name.

The reasons might have something to do with the Nokia mobile division’s acquisition by Microsoft, which might have delayed the launch of the Lumia 930 on the market.

Like that wasn’t enough, Nokia Lumia 930 lacks some of the features that the Lumia 1520 does offer, which is kind of a letdown considering that both are flagship phones.

One of the major downsides of the Lumia 930 over the Lumia 1520 is the missing Glance feature, which seems to have been cut by either Nokia or Microsoft. Also, the former does not come with any kind of earphones at all like a high-end device should.

Other than that, Nokia Lumia 930 doesn’t disappoint when it comes to hardware, although some might disagree given that it uses a slightly older Qualcomm chipset inside, but Windows Phone doesn’t even require more powerful CPUs.

Anyway, Nokia Lumia 930 was launched on the market back in July for $600 (€435) and it’s available in multiple color options such as black, white, orange and green.

Design

The Lumia 930 maintains the same rectangular form factor specific to high-end Nokia smartphones, which is not surprising considering Microsoft did not have time to change the phone’s design and we don’t think it even intended.

The back cover has an appealing matte surface, but we’ve noticed the polycarbonate used doesn’t offer such a good grip. The chassis of the smartphone is enticed in an aluminum frame to give it a sturdy, solid feeling when kept in hand.

Although the smartphone features a unibody design, the aluminum frame makes it look like you will be able to pull out the back cover, which is not the case though. The Lumia 930 packs a non-removable battery and the back side can’t be pulled out, so don’t even try it.

The front side features a large 5-inch display, which is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for better protection. While the solid coating will definitely protect the screen, it will still get scratched after a while.

Nokia Lumia 930
Nokia Lumia 930
Nokia Lumia 930 is only 9.8mm thick and weighs 167g (battery included). The phone features three capacitive keys right below the 5-inch screen, while above there’s a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera along with light and ambient sensors.

There’s nothing on the left side of the phone, but the right side features the dual volume key, the power/lock button and a dedicated camera key. The 3.5mm audio jack has been placed on top of the phone, along with a microSIM card tray. Last but not least, the microUSB port is at the bottom of the Lumia 930.

On the back, there’s an impressive 20-megapixel photo snapper with Carl Zeiss lens that goes along with a dual-LED flash and two mics. The loudspeaker has been placed on the right bottom side of the Lumia 930. As mentioned earlier, the back cover is non-removable, so there’s no way to access the 2420 mAh battery inside.

Display and Camera

The Lumia 930 should pack the best display Nokia can put inside its smartphone. Partly, this is true if not for the fact that it’s not a screen that supports Glance, an important feature for Windows Phone smartphones.

The 5-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display supports 441ppi (pixel per density), which is the highest resolution density a Nokia smartphone offers. The bad news is that Nokia chose to include a display that doesn’t feature memory, which is mandatory for the Glance feature to work.

This is one of the phone’s biggest downsides, and aside from keeping the price low, we can’t think of anything else that could determine Nokia or Microsoft to choose such a display for the Lumia 930.

For example, the Lumia 1520 does include a display that’s compatible with Glance, even if it doesn’t support such a high ppi as Lumia 930’s screen.

Another problem with the Lumia 930’s display was the so-called “purple discoloration” issue, which affects this particular smartphone since its launch.

The issue only affects a limited number of Nokia Lumia 930 units and has been fixed in the meantime. Our unit did not exhibit purple discolorations, but if your device has it, you can fix it by using the “adjust color” settings from the display options.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Lumia 930 is one of the few Nokia smartphones with Windows Phone that support full HD (1080p) resolution.

Thanks to the ClearBlack technology, the phone’s display offers great sunlight eligibility, which means you will be able to read what’s on display even in strong sunlight.

Nokia Lumia 930 camera sample
Nokia Lumia 930 camera sample

Moving on to the camera, Nokia Lumia 930 packs a 20-megapixel photo snapper with Carl Zeiss lens, dual-LED flash, OIS (optical image stabilization), autofocus, HDR and full HD (1080p) video recording at 30fps. This is a PureView camera, which means you can shoot RAW pictures and transfer them on your PC for processing.

You can take pictures with a resolution of up to 4992 x 3744 pixels in JPEG and DNG format. The smartphone saves the picture in both formats if you select this option from the camera UI.

Speaking of which, the Lumia 930 comes with the Nokia Camera app installed by default, which is part of the Lumia Cyan update. It provides multiple settings options that you can adjust to make your pictures look better, such as ISO, balance, focus, shutter speed and more.

Quality-wise, the Lumia 930 has one of the best cameras available on the market thanks to the PureView technology. Obviously, you can’t compare it with a digital camera, but from all the high-end smartphones that claim they have great camera, the Lumia 930 seems to exceed all expectations.

Contrast and colors are very accurate in high-resolution pictures, while the noise level is at minimum. The dedicated camera key also helps greatly at taking pictures quite fast especially that you can open the camera app quickly by pressing and holding it even if the phone is in sleep mode.

There are plenty of other so-called Lenses, which provide Lumia 930 owners with even more camera options, including Cinemagraph, Panorama, Vision and Refocus.

Although Nokia Lumia 930 does top-notch pictures, we can’t say the same thing about videos. The phone’s 20-megapixel camera can record full HD (1080p) videos at 30fps.

The first issue that we encountered while shooting a video of a moving object is the fact that the camera loses focus quite often and needs to refocus during recording. Details are also lower than what we have expected from a 20-megapixel camera.

Overall, Nokia Lumia 930 has one of the best cameras on the market, so regardless of the issues we highlighted above, the advantages of having such a photo snapper overshadow all the disadvantages.

Menu and Software

One of the first smartphone to ship with Windows Phone 8.1 operating system out of the box, Nokia Lumia 930 comes packed with lots of new features and improvements in comparison with devices powered by Windows Phone 8.

In addition, the high-end phone comes with Lumia Cyan by default, so users will be able to take advantage of a lot more Nokia imaging apps, such as Nokia Camera, Nokia Storyteller and Creative Studio.

Windows Phone 8.1 allows users to select a background image for their homescreen, which should give a much smoother look and feel even though you will notice that not all icons are transparent.

Unlike smartphones powered by Windows Phone 8, the Lumia 930 allows users to set up to six tiles on a row instead of only four. The live tiles are resizable and can be moved anywhere on the homescreen.

The new Notifications Center is another major improvement over the previous version of Windows Phone. It provides users with a single location where they can check out all the notifications receives, including missed calls, emails, SMS messages, and calendar events.

You can access the Notifications Center by simply swiping down from the top of the screen. You will notice that there are only four toggles here that give your quick access to various options and settings, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Flight Mode and Rotation Lock.

The All Settings toggle from the right side of the quick bar can’t be replaced with another icon, but the other four can be customized from the Notification settings menu.

Microsoft’s personal digital assistant, Cortana is another major feature introduced by Windows Phone 8.1 in a few more countries, such as China and the UK. Unfortunately, the final version of Cortana is only available in the United States and the program runs like a beta version in the two countries mentioned earlier. It’s also available as an alpha in Australia, Canada and India.

Cortana provides users with the option to set reminders based on contacts in your address book or events in the calendar. It can remind you to ask a certain thing one of your contacts the moment he/she calls you or it can alert you on someone’s birthday.

But that is not all, as Cortana also offers info on places and people that are important to you based on previous experience. You can even give Cortana certain commands that can be carried out in real time, like making a call or texting someone, as well as setting up an alarm and play a certain playlist.

Cortana is also capable of giving you predictions on NFL and NBA matches, as well as weather reports and translations. You can even chit chat with Cortana, it will give you the silliest and funniest replies.

Windows Phone 8.1 also adds Quiet Hours, which is a new feature that works similarly to a DnD (Do Not Disturb) mode. It allows users to filter calls and messages during a certain period of time.

However, Microsoft also added something called Inner Circle, which allows contacts that you want to still be able to call or message you during these “quite hours.”

The People Hub is the place where you can find all your contacts. In addition, this is where you can check out all the social-related stuff posted by your contacts. You just need to link your Twitter or Facebook accounts to see what’s new.

When it comes to apps, Nokia Lumia 930’s major advantage is the Office package. It contains Document, Excel and PowerPoint support with the option to edit and create new files for free. The Microsoft Office package is fully integrated with OneDrive, so users can save all their documents in the cloud.

The smartphone also comes with Bing suite of apps and services, including Travel, Sports, Finance, Food and Drinks, News and Search.

Nokia’s HERE Drive+ and HERE Maps are included in the Lumia 930 software as well and provide users with top-notch voice-guided navigation. Both services are available for free and offer offline modes.

Storage Sense, Battery Saver and Data Sense are three applications that offer users the possibility to check out and configure data allowance, internal memory and battery usage.

Nokia Lumia 930 Shutdown Screen
Nokia Lumia 930 Shutdown Screen

Multitasking on Nokia Lumia 930 works pretty smooth, as apps that are suspended in the background can be resumed or simply killed. To access the multitasking window simply press and hold the Back key and click on the X icon on each app that you want to close.

What you’ll be missing is a dedicated YouTube application, but that’s not Microsoft’s fault as Google decided to pull out the original app a long time ago. This means that you will have to watch YouTube videos through the website.

Xbox Music and Video are now separate apps, which are a nightmare to use for the moment. The good news is that Microsoft delivers updates twice per month to each of these apps, so they should fix all the issues in the next couple of months (hopefully).

Communication

Unlike the Lumia Icon, Nokia Lumia 930 offers different LTE bands (800 / 900 / 1800 / 2100 / 2600), but apart from that, they’re identical. Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, microUSB 2.0, Wi-Fi, DLNA and HSDPA 42Mbps and NFC (Near Field Communication) are some of the most important connectivity options that users will be able to take advantage of with the Lumia 930.

Software-wise, the Lumia 930 comes with the latest version of Internet Explorer (11), but we strongly advise against using it on a daily basis unless you are forced to. With all the latest improvements and new features, Internet Explorer has received in the last couple of months, the browser is still far behind competition.

We’ve noticed Internet Explorer 11 can’t scale a webpage correctly more often that it can. However, we reckon the new version is much faster than previous ones.

New features such as the ability to see a video directly within the browser, as well as private browsing mode and unlimited tab support are among the strong points of IE 11. You can also use gestures for commands like Back and Forward, you just need to swipe to the left or right from the edge of the screen.

As mentioned earlier, the Lumia 930 comes with HERE Drive+ and HERE Maps services, which are available for free to all Windows Phone users.

When it comes to telephony, Nokia Lumia 930 has a great GSM signal reception and in-call sound is well above average, quality-wise. It’s also worth mentioning you can use Cortana to dial someone, or you can make a Skype call directly from the in-call screen. Keep in mind that Smart Dial is not available in Lumia 930.

Microsoft has all the messaging options covered in the Lumia 930. Users can text SMS messages using the Wordflow keyboard, which is one of the fastest and most accurate in the world.

The Messaging hub is the place you can read all your SMS, Facebook or other IM messages. Also, the native email allows users to add multiple accounts. We did not have any major issue with emails or messages, as everything does seem to work very smooth with Windows Phone.

Nokia Lumia 930
Nokia Lumia 930

Processor and Memory

Some might say that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 chipset that powers the Lumia 930 is too old for a flagship smartphone launched in 2014. However, the smartphone doesn’t really need a newer chipset, as Windows Phone has been specifically optimized to run smooth with less resources than Android, for example.

Synthetic benchmarks show the Lumia 930 is on par and in some cases better than the Lumia 1520 when it comes to hardware performance. Considering Nokia Lumia 1520 is one of the smartphones on the market performance-wise, you can rest assured you won’t have any issue running any apps and game you want on the Lumia 930.

The Lumia 930 packs 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory. The downside is that the smartphone lacks microSD card slot for memory expansion, but you get free 15GB of OneDrive cloud storage if you want more storage.

Overall, the Lumia 930 is zippy and you won’t notice any lags or hiccups while running multiple apps or games. This is one of the things we like about Windows Phone, the fact that Microsoft managed to optimize the platform to run very smooth without having to include the latest hardware components.

Multimedia

The Lumia 930 comes with two default multimedia apps, one for the music and one for videos. The Xbox Music application still seems to be a bit rudimentary and awfully full of bugs.

It doesn’t support Equalizers and files like FLAC and WAV. However, you can create playlists and filter your music collection by albums, artists, genres, playlists and songs.

The Xbox Video (or simply Video) allows users to watch videos on the Lumia 930. It doesn’t support MKV files and video formats that use AC3 audio codec.

Quality-wise, Lumia 930 can offer mixed result when it comes to music sound. Aside from the fact that it doesn’t come with any headphones in the sales package, the external speaker is not that loud and clear as we had hoped.

When we plugged our own headphones, music sounded much better, so suffice to say we recommend potential customers to purchase some earphones if they want to listen to music while on the move. Even though Nokia Lumia 930 is not the best music phone on the market, it still offers above average sound quality.

Battery

The Lumia 930 is powered by a 2420 mAh non-removable battery, which is rated by Nokia for up to 11.5 hours of talk time (15.5 hours in 3G mode) or up to 430 hours of standby time.

We’ve been able to survive for about 1 and a half day on an average use. We kept Wi-Fi connectivity always on and made about 1 hour of browsing and 30 minutes of phone calls per day. We have also listened to music for about 2 hours and used the email pretty often.

This isn’t a very good battery life especially that Nokia Lumia 930 lacks the Glance feature, which would have drained even more energy if enabled. It’s not that bad either considering most Android smartphones offer even less battery autonomy than the Lumia 930.

Nokia Lumia 930 Back and Box
Nokia Lumia 930 Back and Box

Sales Package

Nokia Lumia 930 handset Compact charger Leaflet Wireless charging plate (market dependent).


The Good

Nokia Lumia 930 is good looking phone, which is one the most important aspects customers require from a handset these days. The smartphone’s display has the right size and offer great sunlight eligibility.

Even though it’s not a camera phone, the Lumia 930 packs one of the best photo snapper available on the market. The 20-megapixel camera captures state-of-the-art pictures in different formats, including RAW.

Windows Phone 8.1 is a real improvement over the previous versions and, even if it still misses some features, it’s still one of best optimized OSes.

Other strong points of the Lumia 930 include 32GB of internal memory, 2GB of RAM and wireless charging capability. Speaking of which, the smartphone should come with a wireless charging plate in some countries, which is another great selling point.

The Bad

There are quite a few things that customers should consider before buying the Nokia Lumia 930. For example, one the most important features of Windows Phone 8.1, Glance is not available on the smartphone.

Furthermore, the handset lacks microSD card slot and notification LED. The sales package doesn’t include any type of headphones, so you will have to acquire them separately.

The phone’s battery is kind of a letdown as well especially considering Windows Phone should require less resources than Android or iOS platforms.

Last but not least, the video capture capability of the Lumia 930 is not on par with imaging features, which is kind of surprising given the high-quality components the module camera includes.

Conclusion

On paper, Nokia Lumia 930 may not look appealing enough for customers hunting for specs, but in truth the smartphone delivers one of the best hardware performances.
 
We do think the smartphone has been a little bit rushed and Microsoft did seem to make some compromises with the Lumia 930, but after testing it for about a month we can definitely say this can be tagged as a flagship smartphone.
 
Nokia Lumia 930 is the perfect choice for those who want to switch to a high-end Windows Phone handset, but don’t want a large device such as the Lumia 1520.
 
However, due to the fact that the Lumia 930 lacks quite a few features that are included in the Lumia 1520, we do have the impression that this was intended as a temporary flagship smartphone that should be replaced by another handset later this year.

Our Rating

looks 4
build 4
speed 5
battery 2
calls 4
camera 4
video 3
apps 2
screen 3
signal4

final rating 4

Nokia Lumia 930 (111 Images)

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