Nokia Lumia 830 hands-on review

Claimed to be the firm's thinnest and lightest high-end Windows Phone yet

In a bid to take on Samsung and Apple, Nokia released its Lumia 830 at IFA in Germany earlier this September, at its first event as part of Microsoft after the Redmond firm bought Nokia's devices division a year ago. The Lumia 830 adds to the firm's recently announced models such as the Nokia Lumia 530 and Nokia Lumia 630.

The Lumia 830 is the formerly Finnish company's "thinnest and lightest" high-end Windows Phone yet, priced at €330, or around £300.

Design
The main design feature of the Lumia 830 is that it offers a feature set similar to the flagship Lumia 930 but in a more compact chassis. Measuring 8.5mm thick and weighing 150g, the Lumia 830 is one of the lightest Lumia phones, and thus fits more comfortably in the hand than previous high-end Lumia iterations such as the Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 1020.

The handset measures 139x70x8.5mm from top to bottom, a little bigger than the Lumia 930's 137x71x9.8mm chassis but a lot thinner, which makes all the difference. It's also 17g lighter than the Lumia 930, at 150g, meaning it won't slip as easily into a pocket like its predecessor, but it does feel a touch easier to hold. We found that we liked the handset's design and feel, with the aluminium edging adding to its overall robust impression.

It might be Nokia's first release since it was bought by Microsoft, but the good news is that the firm has kept the Lumia brand's splash of colour. Like the Lumia 930, the Lumia 830 will be available in vibrant orange and green models, which certainly will turn heads on the street. Nokia has also opted for matte polycarbonate for the colourful casing rather than the shiny plastic often found on its Windows Phone devices, which means that it sits comfortably in the hand and likely won't be too prone to picking up fingerprints.

For the more conservative buyers, the Nokia Lumia 830 will also be available in black and white models.

Display
The Nokia Lumia 930 has a 5in in-plane switching (IPS) 1280x720 resolution display that we found crisp and bright during our hands-on time with the smartphone.

Thanks to its ClearBlack display technology, Nokia boasts that the Lumia 830 offers 180-degree viewing angles, and the phone lived up to this during our time with it on Thursday at the launch event. However, we found the display quite reflective, and it struggled under bright fluorescent lighting.

Camera
In our hands-on tests, the Lumia 820's 10MP camera seemed to respond brilliantly when we took pictures of the greenery outside the launch event window. Shutter speed was reasonably fast and images taken were crisp, due its PureView image sensor. Nevertheless, it isn't quite as impressive as the Nokia Lumia 1020's 41MP rear-facing camera.

We have yet to put this camera fully through its paces, but early impressions suggest that it will produce images of similar quality to those taken on the Nokia Lumia 930, which impressed us with its crisp and natural image-taking capability.

Performance and OS
Powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, the Lumia 830 seems fast and fluid when swiping between different apps. Nokia said that its new smartphone's performance is "either better or on par" with the Samsung flagship competition, without naming which smartphone it was referring to.

The Nokia Lumia 830 arrives running Windows Phone 8.1 and thus is pre-loaded with Microsoft Office for productivity, OneDrive for cloud storage, and the Cortana voice control app "for markets it's available in".

We have yet to test all of the features of Windows Phone 8.1, but it also delivers Microsoft's Cortana personal assistant, WiFi Sense, Word Flow and enterprise additions.

Of course, all of Nokia's usual additions are also in place, including Here Maps, Nokia Music and the Finnish phone firm's custom camera applications.

Wireless charging
Like the Lumia 930, the Lumia 830 supports wireless charging and Nokia has announced an accessory alongside it at IFA - the second-generation wireless charging plate. The device charges a wireless phone via NFC so when users tap their phone on the plate, they can customise notifications via the plate's lighting feature. They can then choose between different blinking patterns.

The wireless charging plate requires Windows Phone 8.1 and will be available in green, orange and white to match the covers of the Lumia 830.

First impressions
While the Nokia Lumia 830 didn't immediately strike us as a breathtaking smartphone, our hands-on has convinced us otherwise, and we think that this could one of Nokia's most popular Windows Phones yet, mainly due to its relatively low price.

The screen is the most impressive we've seen on a Nokia Lumia smartphone yet, and the Microsoft's Windows Phone 8.1 mobile operating system brings some impressive additions, including built-in VPN support, integrated Skype access and low system requirements, meaning its more nippy. With all these extras, people might be more open to switching to Windows Phone from more popular operating systems such as iOS and Android.

Check back with V3 soon for our full Nokia Lumia 830 review.