Nokia has launched a brand new flagship Lumia mobile, rocking the freshly-launched Windows Phone 8.1 and a welcome return to colour. We checked out the Lumia 930 at a London launch and here’s our initial thoughts and a full specs run-down.
As well as two new affordable Windows Phone devices, Nokia today unveiled its premium Lumia 930 handset, its latest 5-inch flagship mobile packing tons of power and a 20-megapixel camera. Check out our quick hands-on review in the video below.
Nokia’s Lumia 930 is its latest Windows Phone flagship device, following on from last year’s sleek Lumia 925, and it’s a step back into fun, colourful design. The new Lumia 930 steps up the 925’s specs and once again sports built-in wireless charging like the earlier Lumia 920 (the 925 needed a special case to charge wirelessly), along with the latest 8.1 version of Windows Phone, launched yesterday.
Coming in a range of bright colours, including orange, green and the usual white and black, the Lumia 930 is a solid 167g five-inch smartphone made from metal and polycarbonate. It’s a chunky yet obviously premium design, with a good heft. The rectangular design reminds of an upscaled iPhone, except for the rounded corners which make it more comfortable to clutch the larger frame.
The Lumia 930’s specs are as impressive as you’d expect for a flagship device, packing a surprisingly powerful 2.2GHz Snapdragon quad-core processor that should easily handle all of your apps and games. The ClearBlack screen should be typically bright with vibrant colours and good levels of contrast.
Windows Phone 8.1 is looking much like a slightly improved version of Windows Phone 8, rather than a full-on refresh, especially as we can’t get Cortana here in the UK just yet. The desktop can now be customised with a wallpaper which sits behind the tiles, for instance (although is still mostly obscured), and of course you get the Action Centre which is Microsoft’s take on Android’s Notification Bar.
As for the camera, you obviously don’t get an uber-stacked 41-megapixel snapper like the PureView range, but the Lumia 930 does still sport a 20-megapixel PureView camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Backed up by Nokia’s usual slick camera app, you should be able to snap some crisp and colourful shots and get creative when you want to.
You also get a good range of supported services, including Xbox Video and Netflix. Microsoft and Nokia have bigged up their concentration on connectivity, allowing your Windows Phone device to communicate better with your Windows desktop and Xbox console. This allows easier file sharing: for instance, you could be working on an Office document or watching an Xbox video on your commute home, and then throw them onto your home devices when you finally stagger indoors.
Nokia is offering a strong pre-order offer in UK and Ireland: Buy the Lumia 930 early and you’ll get a free wireless charger and a colourful mini wireless speaker which sticks to any surface to amplify the bass (we heard it in action and it really is impressive, filling a decent sized room with surprisingly clean audio). You’ll also get a £20 app voucher, for downloading all of those awesome apps that have finally hit the Windows online store.
The Lumia 930 will hit UK stores and networks in June 2014, priced at $599 US before tax.
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