A little over a week ago, we unveiled the Nokia Lumia 930, Nokia’s first flagship phone of 2014 and now we’re back with a First Impression post regarding the beautiful aesthetics and the super-performing software of this monoblock touch beauty.
You would be forgiven if you were caught drooling over the excellent-built aluminum frame and the generous 5” HD AMOLED Sculpted Glass Display equipped with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. It is eye candy and will definitely catch anyone’s attention, especially with the Bright Orange back cover present in our review unit. The device fits rather nicely in the hand and the back cover is smooth to the touch. There is also an allure of sophistication with the Nokia Lumia 930 as the sides of the phone are relatively clutter-free and one will only find three hardware buttons located strategically on the right hand side of the phone. Overall, the design is almost if not completely flawless.
As an avid-Android user and occasional iOS user, I would be lying if I said that switching over to the Windows Phone OS was a walk in the park. However, the change proved to be rather refreshing and delightful as the Nokia Lumia 930 runs on the latest Windows Phone 8.1 software which Microsoft claims it to be more personal due to a number of enhancements but most notably is the fact that one would now have the opportunity to display any photo of choice on the Start background. Another noteworthy point is the introduction of Cortana in Windows Phone 8.1. She is your very own personal assistant! Cortana has greatly improved the user-experience on the Nokia Lumia 930 as she is able to handle and turn everyday tasks such as checking your schedule, making a call, texting, opening apps, setting alarms, finding out the weather into a joy-ride experience. Heck, she would even sing and tell jokes if you’d ever get bored! With the Snapdragon 800 Quad-core CPU and 2GB RAM on board, executing apps and multitasking is speedy and responsive.
Moving on, Nokia has always been in high regard when it comes to their Camera and the Nokia Lumia 930 is of course, no exception. On the hardware side, it comes equipped with a 20MP PureView Camera with ZEISS optics technology and dual LED Flash. However, the crux of it all is the Nokia Camera app. It is by far the best camera interface I’ve come across in any smartphone and it is a perfect marriage between hardware and software. It comes with a comprehensive yet easy-to-use interface and the manual focus is an awesome feature to utilize when taking close-ups. Below are a few shots taken with theNokia Lumia 930.
With all that firepower in a flagship phone, a very important question needs to be asked and that question is, “How is the battery life?” The Nokia Lumia 930 comes with a non-removable 2420mAh battery which supports wireless charging (although the wireless dock did not come with our review unit). For a Heavy (behemoth-like) user like myself, the battery life on the Nokia Lumia 930 proved itself to be a puny power source! On the first few days of using the phone, it died after approximately 5 hours. Hence, I decided to be a little gentler on the phone and it lasted me an extra hour and if I decided to be even daintier – 8 hours (and that’s pushing it already for me). I could never hit the approximated 17 hours as stated on the Battery Saver app. Oh well, that’s just me I guess.
Overall, I simply adore the Nokia Lumia 930 and I was truly impressed with the unit albeit a little annoyed with the mediocre battery life. I’ll be back with an even more in-depth review about the other slick features which comes with this flagship phone. Stay tuned!
