BERLIN - It's easy to mistake Microsoft's Nokia Lumia 830 for a premium smartphone because it looks like one -- but it won't be priced like one. Sporting a silver-brushed build, the upcoming midrange handset boasts some neat software features and a sharp PureView camera for its 330 unlocked price tag.
We went hands-on with the latest Lumia following Microsoft's IFA 2014 press event, and were generally pleased with what we saw.
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At 8.5 millimeters thin and weighing 5.29 ounces, the 820 feels comfortably lightweight yet surprisingly sturdy. An attractive silver streak runs through the edges, which sport power and volume control buttons on the right, and headphone and microUSB ports at the bottom. A small speaker and the phone's 10-MP PureView sensor sit on the soft-touch, interchangeable rear panel, which comes in bright green, bright orange, white and black.
The phone's 5-inch, 1280 x 720-pixel display looked crisp and bright, as did the photos we took with the device's Zeiss Optics-branded rear camera. The handset ships with Microsoft's Lumia Denim software update, which means you'll get to take advantage of features like 4K video recording, faster camera shooting and hands-free Cortana activation.
The Lumia 830 is powered by a 1.2-GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor, with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. If you need more space, the 830 comes with 15GB of OneDrive cloud storage and supports up to 128GB of extra space via microSD. The phone supports Microsoft's newly announced Lumia accessories, namely the Smart Wireless Charger and the Microsoft Screen Sharing for Lumia Phones HD-10 dongle, which lets you cast your 830's screen to your television.
We look forward to seeing how Microsoft's "first affordable flagship" stacks up to the competition when it arrives globally late this month.
