Nokia Lumia 930: A Strong Flagship Smartphone Contender

I’ve been using the Nokia Lumia 930 as a daily driver for more than 3 weeks now and usually I would say that “this is truly the best Windows Phone out in the market today”. However I’ll go beyond a step beyond that and say that the Nokia Lumia 930 is one of the best flagship smartphones in the market today. It can compete head-on in terms of design, user experience, and freshness against the Androids and iPhones of the world. And while there is still a big difference in the number of apps available on the Windows Phone store compared to Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play, most of the major apps that you would use daily are already available (even Clash of Clans lol).

John already wrote a comprehensive review on the Nokia Lumia 930 so as to not do the same thing all over again, allow me to just share the top 5 things that I loved about the Nokia Lumia 930. These are also the main reasons I’ll continue using it as one of my daily drivers for the months to come.

1. Simply because it’s not an iPhone or an Android smartphone

Different is good. The Nokia Lumia 930 and the Windows Phone 8.1 experience is a complete breath of fresh air in a world that’s dominated by iPhones and Android smartphones. Not having to look at the same iOS or Android home screen is actually kinda refreshing and therapeutic, especially if you’re a gadget/tech blogger like us, hehe.

Now all the novelty would be for naught if the internals and over-all experience would be substandard. However that’s not the case with the Nokia Lumia 930. The Snapdragon processor, 2GB RAM, and the overly optimized operating system delivers a near flawless and almost virtually lag free experience. We daresay that compared to some Android flagships, it’s actually more consistently smoother.

2. Windows Phone 8.1 is a Big Step Forward

Speaking of software, Windows Phone 8.1 is the update that millions of Windows Phone fans have been waiting for because it finally brings the Windows Phone experience head-on with iOS and Android. We get a ton of new features including the highly anticipated Action Center which is Windows Phone’s take on notifications and quick settings. We also get Word Flow for keyboard input, our very own voice activated assistant Cortana, more unique Live Tiles for a variety of core apps, and aesthetically we can even customize the images that appear over some tiles so that it shows one big image (like our photo above).

We’re definitely excited to see what Microsoft has for us with the next version of Windows Phone!

3. Striking Polycarbonate Unibody Design

Nokia has always made excellent hardware and they proved this when they launched the first line-up of Lumias several years ago. There’s no exception with the Nokia Lumia 930. The aluminum chamfered sides are awesome to look at and it gets even better with the colored back especially if you pick the more distinct colors like green or orange.

Note: While we’re all praises for the aesthetics, we’re a bit concerned about how the metal of the edges aren’t as comfortable to hold anymore compared to previous Lumias. More on this later.

4. Purview Camera is No Gimmick

Nokia was able to get attention for their smartphones when they started launching devices with their PureView camera technology. They even went over the top when they made the Nokia 808 and later on the legendary Nokia Lumia 1020 (which still beats the crap out of all the other smartphones in terms of quality). They scaled that down a bit by dialing down the megapixels to 20MP with the Nokia Lumia 930 but it is still as superb and good! It captures amazing photos in good-mid level lighting and it outperforms a lot of other flagships in lowlight conditions. They also addressed our major issue with the 1020’s camera: focus time.

5. The gorgeous 5″ inch 1080p display

Lastly we have the 5.0-inches Gorillas Glass display. Now Gorilla Glass is already used by a lot of other devices but we particularly loved the coating that Nokia uses on their devices what makes the display so much easier and a pleasure to use. Our finger just glides across it effortlessly. The 5.0-inch form factor is also just right given how we use smartphones today (more than just calling and texting).

These are our top 5 reasons why we love the Nokia Lumia 930. We firmly believe that it is a great and solid alternative to the iPhones and Androids of today and you won’t get disappointed if you guys take the plunge. In fact after we reviewed the iPhone 6 Plus and the iPhone 6 we sent both phones back in their boxes and picked up our trusty 930 again.

Now if budget is your problem, we’re happy to share that the Nokia Lumia 830, a much more affordable but high quality Windows Phone, is now out in the market as well. We’ll do a review on that later this week so watch out!

A few things that can be improved
Here are just some suggestions to Microsoft for the next Lumia flagship. Our main issues with the 930 include not having an expandable microSD card slot, the non curved metal edges, exclusion of Glance, and the non-removable battery. Ship another version of the 930 with those fixes and we’d gladly drop whatever phone we have and get that as one of our daily drivers.