Nokia Lumia 930 Review

Like most Lumia phones the 930 embraces colour. Nokia has swapped out the chiefly metal design as seen on the 925, opting instead for a metal frame and polycarbonate matte black that’s available in bright orange and green. You can get the phone in a more subdued black or white, exclusive to Phone4U, but we imagine many buyers will be attracted to the louder, highlighter-style shades that Nokia is pushing.
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The 930’s squarer, chunkier body makes it much less appealing than many of its rivals. At 9.8mm thick, the Lumia 930 is considerably beefier than the Samsung Galaxy S5 (8.1mm), and its square edges make it feel chunkier than the more agreeably-curved frame of the HTC One M8 (9.35mm).

Consequently, the Lumia 930 is one of the less comfortable phones to hold we’ve reviewed, even if the slightly raised back rests nicely in the palm. The 930 also weighs 167g, making it heavier than the M8 (160g) and the Samsung Galaxy S5 (145g), though the weight difference is less problematic than the rather boxy body.

The button and port layout is fairly conventional. The headphone jack is on the top edge; the microUSB charging port at the bottom below the physical touch keys; and the volume rocker on the right edge, along with the on/off button and a dedicated camera button. The nanoSIM card slot is well disguised next to the headphone jack, where a fingernail instead of pin is suitable to open up the tray.

Like the 925, there’s no expandable memory, which is going to disappoint many given Android alternatives routinely have them, though of course the iPhone doesn’t have one, either.

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Nokia Lumia 930: Screen

The Lumia 930 follows the big phone trend by jumping from the 4.5-inch screen in the 925 to a larger 5-inch Full HD AMOLED display. It has an impressive 441 pixels per inch (ppi) pixel density and is toughened up with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Of course, AMOLED screens are famous for their deep, inky blacks, so it’s little surprise the Lumia 930 has Nokia’s ‘ClearBlack’ label.

Those deeper blacks are immediately obvious when you glimpse at the Live Tile user interface. It’s an extremely bright screen as well and like the 925, the contrast and vibrant colours really impress. Colours can have a habit of a looking a tad oversaturated, as is common with AMOLED displays, and some early users have reported a purple tint on white pages, but neither issue is hugely detrimental.

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Nokia also includes a comprehensive set of display settings where you can can adjust the screen’s colour profile to standard, vivid or cool. There’s also the option to tinker with colour temperature, tint and colour saturation in the advanced settings and see how the adjustments look in a series of images before they are applied. Additionally, you can also adjust brightness, switch on a sunlight readability mode or reduce screen brightness when the Battery Saver mode is active.  

If we are being really picky, the display doesn’t quite match the LG G3 or the Samsung Galaxy S5. The Quad HD screen on the G3 has a ludicrously sharp 534 ppi spread across a larger 5.5-inch screen, while the work Samsung has done fine-tuning the S5’s Super AMOLED really shines through, but even so the Lumia 930’s screen is very good.