Microsoft’s mid-range Lumia 735 and 830 reviewed: price is a problem

The Lumia 830 (left) and 735 (right).

Our review of the ultra low-end Lumia 530 found it rather wanting. Sometimes cheap is too cheap, and that phone cut a few too many corners. We felt the Lumia 630 and 635 were a lot more compelling, and in some ways the 630/635 represent the true successor to the old Lumia 520.

We’re now taking a look at the next two phones further up the scale; the Lumia 730 and 735 (3G and 4G, respectively), and the Lumia 830. Unlike the 530 and 630/635 (with the same 3G/4G split as the 730/735), the 730/735 and 830 are both positioned as being more or less mid-range devices, but we can see the familial connections to their various siblings.

Across this range there are two broad styles. The 530 up to the 735 have a black screen on the front and a removable body that wraps around to the edges of the screen, giving an appearance that’s clearly derivative of the very first Lumia models. The 830 and Icon/930 have squarer edges with a cushion-shaped back. The 930’s cover is fixed, but the 830’s is actually removable to allow the battery, SIM, and microSD cards to be replaced.

From left to right: 530, 630, 735, 830, 930.

And again, from the back.

The 830 and above include the dedicated camera button beloved of Windows Phone fans; the 735 and below sadly omit it. Similarly, the 830 also uses hardware back/Windows/search buttons, instead of using the on-screen versions. The on-screen buttons is fine; the loss of the camera button is not. We love the instant, one-button access to the camera on Windows Phone, but without the camera button that’s missing. With the 735 explicitly positioned as being a camera for snapping quick selfies, one would think that this kind of instant access would be important. (It is to me; it apparently isn’t to the 735’s designers. I don’t know why.)

830 on the left, 735 on the right. These phones are so orange that most cameras and monitors literally can’t show how orange they are. They’re that orange.

We like the styling of both, in different ways. The 730/735 is more playful with its high gloss cover that wraps all the way around. The 830, on the other hand, has a more expensive look to it, capturing the seriousness of the Icon/930 but without the heft of that phone.

The 730/735 have an always controversial OLED screen. OLED fans will enjoy the deep blacks, the glorious saturation, and the way it makes the Windows Phone interface pop is just a joy to behold. OLED detractors, however, will complain that the saturation makes everything look weird.

The Lumia 830. The orange part pops off, exposing the battery, SIM, and microSD slot, and it can be replaced if you want something a little less orange. Not that you would.

The 830 has a more conventional LCD. It doesn’t have the same punch as the OLED screen, its blacks are a little greyer, and side-by-side the 735’s screen makes the 830 look positively boring. Overall colors still look good, and sunlight readability is also reasonable, though to our eyes, inferior to the 735’s. The 830 also supports the Glance feature that shows the clock and other notifications even when the screen is otherwise “off.” This is oh so handy.

As the table shows, the insides of the phones are damn near identical and almost the same as the Lumia 630. There are no surprises on the performance front, and having 1GB RAM means the incompatibilities, especially for games, that are found on the 512MB models don’t occur.

The wraparound cover on the 730/735 is also replaceable.

The 8GB internal storage of the 735 may seem a little skimpy, but since Windows Phone makes using SD cards a breeze, it shouldn’t pose any issues for both app and data storage. The 830’s 16GB may let you skip the card, however. Both models have a MicroSD slot, allowing up to 128GB of extra space.

Classy cameras

As with so many Lumia phones before, the point of both of these phones is their camera. The 735 is styled as a “selfie phone” with a relatively wide angle (24mm focal length) 5MP front-facing camera, along with a 5MP rear-facing part. Unlike HTC’s Desire Eye “selfie phone,” the 735’s front-facing camera lacks its own flash, though the rear unit has an LED for illumination.

Lumia 530, outside, sun at my back

Lumia 530, outside, sun at my back

Lumia 630, outside, sun at my back

Lumia 630, outside, sun at my back

Lumia 735, outside, sun at my back

Lumia 735, outside, sun at my back

Lumia 630, outside, sun at my back

Lumia 735, outside, sun at my back

Lumia 830, outside, sun at my back

Lumia 930, outside, sun at my back

Lumia 530, outside, sun at my face

Lumia 530, outside, sun at my face

Lumia 630, outside, sun at my face

Lumia 630, outside, sun at my face

Lumia 735, outside, sun at my face

Lumia 735, outside, sun at my face

Lumia 630, outside, sun at my face

Lumia 735, outside, sun at my face

Lumia 830, outside, sun at my face

Lumia 930, outside, sun at my face

Lumia 530, outside, close-up

Lumia 530, outside, close-up

Lumia 630, outside, close-up

Lumia 630, outside, close-up

Lumia 735, outside, close-up

Lumia 735, outside, close-up

Lumia 630, outside, close-up

Lumia 735, outside, close-up

Lumia 830, outside, close-up

Lumia 930, outside, close-up

Lumia 530, inside

Lumia 530, inside

Lumia 630, inside

Lumia 630, inside

Lumia 735, inside

Lumia 735, inside

Lumia 630, inside

Lumia 735, inside

Lumia 830, inside

Lumia 930, inside

Lumia 735, front-facing camera

Lumia 735, front-facing camera

Lumia 830, front-facing camera

Lumia 830, front-facing camera

Lumia 930, front-facing camera

Lumia 930, front-facing camera

Lumia 830, front-facing camera

Lumia 930, front-facing camera

We’re at a loss to understand the purpose of the 735’s high resolution front-facing camera. In an indoor selfie, the picture quality offers essentially nothing over the selfies from the 830 and 930. Maybe in optimal conditions the extra resolution of the camera can shine, but how often are we taking selfies in optimal conditions? All too often they’re taken indoors, or worse, indoors in bars or other places where poor lighting is the norm.

There’s a special selfie app that has various filters and special effects that you can apply if you really want to, but it doesn’t alter the basically mediocre quality of the pictures.

Especially with its lack of flash, the front-facing camera is crying out for some kind of trickery, such as pixel binning to reduce noise, or something, but we don’t get that. We just get a front-facing camera that produces the same kind of muddy, badly colored pictures as its lower resolution siblings. In fact, worse; the 930’s output is more accurate.

This is true of the rear camera too. While the 930’s 20MP unit is normally used to produce downsampled 5MP images (though full native resolution images can also be captured), the 10MP camera on the 830 is used to produce either 9MP (4:3) or 8MP (16:9) pictures, and the 6.7MP camera on the 735 produces either 6.1MP (4:3) or 5.3MP (16:9) images.

Both phones seem to have pretty decent cameras. In some pictures, the images from the 735’s camera looked a little more saturated than those from the 830, though this wasn’t a consistent property. The extra resolution of the 830 clearly pays with pictures that are a bit sharper; the OIS may be helpful here too. Shot times were quick, and the cameras felt responsive.

Indoors, the 830’s camera pulls ahead of the 735’s. Its flash is more useful, and its low light pictures captured more detail and better color than the 735. The white balance of both the 735 and 830 cameras was better than the 930, which tends to give a pink cast when used in automatic white balance indoors.

The 512MB phones routinely fail to run the full Octane benchmark. I assume they run out of memory.

The 512MB phones routinely fail to run the full Octane benchmark. I assume they run out of memory.

The 512MB phones routinely fail to run the full Octane benchmark. I assume they run out of memory.

Performance has no real surprises. The Snapdragon 400 line is faster than the 200 line used in the 530, but it’s eclipsed by the 800 and 801 used in the 930 and HTC One M8. The extra memory appears to help out too. Windows Phone, as we’ve come to expect, remains fast on low-end hardware, so in normal usage both handsets were comfortable to use.

Battery life was tested at medium brightness. The Lumia 930/Icon isn’t amenable to battery life testing, as it has no option to keep the screen lit. We originally assumed that this was some characteristic of its OLED screen, but the 735 with its OLED screen lets you disable the screen timeout without any trouble. Both the 735 and 830 put in a solid performance in our battery tests.

The issue isn’t really the phones themselves

In many ways, we like both of these phones. Both of the Lumia styles are appealing, and the orange of the review units was particularly glorious. The slightly smaller size and rounded sides of the 735 make it perhaps more comfortable, especially for single-handed operation, but neither device is unwieldy. The 830’s superior rear facing camera and camera button is much more valuable than the 735’s 5MP front-facing unit, but if you’re truly a selfie-holic you might get more value from the 735’s camera than we did.

For both phones, the problem isn’t the hardware. The hardware is fine, and at the right price point, it could be pretty desirable. The issue is these phones aren’t being sold at the right price point.

The 2014 Moto G is one of the best mid-range phones on the market. Its screen is the same size and resolution as the Lumia 830’s. Its processor is the same as the 735 and 830. Its RAM is the same as the 735 and 830. Its internal storage, at 8 or 16GB, spans the 735 and 830. Its cameras, a 10MP rear and 2MP front, may not exactly match the Lumia offerings, but they’re in the same ballpark. Its styling isn’t as fun as the Lumias. Both Lumias support larger microSD cards, and the Lumia 830 has better Wi-Fi. The Lumias have slightly larger batteries, and we’ve found that Windows Phone has better battery life than equivalent Android handsets. The 735 and 830, though not the 730, include LTE support, which is currently not available on the 2014 Moto G. The 2013 Moto G with LTE and a 4.5 inch screen is still available, however.

So the Lumias, especially the 830, have a slight edge over the 2014 Moto G.

Lumia 735.

But they damn well ought to. The 2014 Moto G costs $179, carrier-free, unlocked. The 2013 Moto G with LTE costs $179 off contract from AT&T. Given the nature of the Lumias, with their specs more or less straddling the Moto G, do we see comparable pricing? Not even close. The Lumia 830 costs $449 off contract from AT&T. Is the Lumia 830 twice as good as the Moto G? Not even remotely. If we were talking $40-60 more for the 830—a slight premium for the combination of 4G and a 5-inch screen and 16GB storage—then by all means, it’d be a desirable, keenly priced “mid-range flagship” smartphone. But for $450 off-contract from AT&T, you can get an iPhone 5c, and for $460 you can get a Samsung Galaxy S 4. That Galaxy S 4 may be last year’s model, but last year’s flagship is still substantially better specced than this year’s mid-range. The extra $10 gets you a much faster processor, twice the RAM, a 1920×1080 screen, a bigger battery, 802.11ac, and all the other bells and whistles that Samsung packs into its hardware.