October 1, 2014, Nokia India launched three new Lumia’s to Indian market which would be available for purchase post October 15, 2014. Nokia Lumia 730 for affordable smartphone category at a price point of 15,299/-, Nokia Lumia 830 with a Carl Zeiss Pureview camera at a price point of 28, 000/- around and flagship Nokia Lumia 930 Pureview with metallic bezel at price point of 38,000/- around which would be available later.
With flood of phones in the market on almost weekly basis, it’s getting hard to differentiate for a brand. Brands have to re-think each time that which features they need to highlight for selling the new range of phones. This time, Nokia has branded their affordable Nokia Lumia 730 as Selfie phone.
Why Selfie?
Photography has came a long way ahead since the time when Nokia introduced the first camera phone to the world. The kind of challenges and requirements with camera phones kept on changing over time and so were the phone.
First it was about having easy access to a camera which is always with you to take a snap than dedicated camera, then the challenge moved ahead to compete with digital cameras and focus moved to quality of pictures along with the ease of use, then we moved ahead to cope with DSLR Cameras along with ease of use. At many occasions, people find that its good to use a smartphone to take pictures than a dedicated camera or DSLR considering the ease of use, easy to snap, easy to edit on the go and easy to share with the dedicated connectivity. What else one would be need from a photography solution?
But soon the next generations found the answer for “what else?” and the answer was “Selfie”. This always been a common complaint of many who love taking snaps that at the end of day, they find that though they might have taken thousands of snaps in a day, there are a few pictures in those including themselves as it’s not that convenient to give your phone to others and asking them to take the perfect pictures like you or of your choice. So answer was, why not take pictures of self? The use case became mainstream with usable resolution front cameras which started coming with new age smartphones as timer option was just not cutting it and taking a snap via back camera by guess work wasn’t giving perfect results every time.
Capable wide angle camera means one can take snaps of self and even of a big group including himself in it.
Nokia Lumia 730 : Polycarbonate Unibody build carries the legacy
Its hard to keep a differentiator about your phones when it comes to build due to rush of similar looking phones in the market and one should give full credit to Lumia series that they kept their designs unique through entire range. Not only design but material and durability also to go along.
Even though it might be at a lower price point with similar kind of base specs as Moto G next gen might have but the dual SIM offering of Nokia at affordable smartphone segment doesn’t looses its punch with 720p 4.7” CBD display along with ultrathin Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The camera might be of 6.7MP, but it Carl Zeiss optics which been known for being kind of best out there. While front and back both cameras can record at 1080p resolution, the battery at 2200mAh promises 22h of talktime and 600h of standby time.
Sure enough punches for the price point for the users which are not dedicatedly Android.
Nokia Lumia 830 : The first Pureview Phone without the camera bump
Even though the original Pureview definition of having a Super pixel created by heavy resolution camera compressed to few has changed over time, Pureview still stands for Carl Zeiss and quality pictures with it even though it wasn’t able to make phones very slimmer. Not any more.
Nokia Lumia 830 is just 8.5mm thick phone with 5” 720p IPS LCD screen weighing just 150g.. apparently the thinnest and lightest Lumia till date. A polycarbonate back along with metallic bezel for a phone which not only takes great night, low light pictures but also takes great wide angle selfies with 28mm front camera of 5MP capability.
The other differentiator with the phone was “Live Images”, which is a term for Nokia’s answer to HTC’s “zoe”. A photo which keeps moments in it like videos. I don’t really know how the describe it other way around.
If something was awkward with the phone then it would be the back cover which facilitates Wireless charging and all while made of polycarbonate material, it remains a pain in ass in case one needs to remove it for accessing battery/ storage / SIM etc.
The speaker continues to remain on the backside and single.
The no-bump Pureview camera on the back. The new about the camera is introduction of 3-Microphone system which claims to record true 5.1 Surround sound.
When it comes to Lumia series then apart from Windows Phone OS, the other differentiators are services, which Microsoft trying to push towards the end of spectrum till the lowest price points and the big step towards that this time is introductory offer of 1Tb Cloud Storage for six months and then on a cost of Rs150/- per month later on. The same cloud storage supposed to be available with any the new phones from now on.
This is definitely a Lumia which I would like to talk about more when it pays me a longer visit.
Nokia Lumia 930 : The flagship Pureview smartphone of Nokia talking metal
This was a surprise launch which wasn’t given hint about before the launch. The highest priced phone of the spectrum comes with the topmost of specs in entire range along with metallic build quality (reminding of iPhone 4S like bezel).
The specs include:
- Quad-core 2.2 GHz Krait 400, Qualcomm MSM8974 Snapdragon 800, Adreno 330, LTE CAT4 Support
- 137 x 71 x 9.8 mm, 167g
- A 1080p 5” display competing the best of displays in the market with ~441 ppi pixel density, which is CBD AMOLED along with Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
- Dolby Digital Plus Surround Sound
- 20 MP Carl Zeiss Optics with Dual LED Pureview Camera with Optical Image Stabilization. 1.2 MP front camera @720p though.
- Wireless Charging Plate DT-900 included in retail package
I didn’t had much hands on over the phone, so can’t say more..
Nitish Kumar's Blog 