Nokia has been championing Windows Phone for several years now, releasing a steady stream of business-friendly handsets full of innovative security and productivity services. This effort has paid off to a large extent, with Windows Phone's market share growing from less than three percent to just over 10 percent since Nokia launched its first Windows Phone, the Lumia 800.
According to Nokia Windows Phone has had particular success in the corporate space, with UK president Conor Pierce claiming the OS currently has an impressive 18 percent share of the business market. For this reason it's unsurprising Nokia's chosen to continue its enterprise conquest push and has unveiled a new Windows Phone 8.1-powered Lumia 930 flagship handset it claims is its most business friendly to date.
Design and build
Visually, like all Nokia smartphones, the Lumia 930 has a colourful, distinctive design that is slightly reminiscent of the firm's previous Lumia 925 Windows Phone. The Lumia 930 has metallic, angular sides and a coloured polycarbonate backplate.
Size-wise the Lumia 930 measures in at 137x71x9.8mm and weighs 167g. This puts it on a par with most 5in handsets, like HTC's latest 146x71x9.4mm, 160g One M8. This means that smartphone users accustomed to smaller handsets, like the Apple iPhone 5S or Sony Xperia Z1 Compact, may find the Lumia 930 slightly unwieldy. However, despite its increased size, during our hands-on we found the Lumia 930 was still fairly comfortable in hand and wasn't overly cumbersome.
We were also reasonably impressed with the Nokia Lumia 930's build quality. Pushing down on the Lumia 930's back we found the clipped-in polycarbonate plate offered no give. The phone also felt reasonably scratch proof and in general left us feeling suitably reassured it could survive the accidental bump or scrape.
Display
Nokia's loaded the Lumia 930 with a 5in Full HD, 1920x1080, 441ppi organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display.
Testing the Lumia 930's display in the well-lit Nokia press room we were very impressed. Colours displayed on Windows Phone's tiled user interface appeared vibrant and rich and the display featured dazzlingly good brightness levels - so much so that it began to hurt our eyes using it at maximum brightness. Text displayed on the screen was also crisp and the screen boasted significantly wider viewing angles than most competing 5in smartphones.
Operating system and software
One of the Lumia 930's most interesting and potentially biggest selling points is its use of Microsoft's latest Windows Phone 8.1 (WP8.1) operating system. WP8.1 adds a variety of new features to Windows Phone. Some of these are quite consumer focused, like the ability to set a background image in the main UI and increased theme options for the phone's lock screen, though many have undeniable business appeal.
These include key things like Skype being directly integrated into the phone's dialler app, a new productivity-focused Calendar user interface, 'Cortana' voice assistant and 'Action Center' quick alert service.
The Cortana service offers similar functionality to Apple's Siri and lets users do things like launch specific applications or mount web searches with voice commands. The Action Centre pull-down notifications menu is similar to the one seen on Google's Android operating system.
WP8.1 also comes with a number of under the hood mobile device management (MDM) upgrades designed to improve the OS' appeal to IT managers and enterprise-level companies. The upgrades include newly added Line of Business application and certificate management powers and inbuilt secure/multipurpose internet mail extension (S/MIME) and virtual private network (VPN) support.
Performance
The Nokia Lumia 930 is powered by a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor and features 2GB of RAM. This puts the Lumia 930 one step shy of running on Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 801 chip.
However, despite running on last year's chip, during our hands-on we never once noticed a performance issue using the Lumia 930. Testing the Lumia 930 we found it ran perfectly smoothly and opened applications in milliseconds. Sadly we didn't get a chance to benchmark the Lumia 930 or see how it coped with more demanding tasks, like 3D gaming, though we'll be sure to do this for our full review.
Camera
Despite carrying Nokia's prestigious Pureview branding, the Lumia 930 doesn't feature the 41MP camera sensor debuted on its predecessor the Lumia 1020. Instead the Lumia 930 comes loaded with a 20MP rear camera complete with Zeiss optics.
Testing the Lumia 930's camera by taking a few quick pictures around the press room we noticed the new Windows Phone's camera is far more responsive than the 1020's, which at times could feel fairly laggy. Image quality was also very good, with images captured on the Lumia 930 generally coming out looking sharp and featuring decent colour and contrast levels.
Battery and storage
The Lumia 930 is powered by a 2,420mAh battery that Nokia lists as offering users 15.5 hours' talktime and up to nine hours' video playback. We didn't get a chance to test the Lumia 930's battery during our hands-on, but if the handset matches Nokia's claims the phone's battery will be better than average, with most handsets in its size range offering 6.5 to seven hours of video playback. As an added bonus Nokia's also loaded wireless charging to the Lumia 930, meaning users will be able to quickly and easily top up the phone's battery throughout the day.
Storage-wise the Lumia 930 comes with a reasonable 32GB built in. Sadly the Lumia 930 doesn't have a microSD card slot, meaning users won't be able to upgrade the phone's storage after purchase.
Chances
Our opening experience with the Nokia Lumia 930 has been very positive. While the handset doesn't have the technology "wow" factor of its predecessor, the Lumia 1020, which was the first ever Windows Phone to feature a 41MP camera, during our hands-on we discovered plenty of software features to get excited about.
Our only concern about the Lumia 930 is that Nokia is yet to release one key detail about the smartphone - its price. Without this key bit of information, knowing the phone's exact chances in the increasingly competitive top-end device market is difficult.
The Nokia Lumia 930 is set to arrive in the UK in June. Check back with V3 then for a full review of the Nokia Lumia 930.
By V3's Alastair Stevenson
According to Nokia Windows Phone has had particular success in the corporate space, with UK president Conor Pierce claiming the OS currently has an impressive 18 percent share of the business market. For this reason it's unsurprising Nokia's chosen to continue its enterprise conquest push and has unveiled a new Windows Phone 8.1-powered Lumia 930 flagship handset it claims is its most business friendly to date.
Design and build
Visually, like all Nokia smartphones, the Lumia 930 has a colourful, distinctive design that is slightly reminiscent of the firm's previous Lumia 925 Windows Phone. The Lumia 930 has metallic, angular sides and a coloured polycarbonate backplate.
Size-wise the Lumia 930 measures in at 137x71x9.8mm and weighs 167g. This puts it on a par with most 5in handsets, like HTC's latest 146x71x9.4mm, 160g One M8. This means that smartphone users accustomed to smaller handsets, like the Apple iPhone 5S or Sony Xperia Z1 Compact, may find the Lumia 930 slightly unwieldy. However, despite its increased size, during our hands-on we found the Lumia 930 was still fairly comfortable in hand and wasn't overly cumbersome.
We were also reasonably impressed with the Nokia Lumia 930's build quality. Pushing down on the Lumia 930's back we found the clipped-in polycarbonate plate offered no give. The phone also felt reasonably scratch proof and in general left us feeling suitably reassured it could survive the accidental bump or scrape.
Display
Nokia's loaded the Lumia 930 with a 5in Full HD, 1920x1080, 441ppi organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display.
Testing the Lumia 930's display in the well-lit Nokia press room we were very impressed. Colours displayed on Windows Phone's tiled user interface appeared vibrant and rich and the display featured dazzlingly good brightness levels - so much so that it began to hurt our eyes using it at maximum brightness. Text displayed on the screen was also crisp and the screen boasted significantly wider viewing angles than most competing 5in smartphones.
Operating system and software
One of the Lumia 930's most interesting and potentially biggest selling points is its use of Microsoft's latest Windows Phone 8.1 (WP8.1) operating system. WP8.1 adds a variety of new features to Windows Phone. Some of these are quite consumer focused, like the ability to set a background image in the main UI and increased theme options for the phone's lock screen, though many have undeniable business appeal.
These include key things like Skype being directly integrated into the phone's dialler app, a new productivity-focused Calendar user interface, 'Cortana' voice assistant and 'Action Center' quick alert service.
The Cortana service offers similar functionality to Apple's Siri and lets users do things like launch specific applications or mount web searches with voice commands. The Action Centre pull-down notifications menu is similar to the one seen on Google's Android operating system.
WP8.1 also comes with a number of under the hood mobile device management (MDM) upgrades designed to improve the OS' appeal to IT managers and enterprise-level companies. The upgrades include newly added Line of Business application and certificate management powers and inbuilt secure/multipurpose internet mail extension (S/MIME) and virtual private network (VPN) support.
Performance
The Nokia Lumia 930 is powered by a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor and features 2GB of RAM. This puts the Lumia 930 one step shy of running on Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 801 chip.
However, despite running on last year's chip, during our hands-on we never once noticed a performance issue using the Lumia 930. Testing the Lumia 930 we found it ran perfectly smoothly and opened applications in milliseconds. Sadly we didn't get a chance to benchmark the Lumia 930 or see how it coped with more demanding tasks, like 3D gaming, though we'll be sure to do this for our full review.
Camera
Despite carrying Nokia's prestigious Pureview branding, the Lumia 930 doesn't feature the 41MP camera sensor debuted on its predecessor the Lumia 1020. Instead the Lumia 930 comes loaded with a 20MP rear camera complete with Zeiss optics.
Testing the Lumia 930's camera by taking a few quick pictures around the press room we noticed the new Windows Phone's camera is far more responsive than the 1020's, which at times could feel fairly laggy. Image quality was also very good, with images captured on the Lumia 930 generally coming out looking sharp and featuring decent colour and contrast levels.
Battery and storage
The Lumia 930 is powered by a 2,420mAh battery that Nokia lists as offering users 15.5 hours' talktime and up to nine hours' video playback. We didn't get a chance to test the Lumia 930's battery during our hands-on, but if the handset matches Nokia's claims the phone's battery will be better than average, with most handsets in its size range offering 6.5 to seven hours of video playback. As an added bonus Nokia's also loaded wireless charging to the Lumia 930, meaning users will be able to quickly and easily top up the phone's battery throughout the day.
Storage-wise the Lumia 930 comes with a reasonable 32GB built in. Sadly the Lumia 930 doesn't have a microSD card slot, meaning users won't be able to upgrade the phone's storage after purchase.
Chances
Our opening experience with the Nokia Lumia 930 has been very positive. While the handset doesn't have the technology "wow" factor of its predecessor, the Lumia 1020, which was the first ever Windows Phone to feature a 41MP camera, during our hands-on we discovered plenty of software features to get excited about.
Our only concern about the Lumia 930 is that Nokia is yet to release one key detail about the smartphone - its price. Without this key bit of information, knowing the phone's exact chances in the increasingly competitive top-end device market is difficult.
The Nokia Lumia 930 is set to arrive in the UK in June. Check back with V3 then for a full review of the Nokia Lumia 930.
By V3's Alastair Stevenson
