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MICROSOFT IS HOPING that cutting down price will help it challenge Apple and Samsung as it launched what it called “the affordable flagship” smartphone.
The Lumia 830 will be released this month and is expected to cost €330. The 5-inch device will include a 10MP pureview camera, which will allow it to record 4K video.
However, the cut in price is down to the smartphone not being as powerful as the Lumia 930, which has a 2GB RAM, 32GB of memory and a Quad-core 2.2GHz processor
By comparison, the Lumia 830 has a 1GB RAM, 16GB of memory a quad-core 1.2GHz processor.
Unsurprisingly, the company has focused on improving the camera with the released of an update called Lumia Demin, which will allow faster camera bootup and capture speeds.
If you longpress the camera button in any mode, it will start recording via 4K video which according to Microsoft, captures 24 frames per second with 8.3MP per frame.
The update also offers improvement to Cortana, Microsoft’s digital assistant, such as voice activation while the phone is on standby, but the company didn’t specify when it would be released globally.
The company also announced the launch of two new mid-range smartphones, the Lumia 735 and 730 dual SIM. Both smartphones were designed with selfies in mind by offering a 5MP camera and wide-angle lens as well as creating a dedicated selfie app.
The Lumia 735 is expected to cost €219 while the Lumia 730 Dual Sim will cost €199. Both are expected to ship globally by the end of this month.
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I had the Lumia 920 and it was a solid phone. Windows 8 is great. Except the app store is shit. They need to improve the apps/games pronto. I eventually went back to Android just for the apps.
In fairness I’ve been hearing complaints about the selection of windows apps for a few years now… If it hasn’t been sorted by this stage it is never going to be… 3rd party companies don’t want to work with them simples. Do windows phones even have any Irish mobile banking apps…?
True. Its such a shame though
The third party developers won’t care about Windows phone until it has a decent install base. Which it won’t get until there is a decent app store. It’s a catch 22.
You can’t even get thejournal.ie app which I suppose is a bonus.
Such is the desperation for applications, the policing of app-quality on the Windows App Store is disastrous. There’s so many fake / imitation apps that you have to investigate quite a bit before downloading, and many of those Apps will have top, 5-star obviously fake ratings as well. At least Apple have a stringent quality-assessment in their Apps store which makes the Microsoft Store look like a junk-yard sale.
Nope it’s a disgrace.
Actually yes they do they certainly have my bank PTSB app..
I have been using windows phone for 2 years and the app store has improved 100 fold…
Windows phones are actually really under-rated. I bought the Lumia 630 for €80 pay as you go, and it is vastly superior to my previous iPhone 4s, and at a fraction of the price. Sure there is not a huge availability of apps on the system, but the basics are there, and really most websites have mobile versions anyways.
no Tinder = dealbreaker
6tin, its the exact same, developed by Rudy Hall, who also made a 3rd party version of snapchat (6snap) and instagram, although there is now a beta instagram app.
Rudy Huyn.
Nexus 5 a much better option for an extra €20?
So, Quintan; is 330 yoyos what you’d call affordable? There’s a lot of folks out there would disagree. Mind you, you’ll always get the same sad knuckledraggers encamped outside stores awaiting the date of sale. Bottom line is you can put this, that and every other gadget and gizmo into it but at the end of the day NOTHING is made to last anymore. It’s all about profit and taking advantage of the sheeples’ craving for the latest fashion trend. Now; roll on the red thumbs
Hey Enda, as mentioned in the first paragraph, it’s Microsoft that’s calling the Lumia 830 affordable, hence why it’s in quotation marks.
Since it made a point of that in its press conference – it compared that €330 price tag to the cost of an iPhone 5s and Samsung Galaxy S5 at one point – and gave it the tagline “the affordable flagship”, that’s the criteria it wants it to be judged on. Whether people think it’s affordable or not is another story entirely.
But do YOU, in YOUR opinion, think that’s affordable? That’s what I meant. Granted, I suppose you can’t give a biased view on the matter for fear of a bent ear by Microsoft…
affordable to the ordinary Joe?
Ah, apologies. Normally when someone asks a question like that, they’re referring to something I wrote, which is where the confusion came from.
Personally, I would have €250 as the cutoff point for the average person so going by that criteria, I’d say no, but it’s tough to give a proper opinion on a device until you’re actually using it so on that account, I’m withholding judgement until I review it.
Who buys these phones outright anyway, don’t they just get them as upgrades etc. anyone who buys them outright can obviously afford them.
I’ll be buying my next phone sim free. Granted it won’t be an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy but some mobile operators looking for 2 year contracts is way too long to be tied up.
If you buy the phone out right particularly this model, then go pre pay it works out cheaper than a two year contract…
Most phones you have to pay some money and a contract dependant on the tariff.
you can get a pay as you go deal with Vodafone for 30 euro a month all calls to any phone land line or mobile, any texts, and 3 GB of data, that would be nearly 70 a month on contract..
A big saving….
Affordable when you consider the iPhone 6 is 600-700 and the iPhone6 plus can cost up to a grand..
Or Samsung s5 is about 500-600..
Even older iPhone5 is over 500…
So yes from a point of view of a FLAGSHIP it is affordable….
No grindr or scruff #dealbraker !
Tried a Windows phone last time and once was enough for me.
Never leaving Android again.
Got a galaxy s4 there was no journal.ie app when I had a windows phone
get a cheap Cubot, these smartphones are way overpriced by €200
and Windows is the absolute worse platform
Unlike its desktop counterpart, Windows on mobiles is a decent enough platform. However the lack of apps, absence of MHL connectivity and unavailabilityof external SD storage options serve to detract from what has the potential to be the number 1 mobile platform.
This version the Lumia 830 has a micro SD slot..
I have a Lumia 920 at the moment with about 32GB What would you need more for?
Have a 925 and to be honest have all the apps I need. Here Drive + is a killer app. Full free sat-nav,workers great when traveling.
Android every time for me currently using a HTC Desire 310 and its fast, reliable, can run any game and set me back 150 Quid on prepay.
Also bought an android TV box on eBay for 20 quid. Netflix, YouTube etc all working as good as it would on a laptop.
I’ve tried IOS and the windows but android will win it every time for me.
Late comment on the subject but I love my Samsung Ativ S running WP8. Without being biased, and totally based on personal opinion, but I will never go back to IOS after having used WP8. I love it!! Yes it lacks in apps here and there but overall it covers my needs and more. Got 267 apps on my phone and recently left my GPS at home and used my phone entirely when abroad. Fantastic camera and probably nowhere near as good as Nokia but still very good. I find it frustrating that after 2 years, AIB still haven’t released anything after I contacted them on the matter. Wrote my own app which is just an embedded browser and has the ability to export data in csv format to easily create my expenses when needed but AIB didn’t want me to release it for obvious reasons. Same with the journal.ie. I wrote my own app (Journal.ie Browser) which works of the same principle but with live tile and more to come but not every app written for IOS and Android are written with a purpose of making money I.e. Banking, etc… So there is no excuse from the like of AIB, journal.ie, etc… For not writing native wp8″apps. It shouldn’t be that expensive to build and devoted developers would happily work with these companies of asked. Look at Barclays bank, with all their flaws have just released their 2 or 3rd wp8 apps!! As for this Nokia, €330, assuming without contract is definitely cheap compared to the “cheap” iphone 5c starting at €550 I think all the way to €800. My phone was €480 without contract and is far superior to the 5s in many ways… Ask my wife. :). But seriously, no phone is cheap unless bought under contract but from MS point of view and based on the spec, it seems like a terrific phone! More companies need to stop this non-sense, which unfortunately if often driven by developers that have very biased opinions but using the excuse of not having a wide enough user base is absolute non-sense.
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