Nokia Lumia 830 review: Shining bright

Photos app does the job

In Windows Phone 8.1 the Photo Hub has lost the magazine UI in favor of the traditional WP page view. You get three swipe-able pages - all, albums and favorites - all pretty much self-explanatory.

Automatic OneDrive backup is available, you just need to enable it from the settings. Microsoft gives you 15GB for free plus 3GB for the each device on which you turn on the automatic OneDrive camera upload.

Pictures hub

Sharing options include Bluetooth file transfer, messaging, email, Facebook, OneDrive and other available social services.

Xbox music app

The default Xbox music player in Windows Phone 8.1 uses the familiar page layout - you get Now Playing page; Collection view with shortcuts to artists, albums, songs, genres, playlists, and Music Store highlights. It also allows you to create, edit and delete playlists straight from your phone.

Music app with Now Playing screen and its album view • Collection and Music Store

The player is compatible with your Xbox Music account and can stream your songs if you have active connection without saving them on the phone.

Browsing your collection

Unfortunately, the Music app doesn't support FLAC playback. Equalizer options are available from Settings -> Audio. You can either user presets or customize your own. Dolby Virtual Surround and Dolby Dialog Enhancer (in movies) are available, too.

Same video player with limited codec support

The video player is a separate app called Video. It has a four-page layout - your collection, movie store, TV store and spotlight.

The Video hub

The video player supports XviD, DivX, MOV and MP4 videos up to 1080p resolution. The few things it won't play are MKV files and videos using the AC3 audio codec. There is a limited subtitles support.

Playing a video

FM radio with RDS

There's an FM radio with RDS support on board the Lumia 830. You can use the loudspeaker for the FM radio, though you still need the headset connected as it doubles as an antenna.

FM radio

Audio quality is pretty good

The Nokia Lumia 830 shares the majority of its audio hardware with the Lumia 735 or at least that's what the closely matched output makes us believe.

The smartphone scores excellently when plugged into an active external amplifier mixing clean output and high volume levels - higher than all of its non-HTC rivals in fact.

Plugging in a pair of headphones does cause a spike in stereo crosstalk, while the frequency response worsens a bit but still remains very good. Volume levels drop a bit too but again remain above average.

A very good overall showing by the mid-range Lumia 830 here.

Nokia Lumia 830 frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.