Nokia Lumia 930 review: Iconic once again

Display

The Nokia Lumia 930 packs a 5-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display of 1080p resolution. The resulting pixel density of 441ppi is the highest ever for a Nokia Lumia device.

The Nokia Lumia 930's AMOLED display

One thing that is immediately noticeable is a purplish hue apparent on the display. Fortunately, it is a problem that Microsoft is aware of, and can easily be corrected by going into the display options and using the 'adjust color' option in the display settings.

Once this is fixed, you'll find that colors are very accurate, and viewing angles are also good.

Here's a microscopic image of the AMOLED screen's RGB matrix - we've shot it next to the 768 x 1280px AMOLED display of the Nokia Lumia 1020 for comparison's sake.

Obviously, AMOLED displays have inherently infinite contrast ratios, but we were able to measure the white brightness levels at 50% and 100% luminance. We found to be the panel only slightly dimmer as the one found on the Nokia Lumia 1020, but notably less bright than the Samsung Galaxy S5, for example.

The smartphone very well in our sunlight legibility test, beating much more expensive offerings in the process and coming in 4th in our overall Sunlight legibility chart.

Sunlight contrast ratio

• Nokia 808 PureView
  4.698
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  3.997
• Nokia Lumia 930
  3.567
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  3.549
• Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III
  3.419
• Nokia Lumia 925
  3.402
• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  3.352
• Samsung Omnia W
  3.301
• Samsung Galaxy S
  3.155
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  3.127
• Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom
  3.118
• Nokia N9
  3.069
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  2.970
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2.950
• HTC One S
  2.901
• BlackBerry Q10
  2.856
• Samsung Galaxy S II
  2.832
• Samsung Galaxy S II Plus
  2.801
• BlackBerry Z30
  2.790
• Huawei Ascend P1
  2.655
• Sony Xperia ZR
  2.672
• Nokia Lumia 900
  2.562
• HTC One Max
  2.537
• Nokia Lumia 720
  2.512
• HTC One
  2.504
• Sony Xperia Z
  2.462
• Samsung Galaxy S III mini
  2.422
• HTC One (M8)
  2.371
• Motorola RAZR i
  2.366
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2.307
• Oppo Find 7a
  2.279
• Apple iPhone 4S
  2.269
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  2.262
• LG Nexus 5
  2.228
• HTC One X
  2.158
• Nokia N8
  2.144
• Oppo Find 5
  2.088
• BlackBerry Z10
  2.051
• Apple iPhone 4
  2.016
• HTC One mini
  2.003
• LG G2
  1.976
• OnePlus One
  1.961
• Sony Ericsson Xperia ray
  1.955
• Sony Xperia Z2
  1.944
• Samsung Galaxy Camera
  1.938
• LG G Pro 2
  1.922
• HTC Butterfly
  1.873
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1.865
• LG G3
  1.820
• Sony Xperia V
  1.792
• Sony Xperia U
  1.758
• Meizu MX3
  1.754
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  1.740
• Oppo Find 7
  1.691
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1.691
• HTC One V
  1.685
• BlackBerry Q5
  1.682
• LG Optimus Vu
  1.680
• LG Optimus GJ
  1.666
• HTC Desire V
  1.646
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
  1.622
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1.578
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  1.563
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1.552
• LG Optimus 3D
  1.542
• Samsung Galaxy Core LTE
  1.542
• Nokia Asha 302
  1.537
• Sony Xperia M
  1.473
• Nokia Lumia 610
  1.432
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo
  1.393
• Gigabyte GSmart G1355
  1.361
• Samsung Galaxy Grand
  1.321
• HTC Desire C
  1.300
• Nokia Asha 501
  1.270
• LG Optimus L7
  1.269
• LG Optimus L9
  1.227
• Meizu MX
  1.221
• Sony Xperia E dual
  1.203
• Samsung Galaxy Pocket
  1.180
• Sony Xperia tipo
  1.166
• Samsung Galaxy mini 2
  1.114

Battery life

The Nokia Lumia 930 is powered by a non-removable 2,420mAh battery. Official numbers provided by Nokia list the device as being capable of over 15 hours of 3G talk time and 18 days worth of standby. Naturally, we conducted our own battery test and the results are in.

The Lumia 930's AMOLED display brought disappointing numbers, especially when it came to watching videos and browsing the web. With sub 6 hour times for each, it means that you'll have to have an A/C adapter within arms' reach if you plan on doing a lot of either activity - hardly a practical solution.

The poor screen-on numbers were compensated somewhat by the excellent figures you get when the screen isn't on. The just under 17 hours of 3G talk time we got was better than the manufacturer supplied numbers, and the standby times were also great, especially considering Nokia has disabled the Glance screen feature in the Lumia 930.

Overall, the endurance rating came out to 46 hours, which means that you'll be able to last just under two full days if you do an hour's worth of video playback, calling over a 3G network and web browsing per day.

Our proprietary score also includes a standby battery draw test, which is not featured in our battery test scorecard but is calculated in the total endurance rating.

Our battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you want to learn more about it.

Connectivity

The Nokia Lumia 930 comes with support for quad band GSM, 3G, and LTE networks. Unlike its Lumia Icon twin which came optimized for US networks, the Lumia 930 works on international bands.

Local connectivity includes dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac (that's both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz), and DLNA. There is also stereo Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS.

NFC connectivity lets you share content with other NFC-enabled devices, or you can use NFC and the Wallet app to pay for purchases at participating retailers. You can download a NFC management app from the Windows Store if you'd like to manage NFC tags as well.

There's also the ability to cast onto a TV, monitor or projector via the dedicated menu in the settings. The internet sharing feature also lets you share content using a specific broadcast name and password.