The Lumia 930 is Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone 8.1 device. Available in the same highlighter green and orange cases as the Lumia 630, this eye-catching handset has a 5in OLED display with a 1,920x,1080 resolution, a 20-megapixel PureView camera, 32GB of storage and its internal hardware is among the fastest we’ve seen for a Windows handset.
It’s a huge improvement over Nokia’s previous flagship model, the Lumia 925, so much so that the Lumia 930 even has the potential to go head to head with Nokia’s two phablets, the 1320 and1520.
It’s a serious statement that even gives top of the range Android handsets something to worry about, particularly since Windows Phone 8.1 is finally on par with its rival operating systems.
One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is Nokia’s excellent build quality. The Lumia 930 may measure a chunky 9.8mm thick and weigh a hefty 167g, but its solid metal rim and sealed matt rear make it feel incredibly sturdy and well-made. It’s more angular than the Lumia 925, but the design is way more desirable.
That sense of allure is only heightened by the Lumia 930’s 5in Full HD OLED display. OLED panels typically have much better colour accuracy, contrast and black levels than IPS displays as each individual pixel has its own backlight, and the Lumia 930 is no exception.
Our colour calibrator showed it was displaying a perfect 100 per cent of the sRGB colour gamut and black levels were a near perfect 0.05cd/m2. This meant colours looked incredibly rich and vivid and text was pitch black. Whites were perhaps a little pinkish compared to other OLED displays such as the Motorola Moto X, but we’d rather the screen looked warm than overly cool.
Contrast was a little low at 4,854:1 (other OLED displays such the Lumia 1020’s have measured a massive 37,507:1), but we were still able to see a high level of detail in our darker test images. Likewise, the phone’s wide viewing angles meant we could see the screen clearly regardless of whether we were looking at it face on or had it lying down on the table beside us. Peak brightness was also a modest 271.10cd/m2, but we found this was still more than enough to use the Lumia 930 outside without forcing us to strain our eyes to see the screen clearly.
