IFA 2014: Nokia Lumia 830 and 730 hands-on

Nokia Lumia 830 hands-on

The Lumia 830 is what Nokia calls "the first affordable flagship." Its most impressive feat is that it packs an Optical Image Stabilization yet in a body barely 8.5mm thick. It's the thinnest OIS system yet, an impressive achievement.

It's certainly thin but not very light, it weighs 150g. The weight feels good for a phone this size and it's all due to Nokia's legendary build quality. Part of that is the metal rim on the side of the phone.

The phone has a 5" screen, as big as the Lumia 930 screen, but it's an IPS screen with 720p resolution. Viewing angles were great thanks to the IPS display as was the color rendering. The screen has 294ppi pixel density, which is just sharp enough.

Nokia Lumia 830 has a 5" 720p IPS screen

The glass protecting the display is a sculpted Gorilla Glass 3 - the left and right sides of the display slope making swipes quite pleasant. The glass also integrates Nokia's ClearBlack tech, which reduces the reflectivity to improve sunlight legibility.

Let's get back to the camera, the defining feature of the Nokia Lumia 830. The super-thin OIS module is certainly impressive but the camera also boasts Zeiss optics, so far reserved for Nokia's royalty.

The camera has a 1/3.4" BSI sensor with 16:9 aspect ratio. The camera has an f/2.2 aperture and relatively wide 26mm focal length and a minimum focus distance of 10cm. You can use the two-stage shutter key to focus but also wake up the phone.

The impressive camera on the Lumia 830

We managed to sneak a quick camera sample with the Lumia 830 but keep in mind that lighting conditions are less than ideal.

Nokia Lumia 830 camera sample

The Lumia 830 has an LED flash and with the new Rich capture mode you can chose whether the flash is enabled or not even days after you've taken the photo. To achieve that the special mode fires the flash but the camera takes photos both before and after that.

The Lumia 830 camera records 1080p video at 30fps. There's 16GB of built-in storage to record your videos, expandable via microSD cards up to 128GB.

The phone is powered by a Snapdragon 400 chipset with a quad-core Cortex-A7 chipset. It will launch with Windows Phone 8.1 plus Lumia Denim update.

The Lumia 830 is powered by a 2,200mAh battery, almost the same size as the battery on the Lumia 930 despite being a full millimeter thinner. It has wireless charging built-in (again impressive at this thickness), which will work with the second-generation wireless charging accessory, more on that in a bit.

Nokia Lumia 830 has a metal rim and a matte plastic back

The Nokia Lumia 830 will cost €330 (before taxes and subsidies) when it starts shipping this month. As part of the promotion for all Lumias, you'll get free Skype Unlimited World subscription for three months.

The Nokia Lumia 830 supports colorful back panels that can be popped on the phone to customize the look of the device. The color options for the phone itself include Black, White, Green and Orange, all of them matte (great news for opponents of glossy plastic).

Update: We've shot a few camera samples with the Nokia Lumia 830 from the IFA floor: