We interrupt this week’s incessant coverage of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Apple Watch to remind you there are plenty of other affordable, quality phone options out there that aren’t the feature story at tech, consumer and lifestyle news sites around the world.
Functional and now more price friendly than the break out devices sucking up all the attention these days, the HTC Desire Eye and the Nokia Lumia 830 settled nicely into their respective manufacturers’ lineups. We’re taking a quick look at both phones after getting hands on time with them for a couple weeks recently.
The Nokia Lumia 830 (top) offers an MSRP starting under $300 out of contract and comes free with an agreement from AT&T. For that money (or lack of said same), the 830 offers a five inch display, a 10 megapixel, 16 GB of memory, LED flash and a Quad-core 1.2 Ghz processor.
Throughout the test period, call quality remained strong on the AT&T 4G LTE network. Touchscreen response time was satisfying, and the camera shutter speed allowed us to take some decent shots. The Windows operating system isn’t our favorite, but if clicks the buyer aesthetically, it’s perfectly adequate.
The phone’s only disappointing feature would be the front facing camera. In this age of self-obsession, that front-facing, selfie camera in a cellphone needs to be more serious than the .9 megapixel wide angle unit in this Lumia.
While the Nokia Lumia 830 will charge off a standard mini USB connector, the user can pick up the Nokia Wireless Charging Plate for $39.99 for easier contact juicing, When plugged into a power source, the pad waits patiently for you to return to home base.
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Once on the scene, with the pad on duty, there’s no need to plug your phone into a cable connection unless you want to download or upload data to it. The user only has to put the phone down on the pad (face up) and go about the day’s business. Unlike other brands such as Duracell, Nokia’s charge pad technology has no need of an additional case to make contact with the pad. Such systems essentially charge the case, while that case charges the phone. For the Nokia Lumia 830, the phone charge is drop and go.
The HTC Desire Eye (above) is very much a multimedia-centric unit. Retailing around $399, the Eye will come free with service contracts. It feels lighter and perhaps a bit more flimsy than the Lumia, but the build quality is still reliable.
The appropriately named Eye offers a 13 megapixel front and back camera with dual LED flashes and “built-in selfie tools for instant edits.” There’s also front-facing stereo speakers and three microphones audio recording/playback.
With all that totaled, you could argue the Eye is a camera and video conference center that just happens to be a phone. It’ll also run the latest Android OS with 16 MB of RAM – making it a perfectly functional cellphone. However, it’s really the choice for multimedia fans looking to take pictures and play videos or music first and talk second.
