Yesterday at its launch event in Lagos, I got to play around with the new Lumia 630, the first Dual SIM Windows Phone device.
My first impression is that its a considerably massive improvement on the Lumia 520, which was a great budget phone by the way. While they are similar in many ways (especially in RAM allocation and camera resolution), the Lumia 630 betters the Lumia 520 in the following departments:
- Faster processing power and speed – 1.0 GHz Dual-core on the Lumia 520 vs 1.2 GHz Quad-core Snapdragon on the 630. If my experience playing around with the Lumia 630 was anything to go by, that makes a huge difference.
- The latest Windows 8.1, which brings a lot of new features including a drop-down notification centre and on-screen buttons Yep, the Lumia 630 has got no physical buttons.
- Bigger screen – The Lumia 630 has a 4.5-inch display and it looks just about right at that size. Even more impressive, it’s got a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 covering.
- Support for up to 128 GB expandable memory. That’s really pretty impressive.
- A bigger battery (1830 mAh vs 1430 mAh). Battery life on the Lumia 520 was… commendable. I wouldn’t expect any less from the Lumia 630.
In the looks department, the Lumia 630 also trumps the Lumia 520. It has got this beautiful matte finish, similar to what is obtainable on the Nokia X. Trust me, it looks amazing. Coupled with its size and rounded edges, you would be forgiven if you estimated it to be a 40 to 50k. And that’s what is most interesting about the phone. The Lumia 630 will retail for below 30k. Actually, according to Nokia Microsoft it will retail between 27 and 30k, depending on which store you buy it from. That’s quite a remarkable price point. If you need some perspective, remember that the Lumia 520 retailed for about 34k at launch?
Based on my first impressions, and comparing against my experience with the Lumia 520, I think the Lumia 630 is poised to be an even greater budget phone than the 520. More details on its performance to come as soon as I get my hands on a review unit and spend more time with it.
The Lumia 630 should be available in the market immediately.
