Hands on with the Nokia Lumia 530, Nokia's latest budget smartphone!
**When you’re after an affordable smartphone, it’s hard to find a manufacturer more worthy of your money than Nokia. **Not only does the company have a seasoned history in the mobile business, but it’s also a proven winner on the budget market too.
So it didn’t come as much of a surprise to see Nokia continue its line of price friendly devices with the Lumia 530. But just how good is it? We’re here to answer that question for you, so if you’re tightening your financial belt this year, you might want to pay attention!
Colourful Nokia Design!
One of the most attractive features of the Lumia 520 was its colourful style, making it a fashionable piece of kit for any occasion. Thankfully, the Lumia 530 isn’t straying off the path made by its predecessor, so you can expect all the colours of the rainbow to adorn the latest Lumia handset as well.
Want to learn more about how this budget phone compares to its predecessor? Check out our Nokia Lumia 530 vs 520 review!
Its smooth plastic design gives the Lumia 530 a similar feel to the 520, but the corners of the handset have been smoothed out, offering a less bulky affair this time around. Other than that, it’s business as usual for the Nokia smartphone and that’s not a bad thing by any means. Overall, Nokia has improved on what was already a great design, so you aren’t going to see any complaints from us!
**You may like: **Fan of Nokia phones? Take a look at our countdown of the best Nokia handsets ever!
Nokia Spec Sheet
Sometimes wowing with its specs can be a bit of a stumbling block for value smartphones, with some devices packing in outdated components which make it run slower than an ageing tortoise. But with Nokia at the helm, you will be at cruising speed the whole time!
The Snapdragon 200 chipset and quad-core 1.2GHz processor makes the phone twice as fast as the 520 which only houses a dual-core processor. Add to this 512MB RAM and a 4GB expandable memory and you’ve got yourself a cheap phone with enough power to keep even the most demanding user happy.
It’s not all about the power though, with the Lumia 530 packing beauty to match its brawn thanks to its 4” TFT display. It might not be up there with some of the HD efforts we’ve been seeing on flagship phones, but at the fraction of the price that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.
Lumia 530 Camera
How often have you found yourself mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, Facebook photos or Snapchat on picking up your smartphone? We all know that having a smart camera phone is important and thankfully, Nokia does too.
Featuring a 5 megapixel lens on its back side, just like the Lumia 520, you can grab plenty of snaps faster than ever. It doesn’t matter if you’re taking pictures of a beautiful sea view when on your holiday or a quick picture of your dog chasing its tail, the Lumia 530 can handle it. So, if you fancy yourself as a paparazzi celeb hunter, why not give the latest Lumia phone a go?
Windows Phone 8.1 Features
Featuring one of the most exciting mobile operating systems on the market, the Lumia 530 is set to boast Windows Phone 8.1 right out of the box. But the operating system doesn’t just give the handset a pretty screen- it also packs some great features!
Cortana
Who needs Siri? Cortana is Microsoft’s answer to the Apple personal assistant, Cortana is based on the hugely popular character from the Xbox game series Halo. It’s not like you’ll be killing aliens with your smartphone with Cortana, but the ability to make commands from your phone without so much as touching it is a fair trade off for now!
Windows Apps
Since its launch in 2011, Microsoft has built up its app store to boast more than 200,000 apps, including all the big names such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Microsoft Office. And now with the Lumia 530’s Windows Phone 8.1 OS on board, you get all of these apps and more as standard, including Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage feature.
So if you’re pitting the Nokia Lumia 530 up against its Android rivals, you needn’t worry about missing out when it comes to apps!
Nokia MixRadio
Nokia knows just how much music means to its fans, which is exactly why it has brought Nokia MixRadio to all of its Nokia smartphones. The feature uses your current music library to figure out the type of music you like, and then streams it through your phone like a radio station. You can even catch your favourite tunes when you’re not hooked up to the internet too, which means no more hours sitting in front of your computer downloading tracks!
Nokia Lumia 530: the Verdict
Packing a colourful and user-friendly design, a powerful set of specs and a great operating system, it’s astonishing to see the Lumia 530 being priced at just £100 SIM-free. Whilst there are rows of budget smartphones swimming on the market, it’s impossible to find one that’s this good for this cheap, making it one of the best value handsets out there!
So, if your bank account has seen better days and you fancy adding a splash of colour to your life, you should consider buying a contract on the Lumia 530.