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Hands-on: Nokia Lumia 530 Dual-SIM

It looks like there’s a race between manufacturers to make the cheapest smart phone that’s still decent enough to use. The Nokia Lumia 530 is Microsoft’s entry with an incredible low price of RM355 and it runs on the latest Windows Phone 8.1. That’s quite impressive considering it is priced lower than its recently axed Nokia X which we are not impressed with.

Now back to the Lumia 530, it is cheap but Microsoft didn’t sacrifice too much on the hardware for the sake of price. The exterior is undoubtedly a Lumia with its bright polycarbonate shells and the screen is a decent 4″ LCD with a 854×480 pixels resolution which is still acceptable in this price range. The biggest boasting points is its Quad-Core 1.2GHz processor from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 200 range with 512MB of RAM and it gets a microSD slot which accepts the largest 128GB capacity.

The on-board storage is still small at 4GB and for those love taking pictures would need to lower their expectation with its rather basic 5MP camera that lacks an LED flash. At the front, there’s no front facing camera. Despite being a low entry device, the Lumia 530 gives you the latest Windows Phone 8.1 experience which brings transparent Live tiles, action centre and Word Flow gesture keyboard which we find it to work pretty accurately. One of the unique features you’ll get with Windows Phone is its Maps with HERE Drive+ navigation.

At the moment, there are 300,000 apps on the Windows Phone platform and Microsoft has been aggressively closing up the app gap with the latest popular apps including Waze, Vine and Instagram. While it is low in price and having just 512MB of RAM, the Lumia 530 feels smooth in our brief hands-on. For those who travel a lot or subscribe to 2 telco providers, the Lumia 530 supports Dual-SIMs in 3G HSPA+ connectivity up to 21Mbps. The back cover shell is removable and gives you access to its 1,430mAh capacity battery and underneath you’ll find a microSD slot and 2 slots for SIM Cards.

In the hands, it feels quite solid but the curve that flows immediately from the edge towards the back makes it quite slippery to hold if you’re in a hurry. Over at the front, there are no physical buttons as it uses on-screen buttons like the higher-end Lumia 630. The power and volume rockers are located on the right which is easily accessed with a single hand.

When the Lumia 530 was announced, most people would assume that this is a direct replacement of their Lumia 525 which was their former entry level Windows Phone model. Although they look similar, the Lumia 525 is still a notch higher with an IPS display, 1GB of RAM, larger 8GB of storage and a 5MP camera that can do HD 720p videos and it even comes with a dedicated camera button.

The biggest growth in smart phone market is expected to come from its low price segment and most Chinese manufacturers have already dominated the sub-RM600 segment. For less than RM400, Nokia is targeting to capture the first time smart phone buyers and feature phone upgraders that are looking for a decent device without spending too much. Low price entry level seems to be the way to go and hopefully the Lumia 530 would give Windows Phone platform an even bigger impact than it did with the Lumia 520/525.