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Microsoft unveils the budget Nokia Lumia 830 designed to undermine Apple and Samsung

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

September 4, 2014 | 3 min read

Microsoft has unveiled its new secret weapon in the mobile war against Samsung and Apple, with launch of the “affordable” Nokia Lumia 830 flagship smartphone.

The Nokia Lumia 830 will come in an assortment of colours

Earlier this year, the firm teased the Lumia 830 as the device to increase Windows' international uptake. It will likely see Windows Phones overtake BlackBerry as the UK's third most common smartphone.

Microsoft claimed that the Lumia 830 high-performance smartphone is the world’s first “affordable flagship” device. It was revealed alongside the Lumia 735 and 730 during the consumer tech show IFA at Berlin on Thursday morning.

The smartphone, which will come with a 5 inch HD display, has a 10 megapixel camera and runs the Windows 8.1 operating system. It also supports wireless charging, a feature that the manufacturer has implemented in many of its higher-end devices.

Chris Weber, corporate vice president of mobile devices sales at Microsoft, called the Lumia 830, the firm’s “first affordable flagship".

Weber added: "It's like the 930 but in a slimmer, sleeker design - without compromising the experience. Innovation is for everyone, no matter the price point."

The Lumia 830 will be £80 less expensive than Samsung’s Galaxy S5 and £160 cheaper than Apple’s iPhone 5S when it is released in the UK for £265 in October.

At the event, Weber announced that Microsoft, which last week removed 1,500 fault and misleading apps from the Window’s Store, was now seeing around 500 news apps added on a daily basis.

The release of the Lumia 830 marks the first stage of the computing giant’s worldwide strategy, first outlined in a financial report released earlier this year by Stephen Elop, head of mobile devices at Microsoft.

Elop said: “In the near term, we plan to drive Windows Phone volume by targeting the more affordable smartphone segments, which are the fastest growing segments of the market, with Lumia."

Earlier this year, Adam Johnson, head of UK marketing for Nokia, told the Drum that that Nokia is not chasing the "mainstream" audience, calling the manufacturer "a challenger brand".

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