One of the trends in the smartphone world in the last year has been the awareness that you don't have to spend £500 to get a top notch smartphone anymore. Yes, yes, the Galaxy Note 4 and iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are all crazily priced, but back in the real world you can get great kit for £300 or under.
With me having the OnePlus One in for testing, and bearing in mind our existing review of the Nokia Lumia 930, here's my tabular comparison that will hopefully give you an idea of how the two contenders stack up. As usual, I've shaded in green an obvious 'win' for either device...
[By the way, if you're viewing this feature ON a Windows Phone then the table may well cause you problems. Try viewing in landscape mode? Failing that, go bug Microsoft about the poor state of Internet Explorer - roll on Project Spartan!]
| Nokia Lumia 930 | OnePlus One | |
| Date first available | July 2014 | June 2014, but extreme shortages and still only available via special 'invites' |
| Current price, availability | £330 (SIM-free in the UK, inc VAT), less if you shop around | Roughly £270, all in |
| Dimensions | 137 x 71 x 10mm | 153 x 76 9mm |
| Form factor, weight | Aluminium frame, convex Gorilla Glass. Polycarbonate rear insert (for RF antennae). Weight is 167g | All plastic, Gorilla Glass, sandstone finish for grippability. Weight is 160g |
| Operating system, interface | Windows Phone 8.1 plus Lumia Cyan tweaks. Capacitive controls below the screen, so the whole display can be used for content all the time. | Android 4.4.4 with Cyanogen CM11 build. Virtual controls optional, physical capacitive controls are the default, but nice to have the choice. |
| Display | 5.0" (1080 x 1920) AMOLED with ClearBlack Display polarisers, pentile matrix, so not full 1080p on all sub-pixels. Visibility excellent in sunlight. Nokia's usual Glance screen not currently possible due to hardware technical limitations. | 5.5" (1080 x 1920) IPS LCD display, full RGB matrix, visibility poor outdoors and in the sun. |
| Connectivity | Quad band GSM, Quad band 3G, up to pentaband LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac, integral wifi tethering, NFC | Quad band GSM, septaband 3G, pentaband LTE, Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, integral wifi tethering, NFC |
| Processor, performance | 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM, pretty fast, main speed limits are in Windows Phone's insistence on animations/transitions/resuming indicators. | 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801, 3GB RAM, very fast indeed. No real skin elements to get in the way, and the raw speed of Android comes across immediately. |
| Capacity | 32GB internal storage, non-expandable | 64GB internal storage, non-expandable |
| Imaging (stills) |
20MP PureView oversampling 1/2.5" BSI sensor, flexible software control over settings, dedicated camera shutter button and launch key, genuine 2x lossless digital zoom, OIS. Great results, even zoomed or reframed. The mature oversampling mean that the 930 produces better results in most conditions. Indoor shots are limited by the use of only LED flash, though the new Dynamic Flash 'Rich Capture' might help here. 8MP Stills also possible from 4K video bursts from a long press on the shutter button. |
13MP 1/3" BSI sensor, dual LED flash - a no frills modern smartphone camera - decent results in most light conditions (and the Cyanogen Camera application has a number of helpful modes) but falls apart when light levels are low or indoors with human subjects. |
| Imaging (video) | Very good 1080p video capture, with genuine 3x lossless zoom during recording and OIS helping, especially while zoomed. Four HAAC microphones mean directional audio capture in stereo and at rock gig levels without distortion. | Decent enough 1080p capture, no stabilisation, average mono audio capture. (Note that the official spec pages list a lot more than this, but they're not enabled yet in software.) |
| Music and Multimedia | Decent mono speaker, 3.5mm headphones (not included in the box), A2DP, DLNA | Bottom mounted stereo speakers are harsh, with just the middle frequencies dominating, A2DP, 3.5mm jack, again no headphones supplied in the box, DLNA |
| Gaming | An average selection of games, with the oddity that some of the early WP classics are no longer available! (e.g. Tiger Woods PGA) | Terrific game selection now on Android, matched only by iOS. |
| Navigation | The HERE Maps/Drive suite is unrivalled, with the 100% offline routing and maps that don't expire. Plus live traffic, good public transport advice and innovative 'live sight' functions. |
Google Maps and Navigation is very slick, covering all car, transit and pedestrian bases, but there's no offline routing and even small cached map areas 'expire' after a month. [PS. If the user knows about it, HERE Maps/Drive can now be installed manually, for Android, from the Play Store] |
| Extras | Nokia Camera/interface, various Nokia imaging additions, e.g. Living Images, Creative Studio, Storyteller, PhotoBeamer | A very bare bones application selection, but then part of the joy of 'stock' Android is adding your own apps of choice, so it's hard to criticise here. |
| Cortana/Voice | Present in many countries now. Also works even with the display off, "Hey Cortana!" etc. with the recent Lumia Denim update. | 'OK Google' available from selected places - it's supposed to work from anywhere, optionally, but after much fiddling I couldn't get it working. |
| Battery, life | Sealed 2420mAh battery, easily gets through the day, microUSB or - critically - Qi wireless charging on any convenient Qi stand. | 3100mAh, sealed in, easily lasts a day, possibly two with moderate use. microUSB charging only. |
| Applications and ecosystem | Windows Phone now has just about every mainstream app covered, with great strides in the last few months. Niche/boutique apps are often an issue, though... Also anything to do with Google services! | Fully covered, from A-Z, these days. Any application of any significance in the mobile world is available for Android. |
| Upgrades and future | The 2GB of RAM and chipset here, plus the Microsoft/Nokia ownership, should see the 930 updated well into 2015 and even 2016 with 'Windows 10'. | Updates should continue through 2015, though OnePlus's resources are surely strained already. Certainly an Android v5.x firmware will appear. |
As you'll see from the green tints, a nominal 6-4 win for the Lumia 930, but with the pros and cons for each device meaning that this could have gone either way, depending on what you want in a smartphone flagship. Notable is that the OnePlus One wins out for its ecosystem and raw internal power, but that the choice of components (camera, screen, speaker, etc.) is much better on the 930.
Comments welcome - notable as well is that I'd personally pick the even cheaper Lumia 830 over both of these because I'd want Glance, microSD expension, replaceable battery, etc. And I'd save cash in the process!