Nokia Lumia 630 review

The best budget Nokia yet

Nokia Lumia 630 review
The Lumia 630 is great value

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The camera on the Nokia Lumia 630 is probably the biggest let down as it's quite basic. You get a 5MP sensor on the back but there's no flash and no front-facing camera so selfies are more difficult and video chatting impossible.

If that puts you off then I'd most likely recommend the Nokia Lumia 620 as a respectable alternative, or if you can stretch to it the selfie-centric Nokia Lumia 735.

The options are also limited on the Nokia Lumia 630. You can adjust the white balance, aspect ratio, exposure value and the ISO and you can also choose between three modes: night, sports or automatic, all of which you can change from the camera directly rather than having to come out of the app.

Nokia Lumia 630 review

Aside from that, the camera is basically just point and shoot. I was disappointed to see the external camera button go as it now means you have to hold the camera in one hand to take a photo and I found that this means the camera takes more time to focus.

There is a smart shoot option that takes several photos quickly and lets you pick the best ones. This helps as it allows the camera time to focus so even if your first couple are a little blurry, there's bound to be a good one in there.

Nokia Lumia 630 review

As you will see in the camera sample shots, the automatic mode isn't bad for landscape photos and even up close shots. However the lack of flash means dark or night-time shots aren't great. Even with the night mode I didn't see any noticeable differences.

Having said all that, it's still not bad for a budget camera-phone and there are Nokia apps available for expanding your photographic options such as Cinemagraph and Panorama.

The video camera on the Nokia Lumia 630 is also quite basic, it shoots in 720p at 30fps (the same as the Nokia Lumia 620) and as such the performance is similar to that of its predecessor.

Options for shooting videos are even more limited than when taking still shots, though you can still adjust the white balance as well as turning continuous focus on and off. In terms of the quality you can change that but you can only choose between 720p and WVGA.

The video camera works exactly how you'd expect, simply press the shutter button to start and again to stop filming. Sadly because of the lack of video lamp the quality isn't great in poorly lit places, but if you stick to well-lit areas then it's not too bad.

Nokia Lumia 630 review

Scenic yet not sunny beach scene comes out clear

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Nokia Lumia 630 review

The camera coped with the up-close rock pool shot quite nicely

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Nokia Lumia 630 review

Sport mode captured the motion of the waves superbly

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Nokia Lumia 630 review

This darker shot, although externally lit was a struggle in automatic and night modes

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Nokia Lumia 630 review

Night mode

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Nokia Lumia 630 review

This was a shot in the dark and sadly it has ended up just that

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