Microsoft recently released the Nokia Lumia 530 which is an ‘upgrade’ to the Lumia 520. However, you might remember that earlier this year, there was a Nokia Lumia 630 release in May. Here is the Lumia 630:

Look at it keenly. Have you seen the 530? Go read about it in the link provided. Well, what difference do you see between the two? Here is the 530:

The Lumia 630 is 4.5 inches. Meaning it is bigger than the 530. The 630 has an IPS LCD capacitive screen that supports up to to 16M colours with a resolution of up to 480×854 pixels rendering a pixel density of 218 ppi. The 530 has the same resolution but higher pixel density since the screen size is 0.5 inches smaller. On sharper display, the Lumia 530 wins. However, the 630 is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass and also has ClearBlack Display supported. ClearBlack is a method to reduce reflections on the screen and improve visual image quality, especially outdoors. Follow the link to read more about ClearBlack technology.

The Lumia 630 has internal storage of 8GB expandable with an external MicroSD card upto 128GB. It is run by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset with a Quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU clocked at 1.2Ghz. Plus there is the Adreno 305 GPU. The RAM is definitely a drawback as it is only 512MB. These Specs compared to those of the 530 and you find that they are the same but for the internal storage.

Like the 530, the 630 has a 5MP rear camera and still no flash. No front camera too on both. Can’t really understand these Nokia/Microsoft guys. Whoever runs the show should know people are really focusing on front cameras nowadays. Even HTC launched a selfie phone with 13MP on both front and back cameras! Anyway the 630 shoots HD videos, 720p, at 30 frames per second while the 530 shoots 480p videos.

The 630 has a 1830mAh battery while the 530 has a 1430mAh battery.

The 630 comes in bright Orange, bright green, bright yellow, white, black colours. Almost similar to the 530 which comes in Bright orange, Bright green, White and Dark grey shells.

Which one would you choose from the two? Let me give you the prices first:

Lumia 530 – Currently Ksh. 11,000
Lumia 630 – Currently varies between Ksh. 14,000 and 17,000 depending on which shop.

My take:
The 630 beats the 530 in very minimal, almost negligible aspects. The Lumia 530 wins in terms of pricing. Which one would I take? Neither. Camera issues LOL. I want a phone with both cameras present. And quality. But note this: Nokia Cameras are good. The 5MP shooters on both phones are awesome.

If you want a bigger phone and mid-range specifications, go for the 630. If you want a good budget phone with quality specs, go for the 530. But with the prices differing with only about 3k, I’d rather you go for the 630.