Who buys cheap, buys twice (incl. Alternative proposal)

- Small outer dimensions
- Good voice quality
- Good touch sensors for typing (there are many text messages sent)
- Moderate battery life
- Sufficient power for Casual (Sudoku, different card)

These requirements should be set not too high basically in the low-budget range, as these old even from my six years Smartphones and many China-mobiles are met.

### Pro / Contra in ### keywords
+ Touch screen works very well (5-point multi-touch)
+ Windows 8.1 very minimalist (like), but the update on denim is not yet available
o Voice quality rather just average
o overall performance rather borderline (page generated when surfing the Internet very slow and also the GMX-app needs WiFi access despite sometimes more than 2 minutes to load the latest e-mails.
o Some apps are treated clearly neglected by the developers (eg Telegram). This is a shame, but not relevant for the assessment.
o Battery power is sufficient (100 text messages, phone 10min) for about one day with normal use. If you start a card game (Solitaire), then is already in 1-2h Final!
o feel the device not very high
- Display to max. To be able to make it dark outdoors read brightness good
- Very poor viewing angles of the display (very annoying, especially for text messages)
- Pronounced bad camera (thanks to fixed focus hardly sharp images possible)
- Battery power
- Unlike many other Lumia models no Offline Navigation by Here Drive +

My conclusion and a recommendation on alternative devices can be found at the end of my review.

### The Review in detail ###

### The Outer ###
The phone is really pleasant small by today's standards and is thanks to the rounded corners also great in the hand. Despite a rough surface of the back of it is not particularly easy to grip in the delivery. This, however, lies down slowly after about 1-2 weeks. A void is likely to be present between the cover and the back of the battery, as it feels in your hand as if the inside of empty (haptics and also acoustically ago). In addition, when placing the phone (the display or the glass front presumably) falls on anything easily reverberates. This can be thought about as if you anschnippt one prong of a fork. This I had never experienced in any other smartphone and leaves a slightly inferior impression. The buttons have a slightly strange at first pressure point, but you get used to it quite rapidly.

### The display ###
Right after switching on the device I was taken aback. The display has an extremely poor viewing angle. It is very difficult to handle even in direct top view of the device, because very quickly a black veil hangs up the text / images and the contents are so hard to collect. Even the cheapest China mobile phones and even my 6 year old smart phones do not have such a bad display. Honestly, I can not remember a phone that would come close to the display of the Lumia 530.
The touches on the other hand works wonderfully precise and fast. A quick tap is thus no difficulties. Unlike many other cheap phones this display even has a 5-point multi-touch!

### The Camera ###
I was already buying clear that the camera of the device is not particularly good, but also that expectation has been undercut. This is a camera with a fixed focus. This means that the camera does not focus automatically. This makes it virtually impossible to make sharp snapshots. This is very disappointing, because even my oldest smartphones already have cameras with autofocus.

### The Performance ###
The Snapdragon 200 is known, not a rocket, but energy-efficient. I had this chip already in other phones in use (eg in the Lumia 535) and the CPU there was sufficient for the above requirements. Perhaps it is in this phone on quite scarce memory of only 512MB, but need a lot of apps very long to load (even if one wants to change only quickly between apps). So it is almost impossible that you close an e-mail notification of GMX App mails may accept immediately in this same app. This needs after opening quickly by 2 minutes until the mails recharged (sometimes even longer).

### The Conclusion / Recommendation ###
I would recommend the Lumia 530, despite the low price, unfortunately not recommend. The biggest stumbling block is the very poor viewing angles of the display. Were not present this problem, one could ignore the rest of the points, since it is a very cheap phone. Unfortunately, it is so not an alternative to China mobiles.

What is there another alternative? Who liked the simple style of Windows 8.1 will and to whom I would like the Lumia 630 know. This is marginally more expensive (especially if you buy it from the Amazon Warehouse Deals: from about 78 euros), but you get there more on offer for your money. Firstly, you get the next stronger Snapdragon 400 chip, a larger screen (similar in external dimensions) with better viewing angles and a camera with autofocus (though you should still not expect too much on the quality). In addition, they also give the software here Drive + about which allows an offline navigation (this feature is missing in the Lumia 530, unfortunately, entirely). On top of it is the Lumia 630 also have the option for free on Windows 10 to upgrade.