Decent Deal Makes the Lumia 830 An Even Better iPhone Rival

Microsoft Mobile hasn’t yet delivered a flagship Windows Phone completely capable of taking down the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on features alone. That isn’t stopping from AT&T from making the Lumia 830 more of an iPhone rival on price.

As of today, a Lumia 830 with a two-year service contract costs just $69.99. Though somewhat steep for those who’ll need to sign a long-term service agreement, it’s a lot lower than the $99.99 AT&T charged for the Lumia 830 during launch. AT&T has also lowered the off-contract price of the Lumia 830 to just $399. When it launched back in November, purchasing the Lumia 830 without a two-year contract cost $449.99.

The AT&T Lumia 830 is Microsoft’s iPhone rival on AT&T. Make no mistake, it’s not an aggressively high-end smartphone by any means. The Lumia 930 uses an older 1.2 GHZ quad-core processor that isn’t as powerful as what you find in high-end android smartphones. That’s fine though, because the Lumia 830’s version of Windows Phone 8.1 is perfectly tailored to it. In this respect, the Lumia 830 is just like Apple’s iPhone 6, which only comes equipped with a dual-core 1.4 GHz processor and 1GB of RAM.

Opening webpages on either doesn’t feel slow, neither does streaming music thanks to built-in support for AT&T’s high-speed 4G LTE network. The Lumia 830 comes with a front-facing web camera for taking self-portraits and 16GB of storage to hold pictures, music and more. There’s also a slot for adding external storage, something that the iPhone 6 doesn’t offer.

Buyers of the Lumia 830 will need to take advantage of that extra storage because of the Lumia 830’s best feature: its rear-facing camera. The Lumia 830 uses the same PureView camera technology from past Lumia flagship smartphones like the 808 PureView and the Lumia 920. The Lumia 830 packs a 10 megapixel rear-facing camera sensor with flash and optical image stabilization.

In theory, pictures taken and video recorded with the Lumia 830 should look just as good as they do from any other device. The Lumia 830 trumps the iPhone 6 camera experience in one way, it has a dedicated camera button for taking pictures without first unlocking the device or touching the screen. GottaBeMobile had mostly positive things to say about the Lumia 830 last fall. Really, the only issue was that processor, which did result in slow game loading times.

Read: Lumia 830 Review  

For now, the Lumia 830 is still completely exclusive to AT&T in the United States, meaning there are no other versions to compare AT&T’s version to. It is worth nothing that AT&T is adding a little value by packing in the FitBit Flex, a digital wrist band that helps users track how active they’ve been. The AT&T Lumia 830 included the FitBit Flex as a way to show off Windows Phone’s Health & Fitness apps and the FitBit app. Buying the FitBit Flex separately would cost $99.99, making the AT&T Lumia 830 a steal for anyone looking to kick off a more active lifestyle.

Beyond the FitBit app, the Lumia 830 uses Sensor Core technology to monitor how many steps users take while not heavily impacting battery life. Sensor Core works even without the FitBit.

AT&T offers express shipping completely free. As such, buyers won’t have to wait too long to get their hands on their AT&T Lumia 830. Beyond a two-year contract or payment in full, AT&T offers another form of financing for the Lumia 830. AT&T Next 12 lets users purchase the Lumia 830 by breaking down the full cost in monthly increments of $20. To be clear, that’s $20 on top of whatever service chargers users already have. AT&T Next also offers monthly payments of $16.67 for users who’d like to pay over 18 months and payments of $13.34 for 24 months.