Nokia Lumia 930 is, no doubt, one of the best Windows Phone handsets currently on the market, and living proof is the technical specification list which points to really powerful hardware.

Presented by Microsoft during the summer of 2014, the Lumia 930 comes with a 5-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1080x1920px, Corning Gorilla Glass 3 that really makes pictures and videos look astonishing, 32 GB of internal storage, 2 GB of RAM, a really advanced 20 MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, optical image stabilization and dual-LED flash, and a 2420 mAh battery.

This smartphone looks and feels great in hand, and its dimensions, 137x71x9.8 mm (5.39x2.80x0.39 in), seem just right for a device that could be capable of providing everything you’d want. Not a little bit of everything, but pretty much everything you’d want with a very convenient approach.

Simply judging by the spec sheet, the Lumia 930 is a great device, but you need to get one and use it for a few days to discover what it's capable of. Because there’s no doubt that this phone has a lot of potential, but unfortunately, there are some problems that in some of the cases make it unusable.

It’s all a matter of luck because some (or even all) of the issues that you’ll find in this article are only experienced by a number of buyers, so in case you don’t have any, you’re among the few sitting pretty well with a Lumia 930.

Before going into the detail, it’s worth noting that the issues that you’ll find below have already been confirmed on several devices and by multiple users, so they’re not experienced on a single Lumia 930 unit.

Overheating

Looking at the number of complaints posted online, it’s easy to understand that overheating is currently the number one issue on the Lumia 930.

The device becomes extremely hot in certain conditions, and some users have even reported that there are moments when you can’t simply hold the phone in hand because it burns like hell. That’s definitely a big issue, and until this moment, Microsoft hasn’t yet come up with a fix.

Up to this point, it appears that overheating issues sometime appear all of a sudden, which means that background processes are most likely the cause. But watching videos on YouTube, listening to music, and playing games are also among the main tasks leading to overheating.

We also experienced the same problem on our Lumia 930 test units when installing updates, and it appears that overheating mostly happens on the back of the phone in the lower right corner. That’s the place where the processor is placed, and while the device is indeed getting hot very fast, it’s cooling down almost as quickly.

Possible workarounds (some fixed the problem for a number of users):

- disable background apps

- close all apps that you don’t need

- reconfigure email accounts

- disable email background syncing

- install all available updates

- hard reset the phone

Status: fixed for some

Poor battery life

The Lumia 930 comes with a 2420 mAh battery which, according to official specs, should be enough for 432 hours of standby time, 11.5 hours of talk time on 2G and 15.5 hours on 3G, and 75 hours of music playing.

These figures, however, are really far from what’s actually happening on the majority of devices, and some complain that, in many of the cases, the battery doesn’t even last for one full day. Needless to say, the battery issues could be related to excessive overheating, so trying the above workarounds could do the trick.

On our test units, the poor battery life was mostly related to some apps and built-in features, so trying out different configurations for your device is the best choice.

Possible workarounds (some fixed the problem for a number of users):

- disable background apps

- close all apps that you don’t need

- disable location

- disable Cortana (if you have it) and

- unpin Cortana’s live tile from the home screen

- disable email background syncing

- uninstall or disable apps with big battery usage (check the Battery Saver tool)

- install all available updates

- hard reset the phone

Status: fixed for some

WhatsApp, Telegram, BBM and terrible battery performance

The poor battery life also appears to be caused by third-party apps, and we’ve heard that in many of the cases, WhatsApp, Telegram, and BBM are often the ones draining battery really fast.

In our case, these were indeed quite battery killers, and on a Lumia 930 where WhatsApp had been used a couple of hours every day, the battery didn’t last more than 20 hours. The same happened for BBM and Telegram, but until now, WhatsApp has seemed to be some sort of leader in this case.

Fortunately, WhatsApp has recently issued an update to address this problem, but Telegram and BBM users are still in trouble if their devices are suffering from poor battery life caused by these apps.

Workaround: install the latest version of each app.

Status: partially fixed

Issues related to Cortana

Microsoft’s personal assistant, Cortana, which is currently available only on Windows Phone 8.1 and in a number of countries, can be tested by pretty much everyone with a little trick, if they agree to set their handsets to United States as the home location.

Needless to say, Cortana is still in beta, so it’s natural to expect some issues, and usually, these are leading to excessive heating and poor battery life. We’ve also heard some cases when Cortana freezes the device, while a small number of users reported limited Internet connection after enabling it.

Possible workarounds:

- remove Cortana’s live tile from the home screen

- disable Cortana completely and switch to your home location (if other than the US)

Status: fixed

Purple tint on the display

A small number of Lumia 930 devices were suffering from what appeared to be a small tint issue showing up on the screen, no matter what app you were using.

This was related to the AMOLED screen that’s being used on the Lumia 930 and was quickly confirmed by Microsoft as affecting “the displays on a limited number of units [which] are exhibiting purple discolourations.”

The company fixed the problem in September with the release of Windows phone 8.1 Update 1, but devices not yet running it can also turn to a manual trick to fix it. It’s worth noting that this isn’t a hardware issue, but only a problem caused by bad color configuration in the operating system.

Workarounds:

- install the latest Windows Phone updates

- go to “Settings > Display > Adjust Colour” in “Profile” and move the “Tint” slider to green

Status: fixed

The lack of Glance Screen

One of the top features on (some) Windows Phone devices is the so-called Glance Screen, which provides notifications for emails, instant messaging, or phone calls without the need to unlock the device.

Needless to say, Glance brings a big number of advantages, as it makes it quicker to check the phone for new notifications and saves battery life because you don’t have to unlock it periodically to check for new messages or calls.

The 930, however, doesn’t have this feature even though it’s considered a flagship for the 5-inch series, so many buyers were surprised to see that it was missing from the settings screen.

The reason is related to the type of AMOLED screen that’s being used on the Lumia 930, as this doesn’t have enough display memory, and using Glance would pretty much burn your display. Unfortunately, Microsoft has absolutely no method to implement such a feature on the Lumia 930, so no workaround is available this time.

Status: cannot be fixed