Nokia Lumia 630/635 review: Bottom up

Photos app gets simplified

In Windows Phone 8.1 the Photo Hub has lost the magazine UI in favor of the traditional WP page view. You get three swipe-able pages - all, albums and favorites - pretty much self-explanatory. The Albums section displays both your offline and online collections, while the All page shows only your camera roll.

Automatic OneDrive backup is available, you just need to enable it from the settings. Microsoft gives you 7GB for free to boot plus 3GB for the each device on which you turn on the automatic OneDrive camera upload.

Pictures hub

Sharing options include Bluetooth file transfer, messaging, email, Facebook, OneDrive and other available social services.

Editing and sharing options

Universal Music app

The default music player in Windows Phone 8.1 uses the familiar page layout - you get Now Playing page; Collection view with shortcuts to artists, albums, sons, genres playlists; and Music Store highlights. It also allows you to create, edit and delete playlists straight from your phone.

Music app with Now Playing screen and its album view • Collection and Music Store

The player is compatible with your Xbox Music account and can stream your songs if you have active connection without saving them on the phone.

Browsing your collection

Unfortunately The Music app doesn't support WAV or FLAC playback. There are no equalizer options either.

Video player does OK, comes with limited subtitle support

The video player is now a separate app called Video. It has a four-page layout - your collection, movie store, TV store and spotlight.

The Video hub

The video player supports XviD, DivX, MOV and MP4 videos up to 1080p resolution. The few things it won't play are MKV files and videos using the AC3 audio codec. There is a limited subtitles support, but you have to put both the video file and subtitles in a separate folder within the Video default folder. It seems the player can read some .sub files, but so far we can't give you the specs of the subtitles format.

Playing a video

FM radio with RDS

There's an FM radio with RDS support on board the Lumia 630/635. You can use the loudspeaker for the FM radio, though you still need the headset connected as it doubles as an antenna.

FM radio