Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent phone for the price
Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2018
I don't know if it's a black friday thing, but at the time of this review, the list price is now $50 cheaper, but oh well, it was still a great deal at $220.
I was in desperate need of a phone to replace my 4-5 year old Samsung Galaxy S5. While it had served me well, I couldn't make calls anymore, even though it was in immaculate condition - damned planned obsolescence.
Nokia had really grabbed my attention, as the Android One platform promised a very minimalist operating system without having to rely on custom roms. Not only that, but the build quality was widely touted to be above and beyond most manufacturers.
Well, I've had it for about a month and I absolutely love it.
It's incredibly quick and smooth. Call quality is great. The phone itself feels like a tank and it's quite striking. Android One is really bare bones, but that's what I love about it. It doesn't come loaded down with crap that you'll never use and cannot get rid of. The camera is decent - it's not remarkable in either a positive or negative manner, but it does take decent photos for my uses. Fingerprint scanner is a new feature that I kind of like. It's sort of small, but the positioning is great. I'm still getting used to it and it takes a couple attempts sometimes, but it's not terrible.
Screen is great, I just wish the auto-brightness would get real bright, as I have to manually ramp up the brightness sometimes outdoors on sunny days. Image quality is great. Bezels are a bit big, but I'm coming from an S5, so it's not something I care about. Lack of a physical home and back/menu buttons is new, but I've finally gotten used to it. It still has a headphone jack, which is great, I use my phone to play music over the PA at work, and I don't want to have to carry a dongle. USB-C is nice, it charges pretty quick, whether it be from a wall, car or computer. Battery life has been exquisite. I use my phone fairly heavily at work, both to communicate with other employees and customers, but also kill time with memes, and I work at least 10 hour shifts. If I leave the house at 07:30 with a full charge, the lowest I've seen it drop when I get home at 20:00 is 62%.
The negatives are that there are no good cases for it. They're all the same $10 Chinese POS that won't do anything to actually prevent damage. I've only broken one phone in my life and since then, I always keep my phones in the beefiest case possible; however, they're just not available. As such, I have what appeared to be the best case I could get and a screen protector. This is really worrisome, because the screen extends well past the frame.
It doesn't have the fastest CPU or an insane amount of RAM, so if you let a bunch of applications run in the background and go weeks without powering it off, it will slow down. But I've noticed it picks right back up after a restart or just clearing out some applications from the memory.
The actual speaker is plenty loud and sounds great, but the earpiece isn't that loud, though it does sound great.
Having the volume rocker on the same side as the power/lock button is odd at first, but it makes taking screenshots super easy. On that note, the buttons feels incredible to use and are exceptionally tactile.
All in all, it's an outstanding phone for the price. I understand that I went from an ancient phone to a new mid-tier phone, and I am aware of its shortcomings. It doesn't have the hardware or features of a top of the line flagship phone from Samsung or whatever, but it excels at being what it is, an exceptional, basic phone that is exceedingly well made (this thing makes iPhones feel cheap, the materials and build quality are absurd).
I look forward to purchasing a flagship Nokia phone, once they get a bit more established. This is a helluva start.