Nokia 3 Review: Budget Android Phone Onhand

HMD Global has launched the Nokia 3 in UK. The device is available for pre-order with the starting price of 129.99 GBP. The device will be available in Matte Black and Copper White color options. Today, we will see the Nokia 3 review below.

Design

The Nokia 3 is very similar to other budget devices available in the market in terms of appearance. The front panel comes with a 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The device comes with a metal frame edges and a plastic rear panel which makes it look more premium than it is priced.

On the back, the device comes with an 8-megapixel rear camera with f/2.0 aperture, 1.12um pixel size and LED flash. The Nokia brand logo in the center while the rear panel is kept very neat and clean. At the top, the device comes with a 3.5mm audio jack and a secondary microphone. At the bottom, the device comes with a USB 2.0 port, microphone, and loudspeakers.

On the front, we have the speaker, the 8-megapixel front camera with f/2.0 aperture, as well as light and proximity sensors. At the bottom side, we will find the three touch navigation keys (no backlighting). On the right side, we find the volume rocker and the power button. The left side features the SIM slot and a dedicated MicroSD card slot just below it.

Overall, the device has a standard size that will fit comfortably in your hand and is very thin. Its dimensions are 143.4 x 71.4 x 8.5 mm and it is quite light, it does not give problems to carry it in your pockets.

Display

The Nokia 3 features a 5.0-inch IPS LCD display with HD resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. The device comes with a pixel density of 294ppi and 450 nits brightness. The display is protected by 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and it looks good.

The offered image quality is quite good, with vivid colors and excellent definition, in addition to having a fairly high brightness.

Camera

The Nokia 3 features a decent pair of cameras. It bears an 8-megapixel primary camera with f/2.0 aperture, autofocus, 1.12 µm pixel size, and a single LED flash. For selfie, there is also same an 8-megapixel sensor with f/2.0 aperture and autofocus. Both front and rear camera sensors also able to capture HD 720p video at 30fps.

When we first run the Nokia 3 camera application, we have a simple interface and virtual keys to capture an image, record a video, activate or deactivate the flash, timer, activate HDR and the option to change to the front camera. We will also see a shortcut to access our captured photos or videos.

You can also configure the capture settings, you can select between “Scene Detection”, “Default” or “Custom”. If you choose the last option, various manual settings will appear on the main screen to control the ISO, focus, white balance and exposure level.

Overall, the Nokia 3 comes with a simple camera interface and complete with useful functions. The daylight photography is acceptable, but night photography comes out with a lot of noise.

Performance

The Nokia 3 is powered by 1.4GHz quad-core processor that’s backed by 64-bit MediaTek MT6737 28nm SoC paired with the Mali-720 MP2 GPU and 2GB of RAM. An internal storage is 16GB, which can be expanded with MicroSD cards up to 128GB.

For connectivity, includes 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, as well as Bluetooth and NFC options, as well as A-GPS and MicroUSB 2.0 port compatible with USB On-The-Go. All of the above, the operating system is now Android 7.0 Nougat, which is 100% pure as it has no personalization layer. And Nokia also promised to keep their devices updated time by time.

Battery

Battery capacity is 2,630mAh, which we tested with completely normal tasks such as social network apps, Google Now, Spotify, and YouTube with active Wi-Fi, 4G LTE, Bluetooth and A-GPS and display brightness set to automatic.

The Nokia 3 battery managed to give us up to 6 hours of regular usage time with the settings described above.

Final line

The Nokia 3 is a fairly complete smartphone for its segment, it could be the perfect device for those who always contacted through social networks and instant messaging applications because in this area the device works quite well according to our experience.

Coming to performance like a high-end smartphone, here you will have something stable and in most of the times, you will find slight fluidity in the system. Apart from that, Nokia 3 will conquer you with its design, at first glance it seems to be a high-end device of the mid-range segment.

The camera has a simple interface in terms of functions, the quality of the photographs and videos in the day-light are quite good. Both the display as well as its performance and battery life, quite appreciable, in fact, the screen with Corning Gorilla Glass actually impressed us, something that we did not expect it at all.

It also has the latest Android and is updated regularly. For us, one of the best budget smartphones that running Android Nougat, complete in terms of features, with a sleek and stylish design. If you are looking for your first Android smartphone without spending much money, this is the alternative you were looking for.

The Nokia 3 is available for pre-order via Amazon store in UK, priced at £129.99 and it will be released on July 12, 2017.