The new avatar of Nokia 3310 was first launched in the Indian market. It received mixed response. The other two Android smartphones Nokia 5 and Nokia 6 have not been made available in the market yet. To be honest, the Nokia brand garnered the most headlines in the Mobile World Congress 2017. But there is a lot of difference between headlines and sales. These handsets will sell more only if the customer feels that these are powerful phones.
HMD Global is marketing the Nokia 3 as a handset that has a great design and will offer consumers a pure Android experience with regular updates at a budget price. The Nokia 3 is priced in such a way that it competes directly with many popular phones. However, the road ahead is not easy. To make a mark in the Indian market, HMD Global will have to beat the likes of Xiaomi Redmi 4, Moto G5 and Yu Yureka Black. The Nokia 3 is also said to have all the essential Android features. Is that enough? Let’s find out.
Nokia 3 Design
Nokia 3 has been introduced in a white retail box. It will remind you of the days of Nokia. Looking at the phone, you will also remember the Lumia range of handsets running on the Windows Mobile platform. But the similarity is limited to the design only, because Nokia 3 runs on Android. If you look at the smartphones in the market under Rs 10,000, you will find that all these phones have metal unibody and their designs are also similar. Be it Yu Eureka Black or Xiaomi Redmi 4. In our opinion, Nokia 3 gives a feeling of being new in the budget segment. Nokia 3 is not a full-metal body phone. Polycarbonate has been used on its back and the metal frame brings out the design. There is nothing unique, but it does not look cheap.
The feel of this phone in the hand is the best ever in this segment. During the review, we used this phone with one hand without any problem. Due to the square shape, the phone is easy to grip from all sides. We got a matte black unit of Nokia 3 for review. It is also available in silver white color. The power and volume buttons are on the right side. But their color has also been kept black to match the body of the phone.
On the left side you will find separate slots for both SIM cards and microSD card. This is a good thing, because in recent times companies have shown more trust in hybrid slots. At the bottom you will find the charging port along with the speaker grill. At the top, the 3.5mm audio jack has been placed. If you look closely, you will also be able to see the antenna band on the top and bottom. Nokia’s logo is on the front and back, just like the old Nokia handsets.
Typing on the phone was easy. At 8.48mm thick, the phone is thinner than the Redmi 4. However, the Xiaomi phone has a bigger battery. During our review, we found that the power and volume buttons are placed a little too high for convenience. We found these buttons difficult to reach when using one hand. We also missed the fingerprint sensor, which is common in handsets of this price range today. The capacitive buttons on this handset are not backlit. This means you will have a hard time finding them in the dark.
In the retail box of the Nokia 3, you will find an instruction manual, a charger, a USB cable and a SIM ejector tool.
Nokia 3 specifications and software
Nokia 3 has a 5-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 720×1280 pixels. It has 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass protection. It has 2 GB RAM with 1.3 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6737 chipset. The inbuilt storage is 16 GB and if needed, it will be possible to use a microSD card up to 128 GB. It has 8 megapixel sensors on its front and back panel. The rear camera comes with F/2.0 aperture, autofocus and LED flash. On the other hand, the front camera also has autofocus and comes with 84 degree field of view. The phone has a 2630 mAh battery. Support for 4G and Voice over LTE is available. Connectivity features include USB-OTG, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
Nokia 3 is one of the few smartphones in the budget segment that comes with Android Nougat. You will get the experience of stock Android. You will get all the notifications in a single app. It will be possible to reply to any message from the notification pop-up itself. Through notification management, users will be able to disable or mute the notifications of a particular app. It will be possible to switch between apps by double tapping on the overview button. Apart from this, the Settings app will also come in a new avatar. Split screen multitasking will also be possible. Nokia 3 supports Android Assistant out of the box. This feature is not available in many phones of this price segment right now.
Apart from monthly security updates, HMD Global has also promised to provide Android O update to Nokia 3 when it is made available.
Nokia 3 performance and camera
Nokia 3 handles its daily usage quite well. Even after using GPS navigation and playing games for a long time, the phone doesn’t heat up too much. This is probably due to the polycarbonate back.
However, we found that the phone was a bit slow while multitasking. There was a slight lag while switching from one app to another. Let us tell you that 12 apps were already open in the background. The phone handled normal games easily. But it did slow down with games that require more powerful graphics like Need for Speed. The phone played a variety of video and audio files easily.
A loud speaker is suitable for small rooms. The sound is clear. The same can be said about the earphones provided in the retail box. Interestingly, the Nokia 3 is one of the few handsets that come with bundled earphones.
The Nokia 3’s 5-inch display has excellent colour reproduction and brightness. We enjoyed watching videos on the Nokia 3’s screen. We found it to be one of the best screens in the budget segment, especially in terms of sunlight legibility and viewing angles. But it’s also worth noting that the Yu Eureka Black, which is cheaper than the Nokia 3, gets a full-HD screen.
The Nokia 3 didn’t impress us much with its benchmark results. The Xiaomi Redmi 4 (Review) and Yu Eureka Black (Review) gave better results in these same tests.
The 8-megapixel rear camera works well in good light. The autofocus is also fast. The sample shots taken in good light had detail and some noise around the edges. However, we also found that the blurry parts of the sample lacked detail and there were complaints of overexposure in large areas. The white balance was also off at times. The Nokia 3 also has an HDR mode, but it sometimes does not switch on when needed. We think this feature can prove useful at times. Sadly, the photos in low light are not very good. The autofocus is slow to lock on. And the sample shots we took lacked detail and there was a lot of noise.
In Nokia 3, you will get the facility to record 1080 pixel videos. And the quality is also fine. The front camera of the phone also disappointed. Despite having autofocus feature, many times the pictures came out blurred. If you want, you can use Nokia 3 for video calls or selfies, but do not expect too much quality.
However, we liked the camera app. Its user interface is very easy to understand. Most functions can be activated with a single tap. In Beautify mode, the phone tries to improve the photo by applying some filters, but it is not always effective.
Battery Life
With heavy usage, the Nokia 3’s battery lasted for 16-18 hours. This is nothing surprising, especially considering the 2630mAh battery. We used the phone for about a week and we can say that it delivered decent battery life even when we didn’t use it too heavily. In our HD video loop test, the battery lasted for 10 hours and 25 minutes, which is decent for a phone of this size. You won’t get fast charging support. It took about 2 hours to charge the phone from zero to 100 percent.
Our verdict
Nokia 3 retails in India for Rs 9,499. It is a good looking handset and you get 4G with VoLTE support. Another good thing is that the company has promised Android updates in the future. Its performance and camera do not go in its favour in every department. We also missed the fingerprint sensor, which should be a common feature now.
In our opinion, Nokia 3 is made for first time smartphone users, if you are able to buy it from a nearby store. At this price, you also have the option of Xiaomi Redmi 4 and Yu Eureka Black. Both handsets are good in terms of performance. Asus ZenFone Live also offers a strong challenge in this price range.