NOKIA 8.3 5G, NOKIA 5.3, NOKIA 1.3 AND NOKIA 5310 (2020)‍‍‍‍। HONEST OPINIONS

(L-R) Nokia 5.3, Nokia 1.3, Nokia 5310, Nokia 8.3 5G

After the bland Nokia 7.2, Nokia 6.2 and Nokia 2.3, the Finnish company has launched four new devices. They were launched in an online event sue to the Corona Virus. But can these create an impact or would be sidelined in the fierce competition. Stay tuned to know.

Note:- This is neither a review nor a first impression. Just my honest opi‍nions about the phones.

NOKIA 8.3 5G

Nokia 8.3 5G

This phone seems the most capable of the lot. The biggest attraction is the 5G support as it is the future. But this phone is competing with names like OnePlus which provides excellent specs for the price. Many companies are soon going to launch their flagship killers. The Snapdragon 765G is nowhere close to Snapdragon 865. Here are the specs 

SPECS

Display - 6.81" FHD+ IPS LCD Punch Hole Display (20:9)

Chipset - 2.4 GHz Snapdragon 765G with Adreno 620 GPU

Configuration - 6+64 GB, 8+128 GB with SD Card Slot

Software - Android One 10.0

Battery - 4500 mAh Battery with 18W charging

Rear Camera - ZEISS 64MP f/1.9 + 12MP f/2.2 (ultrawide) + 2MP (macro) + 2MP (depth)

Front Camera - ZEISS 24MP f/2.0

Pricing - €599; ₹49,700; $658; £533

Note:- The price in the regions where it is not launched is calculated by the exchange rates on the day I wrote this post. Official Pricing may be different.

The specs are good and I know that this phone would be bought due to the brand name and decent specs. My biggest concern is the chipset. If Nokia launches this phone at 40k, the competition would provide SD865. By no means, Snapdragon 765G is bad and this has excellent performance. But it’s not on par with the competition. This has the weaker Cortex A76 cores at a lower clock speed. The Adreno 620 is also nowhere near the Adreno 650. Even 765G doesn’t support LPDDR5 RAM.

Another concern is the display. While the display cut-out looks elegant, it is LCD. People might say that LCD isn’t bad and I agree but it is not better than AMOLED like in the Nokia 9 Pure View. AMOLED Displays have much better contrast and colours. And with LCD, you miss out premium features like Always-On-Display and In-Display Fingerprint Scanner. It is also just FHD+ which is a downgrade to the Nokia 8 which had QHD. Also, it has a normal refresh rate while the competition gives 90Hz and 120Hz Refresh Rate.

The camera is a 64MP ZEISS sensor. I can say without testing that the camera is excellent. Nokia has always given nice cameras. The front camera is 24MP that would be excellent too. Nokia would give this phone Android R and Android S and would also provide 3 years of security updates. The battery life would be excellent but the charging is slow. 18W is actually slow in today’s standards where companies are giving more than 30W. The phone is thick and bulky too. 

OnePlus 8 is the best phone you can get instead of this. If you want an iPhone, the iPhone SE is a great choice. You can save some money and get Realme X50 Pro or even the OnePlus 7T. S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite are some alternatives from Samsung. Xiaomi Mi 10 and the Poco F2 Pro are also some great phones. So let’s sum it up.

PROS

• Stock Android with Fast Updates by Nokia
• 5G Support
• Excellent Battery Life
• Nice Cameras

CONS

• Processor not on par with the competition
• Thick and Bulky design
• Slow Charging
• Absence of AMOLED Display
• Normal Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
• No In-Display Fingerprint

NOKIA 5.3

Nokia 5.3

This is the budget phone of Nokia is 5.3. It is the successor of the successful Nokia 5.1 Plus. But I am very disappointed with this phone. I found nothing extraordinary in this. It is competing with Xiaomi, Realme, and Samsung. And honestly speaking, Samsung M21 and M31 are better than this.

SPECS

Display - 6.55" HD+ IPS LCD Display with Teardrop Notch (20:9)

Chipset – 2.0 GHz Snapdragon 665 with Adreno 610 GPU

Configuration - 3+64 GB, 4+64 GB, 6+64 GB with SD Card Slot

Software - Android One 10.0

Battery - 4000 mAh Battery with 10W charging

Rear Camera - 13MP f/1.8 + 5MP (ultrawide) + 2MP (macro) + 2MP (depth)

Front Camera – 8MP f/2.0

Pricing - €189; ₹15,700; $208; £168

Note:- The price in the regions where it is not launched is calculated by the exchange rates on the day I wrote this post. Official Pricing may be different.

Let’s start with the chipset. Snapdragon 665 at this price is not at all okay. The performance would not be on par with the competition. You have Realme 6 with Mediatek Helio G90T, Redmi Note 9 Pro with Snapdragon 720G and the Samsung M21 and M31 powered with Exynos 9611. All three chipsets are better than Snapdragon 665. The normal user won’t face any issues but this phone is not for gamers.

The software is nice because it’s Android One. Nokia would give this phone Android R and Android S and would also provide 3 years of security updates. It has a plastic back which is fine as Realme and Samsung are giving plastic too. Then comes the display. It is an IPS LCD which is totally fine but the problem is that this is just HD+ and not FHD+. That means no 1080p videos. It also has a normal refresh rate but I won’t complain as very few competitors provide that. 

Another thing is the camera. I can’t judge it just looking at the specs. It might be good but the other phones have either 48MP or 64MP cameras. Though megapixels don’t matter, these are big sensors which ultimately provide better image quality. The front camera is also just 8MP which is disappointing. Also, there is no 4K video recording or 1080p60fps. Even the ultra-wide camera is just 5MP while the competition gives 8MP wide-angle lens. 

You get 3, 4 or 6 gigs of RAM, all having 64 gigs of storage. The battery life would be nice because the SD665 is power-efficient and the display is just 720p. But the charging is just 10W. The competitors provide faster charging and bigger batteries too. 

You can buy Galaxy M21 or even the M31 if you can stretch your budget. Redmi Note 8 Pro and Note 9 Pro are some great phones too. Realme 6 is also a great gaming phone. Vivo Z1 Pro and Z1x are some great options. You can even save a few thousand rupees and get the Realme Narzo 10 which is much better than this. In the offline market, Oppo A31 can be bought instead. It’s not that great either but a decent phone for the offline market. So let’s sum it up.

PROS

• Stock Android with Fast Updates by Nokia
• Nice Battery Life

CONS

• Processor not on par with the competition
• Average Cameras
• Slow Charging
• Absence of 1080p Display

NOKIA 1.3

Nokia 1.3

The Nokia 1.3 is the budget offering of Nokia with Android Go, the lighter version of Android. It is the successor of Nokia 1 and Nokia 1 Plus. And I have used Nokia 1. But is it a game-changer or a disappointing package. Let’s check out the specs. 

SPECS

Display – 5.71" HD+ IPS LCD Display with Teardrop Notch (19:9)

Chipset – 1.3 GHz Snapdragon 215 with Adreno 308 GPU

Configuration – 1+16GB with SD Card Slot

Software - Android Go 10.0

Battery - 3000 mAh Battery with 5W charging

Rear Camera – 8MP with AF

Front Camera – 5MP

Pricing - €95; ₹7,900; $99; £85

Note:- The price in the regions where it is not launched is calculated by the exchange rates on the day I wrote this post. Official Pricing may be different.

Once again Android Go with only 1GB RAM. If you have read the previous article on Android Go, you must know why 1GB RAM is not enough even for Android Go. I will give a link in the end. Also, this time the processor is Snapdragon 215 and I can say that this is a downgrade from its predecessors. It is a stripped-down version of Snapdragon 425. If you read my last post, you must know that I am facing issues on Redmi Go with SD425 and it is running Android Oreo. This is Android 10. It must require more resources. And again, it has only 1GB RAM. So I can easily say that the performance is poor. You get 16 gigs of storage along with an SD Card Slot and so it would not be an issue. 

The software it Android 10.0 Go. Nokia would give this phone Android R and Android S and would also provide 3 years of security updates. I think that it’s fine. The design is like its predecessors. You get 3D Nano-Pattern Plastic Back. I have no complaints regarding this. The battery is 3000 mAh with 5W charging. The charging is too slow and would take 3 hours for a full charge. Nokia says that this phone can last up to two days. It’s false because my Redmi Go has the same capacity and a better chipset. And it provides one day of battery life which is good though.  

The display is fine for the price. It has a small notch that looks good. It has a back-firing speaker just like the older phones. On Nokia 1, the speaker was not that loud. The camera is 8MP and it comes with the AI-enabled Camera Go App. You get a portrait mode which is a good feature. If it has a processing algorithm like Google Camera, it should provide excellent results but it doesn’t. Your get blown-out highlights and grainy photos. Even the portrait mode is poor. 

Redmi 8A and 8A Dual are some great cheap phones. Realme C3 is a great entry-level gaming phone. You can even take a look at Realme Narzo 10A. Realme 3i can also be bought at ₹7,000. You can also have a look at Nokia 5.1 Plus but it won’t get that many software updates now. You can take a look at Nokia 4.2 which comes down to ₹6,000 in sales. Nokia 2.2 can be bought if you get it at ₹5,000. So let's sum it up. 

PROS

• Stock Android with Fast Updates by Nokia
• Nice Display
• Presence of Portrait Mode 

CONS

• Below-Average Performance
• Slow Charging
• 1GB RAM is not enough
• Back-firing speakers
• Overpriced for an Android Go device
• Average Cameras

NOKIA 5310 (2020)

Nokia 5310 (2020)

This is the first classic Nokia of the year. And its USP is its battery life. Nokia has revamped the Nokia 3310, 8110 and 2720 till now and this is a new one. And I can say that all of them are overpriced and Nokia is playing with the sentiments of the people using these phones. So let’s check out the specs of the Nokia 5310.

SPECS

Display – 2.4" QVGA (240x320) TFT Display

Chipset – Mediatek MT6260A

Configuration – 8+16 MB with SD Card Slot

Software – Nokia Series 30+

Battery - 1200 mAh Battery 

Rear Camera – VGA Camera with LED Flash

Front Camera – None

Pricing - €39; ₹3,399; $43; £35

Note:- The price in the regions where it is not launched is calculated by the exchange rates on the day I wrote this post. Official Pricing may be different. 

This is a big joke. First of all, it does not have 4G, just 2G. This makes it a basic feature phone. And it is found at the price where we can buy a phone with KaiOS. The Jio Phone comes at ₹1500 in India which is much better than this. And at the price of Nokia 5310, we get the Jio Phone 2 with QWERTY Keypad. It has a wireless FM which the Jio Phones and Nokia 220 4G also have.

(L-R) Jio Phone, Jio Phone 2, Nokia 105, Nokia 220 4G

Another fact is that the old Nokia 5310 had a 2MP rear camera while this has VGA. This has 8MB RAM and 16MB storage while the old one had 32MB in total. This one is great for music as it has a nice headphone jack and loud dual front-firing speakers. But the lack of 4G destroys everything. The battery life is the USP of this phone. Nokia claims that this can last up to 30 days on standby. It may be true because there is just 2G. Don't expect to surf the web as 2G is just too slow and is slowly going extinct too.

The display is just what others are giving. There is nothing to talk about performance as it’s just meant for calling, SMS and listening to songs. You can’t expect anything from the camera. If you are looking for a Nokia phone, you can check out the Nokia 220 4G which sells as around the same price. If you want a basic phone, the Nokia 105 may also be an option and it retails at less than half the price of this. So let’s sum it up. 

PROS

• Loud Dual Speakers
• Excellent Battery Life
• Display on-par with the competition.

CONS

• No 4G support (Only 2G)
• Overpriced
• There is nothing special in this phone.

So these four phones disappointed me. Nokia failed again to provide value for money phones. I hope Nokia reduces the price before launching in India. Also, the GST on phones increases from 12% to 18%. So the prices would now increase too. That's it for today. Goodbye for now.

Read More:- Everything Wrong with Android Go