Nokia’s back in business, this time with a mobile operating system that certainly doesn't go anywhere for the time being

Aug 5, 2017 13:01 GMT  ·  By

The last few years have been cruel for Nokia, as the Finnish manufacturer was brought close to extinction due to a number of poor management choices that have been overly-discussed lately and which included the sale of its Devices and Services unit to software giant Microsoft.

While the Redmond-based Microsoft purchased Nokia in an attempt to become a more important player in mobile, the plan failed, again due to very controversial decisions, and the Finnish manufacturer ended up being pushed painfully close to its demise.

Under HMD Global’s umbrella, the company is now struggling to rebuild itself from the ground up, this time trying to focus on an operating system that does have a future, Android, and with the help of a parent company that sees success as the only way to go.

So here’s the new Nokia, a company that’s betting all-in on Android for a growing lineup of devices, the most affordable of which is the Nokia 3.

Nokia isn’t trying to lie: the company says from the very beginning that the Nokia 3 was developed as a phone featuring “all the essentials,” and while it does use fancy words to highlight its device, it’s not turning to any hyperboles to talk big about the phone.

The Nokia 3 appears to be a device that’s primarily aimed at fans who stick with the brand despite the difficult times, coming at a price that you more often find in the case of Chinese devices that typically boast questionable quality. The Nokia 3 costs less than $150 and is available in four different colors, namely Tempered Blue, Silver White, Matte Black, Copper White.

The model we’re testing is the TA-1032 DS in Matte Black and is supposed to feature, as Nokia says right on the box, “premium quality.” But is that really so? Read on to find out the truth.

Nokia 3 display
Nokia 3 display

DESIGN

Since it’s a budget phone, there’s nothing to blow your mind about the Nokia 3, though I must admit that the device feels pretty nice in hand. And it’s partially thanks to the materials being used and to the overall dimensions with no super-sized bezels.

The Nokia 3 measures 143.4 x 71.4 x 8.5 mm (5.65 x 2.81 x 0.33 in), which means it’s slightly bigger than the iPhone 7 - 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.28 in). At 140 grams (4.94 oz), it’s also a little bit heavier than Apple’s latest model that tips the scales at 138 grams (4.87 oz).

Nokia remains an honest company, so it won’t try to impress you with exquisite materials, saying instead that the Nokia 3 features a polycarbonate back and an aluminum frame for a very compact body that feels solid and secure. And truth be told, this is indeed the feeling you’re getting when holding the phone in hand, though the polycarbonate on the back is more of an upgraded plastic that screams low-cost through all of its pores.

Cheap, but not the cheapest.

The front of the phone looks like the typical Android, with the screen taking the biggest part and the Nokia 3 offering a screen to body ratio of 67.3 percent, again better than the 65.6 percent on the iPhone 7. This is partially thanks to the rather small bezels, though they become more evident when you unlock the device.

There’s nothing too unusual in terms of design on the Nokia 3, but the overall mix is more impressive than each feature analyzed individually.

The back of the phone is simple, clean, and nice looking, with the camera and the flash placed in a dedicated small bump positioned vertically that at first glance could make you think it has a dual camera.

So overall, the Nokia 3 isn’t the best looking phone, but it’s not ugly either, and at this price, I have no doubt that you can’t really ask for more.

HARDWARE

Nokia 3 is, by all means, a low-budget phone, so you can’t expect the hardware that it comes with to be too powerful. But as Nokia says, it does have the essential hardware to do its job decently.

#Display

The 5-inch display has a few highlights, and they deserve a few more words here. First of all, it features a pretty low resolution of just 1280x720 pixels with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

While it’s pretty clear that this isn’t the best display you can get right now, it’s important to always keep in mind that this phone doesn’t cost more than 150 bucks, so it’s not fair to have too high expectations. Even though it lacks the colors, contrast, and sharpness of more expensive panels, the LCD display is responsive enough most of them and features 450 nits brightness and a polarizer.

Nokia 3 front-facing camera
Nokia 3 front-facing camera

The polarizer is a technology that was used on Nokia’s Windows phones and which was implemented in addition to the ClearBlack display, contributing to better visibility in direct sunlight by reducing the amount of light that’s reflected back in your face.

Other than that, it’s worth mentioning that the display is protected by Gorilla Glass, though Nokia doesn’t say which generation, and we won’t go as far as testing the strength of the screen just yet.

#CPU, GPU, RAM, Storage

Nokia picked a MediaTek processor for its low-budget model, and this makes the device often show its limits, especially when attempting to run more demanding processes like games.

The MTK 6737 quad-core 1.3 GHz is often considered a direct rival to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 430, though I’d say that the difference is so big that it’s not even worth comparing the two. The Snapdragon 430 uses an octa-core configuration topping at 1.4 GHz and is some 40 percent faster, providing substantially better performance when gaming.

The MediaTek chip, however, feels slow, especially where the Snapdragon is faster. On the good side, it’s not getting hot as fast as you’d expect, especially if you use the phone for common tasks like chatting or emails.

MediaTek, not Qualcomm.

The GPU is the low-budget Mali-T720MP1, and the phone features just 2GB RAM paired with 16GB storage, and microSD card support is also offered to expand storage capacity to up to 256GB.

All in all, the Nokia 3 is by no means a monster in terms of hardware, and I’d rather say that it’s actually at the completely opposite pole. If you’re asking me, the MediaTek chip isn’t the best way to go, but Nokia certainly wanted to keep the price as low as possible, and the Snapdragon would have added a few extra bucks that the company didn’t agree with.

#Camera

The camera on the Nokia 3 is nothing special, and if you’ve used a flagship phone before, like the Samsung Galaxy S8 or the iPhone 7, you’ll certainly be disappointed. But once again, it’s an affordable model we’re talking about here, so you can’t blame Nokia for cost cutting in terms of camera performance.

The device features 8-megapixel cameras front and back, with the primary camera coming with a 1.12 um sensor with f/2, autofocus, and a LED flash. The front-facing camera features the same specs, but with FOV of 84 degrees.

In real-life, the performance of the camera leaves a lot to be desired, and it all starts with the colors. In most of the shots, colors are substantially altered, as it’s the case with the tea bags below, where the yellow is almost entirely vanished.

Nokia 3 camera sample
Nokia 3 camera sample
Nokia 3 camera sample
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At the same time, unless the perfect lighting is offered, photos are full of noise and sharpness is missing entirely, which makes it pretty impossible to take a good shot. What’s more, the focus sometimes doesn’t work correctly, and while on the screen of the phone it looks like the camera focused on the subject already, a closer inspection on the PC proves otherwise.

Unfortunately, the Nokia 3 doesn’t feature anything else than a mediocre camera that’s hard to be impressed with. Of course, it’s all because a better camera would have substantially increased the price of the phone, but those who were hoping for a cheap smartphone with a good camera have to look somewhere else.

#Battery

The Nokia 3 comes with a non-removable 2,630 mAh battery, and in most of the cases, this unit is large enough to ensure 24 hours of autonomy. On the other hand, keep in mind that this isn’t quite the most capable phone on the market, so the majority of the typical processes that are known as battery hogs, such as playing games or watching videos in 4K, are not part of the equation this time.

There is no fast or wireless charging, and charging the device from 0 to 100 percent takes no less than 3 hours. That’s shocking, to say the least, especially if you’re in a rush, but it’s all because Nokia hasn’t used any new standard on the device, relying instead on micro USB with USB 2.0.

#Other features

The list of other features available on Nokia’s entry-level model is kind of limited, and it pretty much includes a 3.5 mm audio jack, a single speaker (no stereo, obviously), Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

So it’s basically easier to tell you what the Nokia 3 doesn’t have to save some time: it lacks a fingerprint sensor, facial recognition or any other type of security method besides those included in Android by default like passwords and screen pattern, as well as a LED notification, which is, to be honest, quite disappointing.

It just lacks too many features.

A LED notification light would have cost less than a couple of dollars, and Nokia should have made a compromise in this case, especially because no premium features like Always On Display or anything requiring a more advanced screen is available.

Audio quality is also mediocre, and so is call quality, with no exquisite options like HD voice or anything like that.

SOFTWARE

One of the best things about Nokia 3 is the software it comes with, as instead of offering a bloated Android ROM with lots of apps that you would otherwise remove, the parent company launched the device with stock Android.

This means you get a pretty clean experience that you can customize in any way you wish, all without being spammed with apps that you don’t need and, which in some cases, you can’t actually remove.

This means that in 99 percent of the cases you need to rely on Google apps, so for email you have to use Gmail and the gallery is Google Photos. Obviously, you can turn to the Google Play Store for other apps, but the default ones are Google’s given the stock Android experience.

Since I like the raw Android more than anything else, this is quite a good thing on the Nokia 3, and I really appreciate that Nokia does respect its users and doesn’t offer any junk apps on its smartphones.


The Good

There are two things that need to be discussed in this section: the price and the way Nokia treats its customers.

First and foremost, for a device that costs less than $150, you get tons of stuff, even though I would have personally picked a different chip and opted for some extra super affordable features like an LED light. But instead, you get good battery life, Android 7, and the essential feature package with stock Android, which is pretty hard to find these days.

The second of all, Nokia just seems to be an honest company when talking about the Nokia 3, and since it’s pretty clear that a $150 device comes with several limitations, the Finnish firm rarely uses fancy words to highlight its features.

Instead, Nokia does reckon that the Nokia 3 boasts “the essential features,” without praising the camera or the display more than they deserve.

And this is something that certainly earns our appreciation, especially because most companies these days are doing exactly the opposite thing and trying to convince you that even a VGA camera can take photos with DSLR-like quality.

The Bad

While it’s pretty unfair to criticize a low-budget phone for its misses in the hardware department, the Nokia 3 does disappoint when it comes to the processor, the camera, and the lack of some critical features.

For example, the device does not have a fingerprint sensor, which in today’s market is something that most of the users can’t even live without. There are companies out there, such as Apple and Samsung, which are already considering giving up on fingerprint sensors completely to advance to other solutions, like facial recognition, but the Nokia 3 doesn’t even have such a sensor.

This shows how far behind the Nokia 3 is compared with the rest of the market, and what’s worse, with some cheap Chinese devices, which for $150 come with all the bells and whistles like fingerprint sensors and LED notification lights.

Also, charging the device is painfully slow, and it takes several hours to charge the battery fully with the charger and the cable included in the box. This is because fast charging is missing and Nokia went for the already outdated micro USB connector with USB 2.0.

Conclusion

After using the Nokia 3 for the test, it becomes pretty clear to me that this device is not by any means aimed at users who need a smartphone as their everyday companion.

If you’re the kind of user who unlocks the phone tens of times every day to do things like gaming or watching videos, you better look somewhere else because the Nokia 3 fails where you’d expect it the least.

Probably the worst thing is that given its price tag, the Nokia 3 falls in the same category with a number of Chinese Android smartphones that provide so many more features, without making the same compromises. A $150 Chinese smartphone not only that offers a fingerprint sensor and a USB Type-C connector, but it even has features that do not cost a fortune, like the LED notification light.

This phone is a good choice for long-time Nokia fans who want to support the company as it struggles to get back into the business, but also for those who need just a phone with some smart capabilities. It does have a nice look with solid body and optimized features, but I’d rather pick something that’s a little bit more capable rather than just sticking with a device for its brand.

Our Rating

looks 2
build 2
speed 3
battery 3
calls 3
camera 2
video 3
apps 4
screen 3
signal3

final rating 2

Photo Gallery (28 Images)

Nokia 3
Nokia 3 front viewNokia 3 display
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