Nokia 1

Nokia comes with the aim to redefine the low-end smartphone market with its sturdy model, Nokia 1. Priced at a reasonable range of Rs. 4,279, this is the phone for first-time smartphone users upgrading from feature phones.

This low-end phone is not going to please you with its performance nor does it intend to do so. It comes with the sole purpose of giving you basic functionalities, a capable internet and a passable performance, coupled with Nokia-guaranteed durability – all of which you can get from this phone. It brings Nokia back into the market.

Nokia 1 has a compact design, which fits extremely well in hand.Thick top and bottom bezels are present which is expected, but the white plastic rim around the front gives it a funky two-tone appearance. The power and volume buttons are easy to reach and have good feedback. Unlike many of the mid to top-range phones, Nokia 1 retains the headphone jack and also keeps a Micro-USB port – two mainstream favourites of the masses. However, its plastic body does not feel premium, and while the rounded edges are comfortable in hand, it is not the slimmest phone around at 9.5mm. On the other hand, like Nokia 6, 8 and 3, it remains sturdy and durable.

Nokia 1 has a non-HD 4.5-inch IPS FWVGA (854 x 480) display which does not bring anything exceptional on the table. It is hard to view under bright lights and is quite dull. The colours were washed out, and in low resolution, the pixels became very noticeable. The viewing angles, however, were good, and touch response was reasonably well.

Powered by quad-core MediaTek MT6737M processor which is clocked at 1.1GHz coupled with 1GB of RAM and 8GB internal memory. The performance offered by this device is below-average. The maps are slow to open, and task-switching is not smooth. It can have a dramatic slowdown with 5-6 apps running in the background. Experiencing lags and stutter while playing games is common and it can even take place with light games like Subway Surfers which runs smoothly on many low-end sets. Benchmark scores put it at 1,207 in single-core and multi-core tests which is hugely disappointing with most phones getting an upwards of 5,000 points.

It has a 5MP rear camera with a fixed-focus lens and an LED flash and a 2MP fixed-focus front camera. The photos clicked with the rear camera is very low in quality and captures a lot of noise. It lacks details, presents jagged edges and washed-out colours. Adequate light, however, might give you accurate colour though they are hardly bright.

The fixed focus makes it difficult to shoot macros, and the reproduced textures are not smooth. The selfie camera does not perform well in low-light producing muddy photos with a lot of noise. Good lighting might give you social-media good images that are decent enough.

Video recording goes up to 720p, but the clips turned out to be quite jerky and captured quite a lot of noise.

The manual mode in the camera app can be used to adjust white balance and exposure. While it is easy to control, photo processing is quite slow.

Nokia 1 is equipped with a weak 2150 mAh battery. It is removable which is a fresh design among the non-removable batteries of modern smartphones. It does not last for an entire day without a top-up in the evening, even after moderate to intense use. An HD video loop battery test found that Nokia 1 lasts 8 hours and 45 minutes, which is not a very good score for modern smartphones. Performance is average in real life as well. Nokia 1 does not replenish battery fast for a smaller battery. It took 2 hours to go from bone-dry 0% to full power, which is longer than many phones with larger batteries.

As one of the cheapest phones in the market, this is a good option for people looking for a phone capable of internet browsing, average performance and a mediocre YouTube experience. Android Go seems to be a work in progress, and without further updates, it has glaring stability issues which cannot be ignored.  However, a little bump in the price can get you Xiaomi Redmi 5A which a much better phone and a recommended handset in a similar price range.