HMD Global Oy, earlier in the month, launched the new Android One series mobile Nokia 5.4 along with budget Nokia 3.4.
On paper, it gives good competition to rival brands, but does Nokia 5.4 deliver the goods? Here're my thoughts on the new phone.
Design, build quality, and display:
The polar night colour variant of the Nokia 5.4 looks gorgeous in the sunlight. It comes with visually appealing stripes under the glossy shell. The polycarbonate-based cover really smooth and offer a premium hand-feel. But, one qualm I have is that the device a dust magnet. I had a tough time cleaning the phone to get a cover shot for this article.
Thankfully, the company is offering a soft transparent silicone cover in the retail box. This not only saves a lot of time to clean the back all the time but also doesn't take the visual appeal of the phone. Most importantly, it will save the phone from getting damaged from accidental drops.
HMD Global is also offering screen guards pre-fitted on the display out-of-the-box. This is a welcome move, as it will further improve the durability of the screen and protect it from scratches by keys or coins in the pocket.
Like other Nokia phones, the new 5.4 series to comes with a dedicated Google Assistant button on the left side. On the opposite side, you will find the power and the volume rockers.
At the bottom, it has a Type-C USB port flanked by a mic on the left and a single-grille speaker on the right side. On top, there is another mic and a 3.5mm audio jack.
On the back, it has a big ring-shaped camera module with four sensors and a LED flash on the left, and slightly below it, there is a capacitive fingerprint sensor, which by the way works wonderfully well at all times. Further below, the phone has a vertically aligned Nokia branding and it doesn't hurt the visual appeal of the design.
As far as the display is concerned, Nokia 5.4 comes with 6.39-inch HD+ (720 x 1520p) punch-hole display with a 2.5D curved glass design. It is bright and I did not face pressing issues while viewing content such as emails. Also, with the camera placed in the top left corner, there is very little obstruction to watch multimedia content.
Performance:
It houses an 11nm class Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 octa-core processor backed by Adreno 610 GPU with 4GB/6GB RAM and 64GB storage. It can be expanded up to 256GB through a microSD card.
The phone works smoothly in all day-to-day tasks be it web browsing or loading a camera or playing games. It works just fine.
It runs pure Android 10 software and there is no bloatware. Anything new app you want, you can find on the Play store. This is a good practice, with other brands follow this, as extra apps consume too much storage and leave very little to even store a few GBs of photos on the phone.
Also, with a clean interface, any rookie user old or young can get the hang of the phone in a short span of time.
The company says that the Android 11 will be rolled out and will get Android 12, which is slated for release in the second half of 2021, will also be released at the appropriate time.
Furthermore, HMD Global has assured to offer three years of security software support to curb cyber threats in the future.
Nokia 5.4 comes with a 4,000mAh cell. subjective During the review period, it consistently gave one and half days of battery life under normal usage. This aspect is very subjective, as some users may binge-watch multimedia on a mobile data plan and this will drain the battery out in six or seven hours, but on Wi-Fi, it can last longer.
For those who use the phone just to browse the web and watch videos/play games for a couple of hours and make/answer calls, then Nokia 5.4 can easily last a full day.
Camera:
Nokia 5.4 houses a quad-camera module-- primary 48MP backed by 5MP wide-angle camera, a 2MP depth sensor, and a 2MP for macro with LED flash.
It takes good pictures in the sunlight and I noted the phone's camera doesn't oversaturate colour of the subjects particularly the flowers. It is almost close to natural and never too bright. The images taken with portrait mode too, are decent on par with rival brands.
As far as the night mode is concerned, the phone takes a few seconds to process the images and they are good. There is noticeable noise in the pictures, but they are good enough for a phone under Rs 15K for its price
On the front, it comes with a 16MP sensor. Nokia 5.4 captures pretty decent selfies under well-lit conditions.
Final thoughts:
Nokia 5.4 Android One is a good buy for those who plan to migrate from a keypad-based feature phone to a touchscreen mobile. Be it a senior citizen or a rookie of any age-group, can get acclimatised to clean Android software within a few hours. With three-year support for security software, users can be assured of getting protection from cyber threats. Also, the camera hardware and battery life are pretty good for the asking price.
Nokia 5.4 Android One is being offered in two colours--Dusk and Polar Night. It comes in two configurations-- 4GB RAM + 64G storage and 6GB RAM + 64GB storage-- for Rs 13,999 and Rs 15,499, respectively. It will go on sale on Flipkart from February 17 onwards.
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