Pros: Sleek design, bright display, lightweight with a large battery, great battery life, good day-to-day performance, excellent rear camera, loud audio output.
Cons: Glossy finish is smudge magnet, steep price for Snapdragon 636, weak front camera low light performance, no dedicated microSD slot.
The Nokia 7.1 was announced by HMD Global in October 2018 but the India launch was in December 2018. This midrange phone is amongst the first set of phones from Nokia with an HDR10 display and Zeiss camera optics.
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From the very first look, the Nokia 7.1 is a stunner. It has an aluminum frame and glass back which makes it look and feel like a flagship phone. Our review unit is the Midnight Blue: a dark blue back with silver accents around the frame. While we give the phone full points for the sleek and stylish design, the glass back also makes it prone to scratches and smudges. It’s always a shame to cover up a beautiful design with a thick cover. Nokia 7.1 (www.amazon.com) This is one of the few compact smartphones available at this price. It feels more compact because it has a 5.84-inch display with a 19:9 aspect ratio. It’s also one of the first phones with an HDR 10 compliant display. We loved the screen because of the vibrant colour, high contrast and sharpness. We did feel that the screen bezels could have been slimmer and that they should have added the option to hide the notch. That being said, the screen is a joy to use for videos, viewing photos and games.
The hardware is where things start going awry. The phone is powered by an octa core Snapdragon 636 processor which is not bad at all — but you can get the same in phones that cost half as much. We did not see any issues with day-today performance but won’t recommend this phone if you are into gaming. Games like PUBG and Asphalt 9 will work with low graphics and you’ll see dropped frames often. Battery life was as expected — a day with basic use. If you’re a heavy user, you will run out of juice by early evening. The good thing is that the phone supports fast charging and a 12V fast charger is included in the box.
Apart from the screen, the camera is one of the highlights. This is the first midrange device from Nokia with Zeiss optics. It has a 12MP f1.8 + 5MP f2.4 dual rear camera with dual pixel phase detection autofocus. Numbers aside, it actually delivers fantastic results. Photo have vivid colours with a good amount of detail in daylight as well as indoors. Lowlight images suffer from soft details, but we found them good enough for sharing on social media. The bokeh mode impressed us further with excellent edge detection and a good amount of background blur. It would have been great if the camera was optically stabilised - OIS would have given the Nokia 7.1 an edge over the competition and sort of justified the price in our opinion. Meanwhile, the front camera is nothing great. Most of the selfies had soft details. The front bokeh mode has good edge detection but it takes time to recognise a face and show you the bokeh effect.
Foldable Phones, Notch-Free Display: Smartphone Tech To Watch Out For In 2019
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While the Google Pixel 3 and iPhone XR continue to push the boundaries of a single smartphone camera, other companies have not stopped there. Dual cameras became a norm in 2018 and we’ve also seen them in sub Rs10k phones. Huawei was first with a triple camera smartphone (P20 Pro) and others followed suit. Samsung Galaxy A7, LG V40, Oppo R17 Pro and Huawei Mate 20 Pro were some of the phones with triple rear cameras. Samsung didn’t stop there and went on to launch a phone with quad cameras – the Samsung A9. For 2019, there are already rumours of a Nokia phone with five rear cameras and we expect more companies to follow the trend. You can expect all major brands to have phones with multiple cameras across price brackets. According to us, having multiple cameras only makes sense when you get good results and flexibility (wide, macro, tele lenses).
(In Pic: Samsung Galaxy A7)
While the Google Pixel 3 and iPhone XR continue to push the boundaries of a single smartphone camera, other companies have not stopped there. Dual cameras became a norm in 2018 and we’ve also seen th..
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Battery technology simply hasn’t kept pace with smartphone development. One solution to this is to have phones with larger batteries but this also makes the device larger/heavier. The other logical solution is to make the batteries charge faster. OnePlus users have enjoyed the super-fast Dash Charge feature. A number of smartphones also come with Qualcomm’s QuickCharge 3.0. In 2018, we saw devices go beyond and develop their own ultrafast charging technologies. Oppo showed everyone how it’s done with SuperVooc charging on the Find X and R17 Pro. Huawei Mate 20 Pro has Super Charge 2.0, OnePlus launched WarpCharge on the OnePlus 6T McLaren edition while the Asus ROG has QuickCharge 4.0 support. These phones are capable of charging phones from 0 to 50% in less than 30 minutes which is good for about a day of battery life. In 2019, this ultrafast charging tech should be available on more smartphones.
(In Pic: ASUS ROG Phone)
Battery technology simply hasn’t kept pace with smartphone development. One solution to this is to have phones with larger batteries but this also makes the device larger/heavier. The other logical s..
Read More
We see new smartphone features every few months – starting from CES in January to various events through the year. We are also likely to see more of Qi wireless charging, phones without 3.5mm port, IR assisted face unlock, glass backs on entry-level devices, smaller, teardrop shape notches. Here are some of the favourites that are expected to be a lot more visible in the coming year.
(In Pic: The FlexPai from Royole)
We see new smartphone features every few months – starting from CES in January to various events through the year. We are also likely to see more of Qi wireless charging, phones without 3.5mm port, I..
Read More
While we first saw the notch in 2017, 2018 was when it came to even at entry-level devices. It’s now so prevalent that more people seem to hate it rather than understand why it’s there. Thankfully, we also saw smartphone brands take a step ahead with allscreen designs (without any notch). Phones like Oppo Find X and Vivo NEX and still on sale but you do have to pay a premium for the design. For 2019 we expect the all-screen design to take center stage as display prices come down. By the end of 2019, we should see mid-range smartphones with all-screen designs.
(In Pic: On the left is the Oppo Find X, and on the right is the Vivo NEX)
While we first saw the notch in 2017, 2018 was when it came to even at entry-level devices. It’s now so prevalent that more people seem to hate it rather than understand why it’s there. Thankfully, w..
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Foldable smartphones have been a concept for a long time now with a few proof of concept devices being shown off at international events. Things escalated quickly in 2018 with Samsung and Huawei announcing that their foldable smartphones will debut in 2019. Samsung showcased a working prototype of their foldable smartphone at an event recently showing how close they are to a consumer device. Another little-known Chinese company called Royale surprised everyone by launching the world’ first foldable smartphone called FlexPai (it’s supposed to go on sale in China by the end of this year). We might just see the first foldable phone next year but you should expect it to be a halo product with a stratospheric price tag.
(In Pic: Samsung's foldable phone which is likely to hit markets in 2019)
Foldable smartphones have been a concept for a long time now with a few proof of concept devices being shown off at international events. Things escalated quickly in 2018 with Samsung and Huawei anno..
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4G and VoLTE is commonplace now thanks to Jio’s cross country network (and their affordable data packages brought prices down for everyone). The DoT has announced that they expect to complete the process of 5G spectrum auction by August 2019 which means that there are chances we might see 5G rollout by end of 2019. While the network rollout is not clear at the moment, the hardware for 5G is already ready. Qualcomm has already announced that they have over 15 smartphone OEMs committed to 5G for 2019. A number of them including OnePlus, Oppo and Huawei have also announced 5G phones for 2019 (we’ll see the first wave of announcements at the Mobile World Congress 2019).
4G and VoLTE is commonplace now thanks to Jio’s cross country network (and their affordable data packages brought prices down for everyone). The DoT has announced that they expect to complete the pro..
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As a personal choice, we prefer capacitive fingerprint scanners on smartphones (simply because they’re faster and more accurate). However, the next generation of fingerprint scanners (embedded in the smartphone display) are already a reality. We’ve seen in-display scanners on Vivo NEX, Vivo V11 Pro, Huawei Mate 20 Pro and the OnePlus 6T. Capacitive scanners also had their share of issues initially and the speed/accuracy improved over the years – we expect the same to happen with in-display fingerprint scanners. One of the things holding back the in-display scanners is that they can only work on devices with amoled screens (which are more expensive than LCD). Qualcomm recently announced ultrasonic in-display fingerprint scanning technology that can work on any type of screen and even through metal.
(In Pic: On the left is the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, and on the right is the OnePlus 6T)
As a personal choice, we prefer capacitive fingerprint scanners on smartphones (simply because they’re faster and more accurate). However, the next generation of fingerprint scanners (embedded in the..
A few other features we liked on the Nokia 7.1: fast and accurate fingerprint scanner, loud audio from the speakers, WiFi ac support, Bluetooth 5.0 support and stock Android interface with guaranteed updates with the Android One program.
As an overall package, the Nokia 7.1 has got a few things right and it fails to impress in some areas. The biggest problem is the price. At Rs 19,999, it goes up against phones like Poco F1 that has a flagship Snapdragon 845 processor, larger display, larger battery and great cameras. For Rs 17,990, you can get the Realme 2 Pro with Snapdragon 660, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage and a 6.3-inch display with a dewdrop notch. Finally, if you like stock Android, Mi A2 and Moto One Power are also better options than the 7.1.
