Nokia 7 Plus: Come For The Value, Stay For The Excitement

While it'd not boast a cutting-edge chipset and it lacks the colourful punch provided by an AMOLED screen, the Nokia 7 Plus has plenty to supply – especially once you consider it costs half the maximum amount as a 2018 flagship device. Good battery life, pure Android and above-average optics bring a really solid middleweight contender.

Editors Liked

• Superb build
• Powerful internals
• Good camera setup
• Android One

Editors Didn't Like

• Camera performance could've been better
• Priced slightly on the upper side
• Mid-range CPU

Nokia's comeback tale has been a hit thus far, with HMD Global's move to specialise in the budget segment paying off handsomely for the brand. The Finnish manufacturer launched a complete of six Android phones last year, primarily targeted at markets like China and India, countries where the Nokia name still features a lot of brand name cachet.

Four out of the six devices HMD launched last year were budget phones, with the Nokia 8 and Nokia 7 being the exceptions. Of the 2, the Nokia 8 was the sole device that was available in global markets, but HMD is making amends this year with the Nokia 7 Plus.

The phone is that the first from HMD to feature an 18:9 form factor, and currently it's the sole device within the Finnish manufacturer's portfolio to try to so. HMD made a couple of missteps last year — the Nokia 6 had lackluster specs, and therefore the Nokia 8 didn't see much momentum within the high-end segment. But this point around, HMD nailed the fundamentals with the Nokia 7 Plus.

HMD is once more making a strategic play by launching the phone initially in key markets like India. The Nokia 7 Plus is now up for pre-order within the country, and can continue sale starting April 30 for ₹25,999 ($390). While India's budget segment sees intense competition, the ₹20,000 to ₹30,000 segment is underserved.

The Redmi Note 5 Pro and Moto G5 series own the sub-₹20,000 category, and therefore the OnePlus 5T dominates the premium segment, with the manufacturer learning a market share in more than 48%.

The Moto X4 is that the only legitimate contender to the Nokia 7 Plus, but Motorola's diary when it involves software updates isn't what it wont to be, making the X4 a troublesome sell. So at a primary glance, it's just like the Nokia 7 Plus is that the perfect $400 mid-ranger for 2018. It is time to seek out if it lives up to the hype.

About This Review

I (Harish Jonnalagadda) am scripting this review after using the Nokia 7 Plus for over fortnight in Hyderabad, India. The phone was connected to Airtel's 4G network, and received an OTA update bringing Android 8.1 Oreo, the April 1, 2018 security patch, a replacement camera interface, and various stability fixes. HMD India provided the review unit to Android Central.

Nokia 7 Plus Design and Display

Think of the Nokia 7 Plus as HMD's combat the Pixel 2 XL. The phone features a similar design up front with the curves round the edges, and therefore the six-layer ceramic coating at the rear is like what Google has through with its flagship. The white version of the Nokia 7 Plus especially shares tons of similarities to the panda Pixel.

That's to not say that HMD hasn't added its own unique touches to the planning. The foremost distinctive design feature of the Nokia 7 Plus is that the copper accents round the periphery of the screen, the camera module, power and volume buttons, and therefore the midframe. The copper highlights certainly add flair to the device, and its sheen glints off under sunlight.

It definitely makes the Nokia 7 Plus stand call at a sea of unibody aluminum designs. The Nokia logo is displayed prominently at the rear, and to the proper of the front camera module. The ceramic coating makes the Nokia 7 Plus very grippy, and therefore the device is made sort of a tank.

There's a reassuring heft whenever you choose up the phone, and zip about the device feels cheaply made. Overall, the fit and finish of the Nokia 7 Plus is top-notch, even as you'd expect from a Nokia-branded device.

With HMD committing to Android One on all of its smartphones, the Nokia 7 Plus comes with Android One branding at rock bottom, along side a "Designed by HMD Global Oy" tag. The latter, however, is starting to wear off after just fortnight of use.

HMD doesn't do dull phones, and therefore the Nokia 7 Plus is one among its best designs yet.

The camera module protrudes from the body, but it's a minor bum and doesn't really affect usability. The fingerprint sensor may be a little above on the body and slightly above where your index usually rests at the rear, but the indentation makes it easy to locate.

Rounding out the planning, there is a USB-C charging port at rock bottom, and a mono speaker is found to its right. The facility and volume buttons are on the right-hand side, and therefore the positioning, also because the tactile feedback, is spot on. You furthermore may get a 3.5mm jack at the highest.

The 6.0-inch IPS LCD panel features a resolution of 2160x1080, and it's protected by a layer of Gorilla Glass 3. Colors are vibrant, viewing angles are great, and that i did not have any issues reading the content on the screen under harsh sunlight.

There's also an ambient display mode that permits you to preview notifications without switching on the screen. You’ll also adjust the display scaling options also because the font size, and you get a blue diffusing screen which will be configured to kick in at a specified time (or from sunset to sunrise). There is a double tap to wake the screen option also.

Nokia 7 Plus Hardware

The Nokia 7 Plus is one among the primary phones launching globally to feature the Snapdragon 660 — it's the primary in India to supply the chipset. Qualcomm released the chipset last year, but the primary wave of devices powered by it didn't make it outside of China.

The Snapdragon 660 is notable because it is that the first chipset within the 6xx series to feature Qualcomm's custom cores. As an example, the Snapdragon 630 within the Moto X4 has the quality A53 cores that go up to 2.2GHz, whereas the Snapdragon 660 comes with semi-custom Kryo 260 cores that are supported the A73 and therefore the A53.

Similar to other octa-core designs, the Snapdragon 660 has four performance cores supported the Cortex A73 that are clocked at 2.2GHz, and 4 energy-efficient cores supported the A53 that go up to 1.4GHz.

The result's that you simply get performance that's on par with flagships from just a couple of years ago. For CPU-intensive tasks, the Snapdragon 660 is like that of the Snapdragon 821, but the Adreno 512 GPU isn't quite on an equivalent level because the Adreno 530 within the Snapdragon 821.

The Nokia 7 Plus also offers 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, and yes, there's a hybrid SIM card slot. You’ll use the secondary slot for either a SIM card or a microSD card, but not both. There's also Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi ac, an LTE Category 12 modem, VoLTE, NFC, and an FM radio tuner.

When it involves day-to-day usage, I didn't notice any slowdowns whatsoever, and therefore the Nokia 7 Plus was even as fluid because the Pixel 2. The simplicity of Android One combined with the hardware on tap makes the phone one among the fastest during this category.

I don't normally care about the haptics on a phone, but the vibration motor on the Nokia 7 Plus is one among the strongest out there. Call quality is additionally decent, but there are times (particularly once you’re outside) when you feel that the earpiece doesn't get loud enough. An equivalent goes for the built-in speaker — it doesn't get sufficiently loud for calls.

The mono speaker is decent for viewing multimedia content, but the phone would have benefitted from a stereo setup, particularly as long as there's enough room on rock bottom bar for a second speaker. That said, I'm glad there is a 3.5mm jack on the phone, and HMD even provides a pair of earbuds within the box.

Network connectivity is great also, and that I witnessed similar speeds as that of the Galaxy S9+, both on cellular and on my home Wi-Fi network.

Battery Life

The two key areas that Indian customers prioritize when considering a phone purchase is battery life and camera quality. Unlike Western markets, a phone is that the primary gateway to the web for many many Indians, and intrinsically their usage habits differ from customers in other countries.

The single biggest contributor to the change in usage habits is that the arrival of Jio. The carrier launched last year, and essentially gave away 4G data to many many subscribers for the primary six months. Its launch catalyzed the video streaming market, and boosted viewing times on platforms like YouTube and Hotstar.

The end result's that Indian users are viewing significantly more multimedia content on their devices than simply a couple of years ago, and they are doing so totally on cellular. Meaning a phone either must have a huge battery or be optimized to form that battery last a whole day.

Motorola took the optimization route with the Moto Z2 Force, somehow making the 2700mAh battery on the device last a full day. With the Nokia 7 Plus, HMD goes the Xiaomi way and including an enormous 3800mAh battery.

It's clear that HMD also optimized the phone to be as frugal as possible when it involves battery usage, because the Nokia 7 Plus manages to deliver two days' worth of usage consistently.

There wasn't one scenario over the last fortnight where the Nokia 7 Plus ran out of charge before the top of the day. Even on days once I had to travel, the Nokia 7 Plus managed to last overflow 20 hours with over 20% charge left.

I usually take two phones whenever I'm traveling for event duty — one with an excellent camera and therefore the other with a huge battery life that's used primarily as a hotspot. The primary phone usually finishes up being a Pixel 2 or a Galaxy S9+, with the latter inevitably being a Xiaomi phone.

The Nokia 7 Plus features a camera that works great in low-light conditions (as you will see below), and therefore the battery life is spectacular. And once you do got to top up the device, fast charging (9V/2A) is out there.

Nokia 7 Plus Camera

The primary camera on the Nokia 7 Plus is of particular interest because it uses an equivalent imaging sensor because the Pixel 2. There is a 12MP primary camera with an f/1.75 lens and 1.4-micron pixels that's joined by a secondary 12MP telephoto shooter with f/2.6 lens and 1.0-micron pixels.

The phone has Carl Zeiss optics, and HMD is bringing its Bothie feature — which shoots images from both the front and rear cameras simultaneously — to the device. There is a pro mode also, and therefore the phone offers three microphones through which you will be ready to record 360-degree audio.

The camera is astounding — both in daylight and low-light scenarios.

The camera interface itself is clean, and you've got toggles for HDR, flash, timer, Bothie mode, beautify filter, and optical zoom. you'll switch between photo and video modes, and therefore the slide-out menu on the left lists the shooting modes available — Photo, Panorama, Pro, Live Bokeh — and access to the settings.

The pro mode is analogous to what Nokia included in Lumias of old, and allows you to tweak the white balance, ISO, shutter speed, and enables manual focus.

Images taken in daylight are filled with detail, with a good dynamic range and accurate colors. The Nokia 7 Plus did not have any issues that specialize in a topic, and there wasn't any delay in saving the photos to the gallery. The camera shined in low-light shooting scenarios also, and while a number of the pictures are grainy, the camera may be a far sight better than most devices during this category.

The only issue I even have with the camera is with the portrait mode — the Live Bokeh shots were too grainy in artificial lighting. Apart from that, the Nokia 7 Plus did a powerful job both in daylight and low-light shooting conditions.

Nokia 7 Plus Software

The Nokia 7 Plus comes with Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, but you ought to see an update to Android 8.1 Oreo during initial configuration. HMD is currently leading the pack when it involves updates, and therefore the Android 8.1 Oreo OTA also includes the April security patch.

Overall, the software experience on the Nokia 7 Plus is analogous to what you'd find on the Pixels — fluid, functional, and fast. The phone handled everything I threw at it with ease, and not once did i buy the sensation that it had been sluggish. you furthermore may get a couple of gestures, just like the ability to swipe down on the fingerprint sensor to tug down the notification shade, lift to wake the display, double press the facility button to launch the camera, and so on.

The phone is bound to receive updates for 3 years, and therefore the shift to Android One means the Nokia 7 Plus are going to be one among the primary devices to urge new security patches and platform updates. If you care about fast updates, there's not another phone during this category that comes on the brink of the Nokia 7 Plus.

The software experience is fluid, but there are a couple of bugs.

However, nearly as good because the software is to use on a day-to-day basis, it is not without its issues (and there have been several of them). The sound profile would automatically switch to vibrate mode for no reason, and that i had to restart the device to travel back to my preferred settings.

There was also a glitch with YouTube where the videos wouldn't play — the screen would go blank, with just the audio playing. Once more, a restart fixed the difficulty. The device intermittently disconnected from my home Wi-Fi network and reconnect.

I'm willing to offer HMD the advantage of the doubt here because the phone remains running a non-final software build. I'll update the review in ten days' time and see if the lingering issues are ironed out before its formal release. If you've pre-ordered the phone, prepare to put in a couple of day-one patches.

Should You Buy It? Yes!

I've often heard from manufacturers that if a product flies in India, it'll automatically be a hit in global markets. The Nokia 7 Plus certainly features a lot going for it, and therefore the camera quality combined with the two-day battery life make it the phone to hammer in this segment. HMD says it received tons of feedback from customers in India last year, and it's clear that the manufacturer implemented tons of these suggestions to form the Nokia 7 Plus stand call at this category.

The phone has a stimulating design, the display offers vivid colors and is readable under sunlight, and therefore the camera is one among the simplest you will find on a $400 phone today. Then there's the two-day battery life, the promise of quick updates, and therefore the uncluttered interface.

HMD hasn't put a foot wrong with the Nokia 7 Plus, and it's safe to mention that this is often one among the simplest phones of the year.

The Nokia 7 Plus is now available in India and therefore the UK. As stated earlier, there really aren't an entire lot of devices during this category, and while the Moto X4 is out there for ₹22,999 ($350), you're getting far better hardware also as a vastly superior camera with the Nokia 7 Plus.