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Yes, Nokia phones are back. This time with android Nougat OS and fingerprint scanners.
But given their price points and not-so-fab specs, will the Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia 3, recently launched at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, help the Nokia brand survive, wonders Rediff.com's Ashish Narsale
Nokia phones, now designed, developed and marketed by HMD Global, another Finnish company, which is the exclusive licensee of Nokia-branded phones, unveiled three android models -- Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia 3 at the Mobile World Congress February 26.
Nokia 6 was released in January 2017 exclusively for the Chinese market.
HMD has carried forward the design language and standards set by Nokia.
That all the three Nokia phones come with android Nougat out of the box is its biggest selling point. It comes in complete vanilla form, which means there is no Nokia skinning or any UI enhancement, which means users can enjoy the true android experience and faster updates.
Earlier vanilla android was available only in Google Pixel phones that were priced at a huge premium but now android enthusiasts can experience it in all the three Nokia phones at a fraction of the cost of Google's Pixels.
Nokia 6
Nokia 6, which is at the top of this series, comes with a 5.5-inch full HD 1080 LCD screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 2.5 display.
It has an all-aluminum unibody design. HMD has been miserly in choosing the processor as the Nokia 6 runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa core processor.
Interestingly, it comes in two variants -- the 3GB RAM/32GB ROM one and another one with 4GB RAM/64GB ROM.
It sports 16MP primary camera and 8MP front camera for selfie.
While it comes with dual speakers, the best part is its amplifier is certified by Dolby Atmos.
Yes it comes with USB OTG and loads of sensors, accelerometer (G-sensor), ambient light sensor, e-compass, fingerprint sensor, gyroscope, proximity sensor, NFC, etc. Nokia 6 comes with a 3000mAh non-removable battery too.
The 3GB variant will cost you Rs 16,500 and the 4GB one will cost Rs 21,500.
Nokia 5
The Nokia 5 follows the same design and specification as the Nokia 6 except it comes with a 5-inch display and 1280x720 resolution.
The Nokia 5's primary camera is bumped down a bit at 13MP and the front camera remains at 8MP. With just 2GB RAM this phone Offers 16GB of storage space. The Nokia 5 comes with single speaker and will cost you approximately Rs 13,500.
HMD embracing Mediatek processor for its lower-end Nokia 3, as it runs on MTK 6737, Quad-core 1.3Ghz processor, is a bit disappointing.
Nokia 3
The lowest priced phone in this series, the Nokia 3, priced at Rs 9,800, comes loaded with 2GB RAM and 16GB ROM.
An 8MP autofocus camera forms the primary shooter and the selfie camera remains the same at 8MP and the non-removable battery is maxes out at 2650 mAh. This phone has a polycarbonate body with 5-inch 1280x720 LCD display.
Significantly, all these three Nokia avatars are LTE enabled, and have polariser filters -- drawn from the Nokia Lumia series -- on display to give best readability under direct sunlight. All are available in single and dual SIM variants and the storage space can be bumped up to 128GB with the help of a memory expansion slot.
Though HMD might have missed on some tricks like water and dust resistance or IP68 specifications for these Nokia phones, the specs onboard too are not much to boast about. One can find more value for money in phones like Moto G4 Plus, MI5, and Xiaomi Note 4 and it will be interesting to see how Nokia will survive the competition.
But if it is the brand that you cannot resist then Nokia 6, 5 and 3 would be your obvious choice.
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