Nokia 7 plus: All-rounder with powerful battery

The Nokia 7 plus smartphone, with 6.00-inch full HD+ display, lets you have the big screen experience, says Debashish Pachal.

A year ago, Nokia made a comeback in the phone market by launching a wide range of smartphones and feature phones across multiple price points, primarily focusing on value-for-money devices.

This year, HMD Global, the Finnish company behind the Nokia brand, has added three new phones to the list -- Nokia 6 (2018), Nokia 7 Plus and the Nokia 8 Sirocco.

The Nokia 6 (2018), an incremental update of the original Nokia 6, is touted as a budget smartphone.

However, the Nokia 7 Plus and Nokia 8 Sirocco get serious upgrades over their original iterations and have therefore been touted as mid-range and premium flagships respectively.

Talking about the Nokia 7 Plus, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 system-on-chip (SoC) powered smartphone does not try to surpass its mid-range standing and get in the Nokia 8 Sirocco's way.

Yet, in many ways, the Nokia 7 Plus has a feel of a premium flagship smartphone. 

It sports an aluminium-glass design with a copper-tainted frame that looks elegant and improves the phone's overall design language.

The ceramic coating on the back looks smooth yet is comfortable to hold without hampering the grip.

Unlike the Nokia 8 Sirocco however, the Nokia 7 Plus features a 3.5mm headphone jack and you get in-ear headphones in the box too.

The dual-SIM smartphone relies on a hybrid SIM tray design, which allows either dual SIM operations or a SIM with microSD card.

The phone supports 4G and VoLTE on the primary SIM, while the second SIM is restricted to 3G and 2G networks. 

The Nokia 7 Plus sports a modern ultra-wide screen, a first for Nokia smartphones.

Though the 6-inch full HD+ 18:9 aspect ratio panel is of the LCD variety, rather than the vivid OLEDs, it is still the brightest and the most colourful. 

The screen looks vibrant but faces issues under direct sunlight due to limited maximum brightness levels.

Apart from the sunlight legibility, there seems to be no other issues with it.

It has good viewing angles and stays sharp and vivid throughout.

In terms of imaging, the phone boasts dual ZEISS Optics lens of an ultra-sensitive 12-megapixel wide-angle and a 13MP telephoto, which enables 2x optical zoom capabilities.

The rear cameras have an average performance in low-light conditions and normal light shots come exceedingly well.

That apart, the smartphone has a 16MP lens in the front for a glamorous selfie or a perfect video call!

We did video conferencing through Facebook Messenger and one-on-one video calls through WhatsApp messenger and, in both cases, the call quality was incredible.

Powering the Nokia 7 Plus is a mammoth 3,800 mAh battery, which lasts for up to two days under normal usage conditions, including 3-4 hours of gaming or movies streaming.

The stock Android Oreo 8.0 operating system is also partially responsible for improved battery-on time.

The clutter-free OS comes with the Android One promise, which assures timely future updates till the hardware supports it.

Verdict

The Nokia 7 Plus is a mid-range premium smartphone with modern looks and a smooth performance.

It does not have top-tier innards, but it manages to run without any lag or jitters even during demanding tasks.

At ₹25,999, the phone is an all-rounder with powerful battery, fast charge support, good screen and the Android One update promise.