Extended ECQ means more diligent time to check more smartphones and we got one of the 2020 affordable offerings of HMD Global in the country with Nokia 2.3
Here's what the box of the official commercial unit of Nokia 2.3 looks like:
We are looking at a under 6k smartphone but with the choice of having plastic back, HMD Global still managed to put in a device that does not look cheap when you hold it. The 6.2 inch HD+ notchec display was also pretty good and has enough max. brightnesss If you are looking at the specs of it, you can check out our previous article here
The right portion has volume rocker and power/unlock button. The left has dual nano SIM and micro SD tray and a first time for us in this price range, Google Assistant button. 3.5 mm audio jack at the top and micro USB, pin hole mic and speaker at the bottom
What made Nokia made it at that price range? They chose a not that good yet not that bad Mediatek Helio A22 processor plus they only put in 2 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage. Good thing, they made a bit of balancing act by putting in Android One based on Android 9 which is a-ok usually on app transitions. You can get of sort-of dark mode in the display settings which will take effect on the pulldown menu and app drawer. Looking for tweaks in the settings are pretty easy to find.
In the connectivity department, it was almost good on calls, texts, Bluetooth and WiFi except for mobile data which we did not have that consistent connection on some random times.
On battery, the 4000 mAh capacity survived on 16 hours 40 minutes in our video battery rundown test. In real time usage, we can usually max out this device for 1.25 days on 7 hours of screen on time. Sad that they only provided a 5V 1A charger which you will need almost 4 hours to fully charge the device.
On camera UI, the functions were basic but working like HDR, auto and portrait which is surprising for a budget device especially when doing some HDR and portrait-enabled selfies.. Expect that on auto mode, that will be the only time that the image processing speed is good enough while on the other two modes (expect it with the choice of processor) that it will take a second before you see the output on the viewfinder. Color accuracy was on average.
Nokia 2.3 rear camera samples
Nokia 2.3 normal, HDR, portrait selfie camera samples
Nokia 2.3 will gonna impress people with their choice of Android One program on this device, good build and display quality and pretty neat cameras on both sensors. Something that potential customers that might turn off will be that it only has 2 GB RAM, the choice of processor and the slow charging support. They must also adjust the price at around 5k as it was already 3 months older (globally) compared to the recently announced Realme C3 last March with more than double of the processing power, Android 10, fingerprint reader, 20% more battery, bigger display and faster charging time. Nokia 2.3 for us is at 3.5 out of 5.
You can buy Nokia 2.3 at Php 5990 thru their official store at Lazada Philippines at this link
