· Build quality at first glance is pretty dang good. It's a metal chassis all around, and it really does feel nice, and the device also has a reasonable amount of heft that adds to that solid feel. I personally don’t like thin devices made out of glass and feel overly light, and the Nokia reinforces my thought. It really does feel nice.
· The 5.2” display is a 720p IPS LCD and for a budget phone, it’s par for the course. Brightness is reasonable and colors are accurate, but contrast is a tad on the low side, although since I was in a store that had some harsh lighting, I would have to try it out again sometime to verify my thoughts.
· The phone runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat and….that’s about it. Aside from some Nokia tweaks and a different camera app, it’s pretty much close-to-stock, which should make those looking for a Nexus-like experience on a budget pretty happy.
· The specs are also typical for a phone at this tier, at least in some markets. It’s powered by a Snapdragon 430 backed up by 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM. Because it’s running on a relatively lean build of Android, performance is more than adequate in terms of daily use. It’s obviously a tad slower and more prone to hiccups than my flagship Moto Z, but for the usual texting, browsing and calling, it’s more than adequate, and based on my experience using the backup phone I have, which incidentally has the exact same processor and RAM combo, battery life should also be very good due to its lower power use, although a 14nm process would’ve helped further.
· And then we come to the camera. I didn’t use the selfie camera since I do not take selfies regularly, if at all. The 13MP sensor has PDAF and an approximate pixel size of 1.12 microns, making it a 1/3” sensor, and has an aperture of f/2.0. In good lighting, the camera is capable of some solid photos with good amounts of detail and sharpness, although make no mistake, this is obviously no PureView. When the light goes down, the lack of hardware stabilization is made more obvious, and you’d need a bit more effort to get a steady shot. The first indoor shots I took looked a tiny bit soft until I properly stabilized it. That said, the focus is pretty darn quick. For $189, it is a capable camera, although one that also needs the user to know its limits.
· The camera app is a tad confusing at first. While it is very familiar to the Google Camera, the one that I’ve been using for a while, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to add exposure compensation for automatic modes, at least one that I could find. Haven’t tried the manual controls yet, though.
· Oh yeah. The buttons. Nobody mentions them often, but they are very clicky. Certainly a nice touch.
At $189, this is going up against phones like Samsung’s Galaxy J5/J5P, BBK’s Vivo Y55 in some markets, alongside the standard Moto G5 and a slew of Chinese competitors that offer similar specs for less or beefier specs for the same price or a little more.
The Nokia 5’s spec list isn’t going to impress anyone, and its featureset is definitely on the lean-side compared to some of the aforementioned competition. However, what Nokia does deliver on is a very solid handset that has very solid build quality, an Android experience that purists will definitely like and the promise of speedy Android updates, where it is even mentioned on marketing material.
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