Nokia 6 (2018) review

The Nokia 6 was the primary cellphone within the new period of Nokia smartphones. It popped up in China in January 2017 and promptly bought on the market earlier than coming to the US and Europe later that 12 months.

This new Nokia 6 ups the value a little bit, however in return you get a extra highly effective chipset, a funkier design and a quick charger.

It additionally enters an more and more crowded mid-range market although, so has it executed sufficient to face out?

Nokia 6 (2018) launch date and value

The brand new Nokia 6 (2018) shall be accessible from April 2018. It would value €279 and our present greatest guesses for costs elsewhere are £269-279 within the UK, $279-299 within the US and presumably round AU$480-AU$500 in Australia.

It arrives alongside the opposite new members of the Nokia cellphone household, together with the Nokia 1, Nokia 8 Sirocco and the 18:9 display screen Nokia 7 Plus.

Design and show

The usual Nokia technique to make a cellphone that feels surprisingly good for the value is to take a block of aluminum and carve out its insides to slot in all of the components that make up a cellphone. It labored for the primary Nokia 6, and it really works right here too.

You get the onerous, dense really feel of a unibody cellphone, with not one of the seams of 1 made of various plates of plastic and metallic. There’s a little bit strip of plastic up by the highest of the rear, however you’ll see this in nearly all metallic telephones, because it offers the antennas room to transmit.

This 12 months HMD International – the corporate behind the brand new Nokia telephones – additionally exhibits off a ‘double anodisation’ course of. That is the way you get a metallic cellphone with a blue again and gold bits of trim, despite the fact that the metallic beneath isn’t blue or gold. It appears to be like good.

The Nokia 6 (2018) may also are available black with glints of copper, and white with an ‘iron’ trim. It is all very tasteful, in a a lot lower-key method than the brilliant, daring colours of the outdated Nokia Lumia telephones.

Different adjustments embody a shifting round of a few of the options. The fingerprint scanner was on the entrance, however now it is on the again, nudged down in direction of the middle by the digicam housing. You too can unlock the cellphone together with your face, however you’ll have to attend for our full assessment to see how properly this function works.

The mushy keys are gone too. It is software program buttons all the way in which, however this offers the brand new Nokia 6’s entrance a cleaner look.

The brand new Nokia 6 has a reasonably standard 5.5-inch 1080p IPS LCD display screen. It is sharp, the colours look strong, it is simply what we would count on on the value.

Nonetheless, an 18:9 side ratio panel would have been welcome. Vast-aspect screens like that are inclined to nudge out extra of the display screen encompass under and above the show. It offers a cellphone a extra trendy look, and likewise supplies additional room to your thumbs whenever you play video games.

18:9 screens aren’t but the default for reasonably priced mid-range telephones just like the Nokia 6 (2018). However they may be by the tip of the 12 months, so it is a slight disgrace that we solely get a 16:9 show right here.

New Nokia 6 (2018) fingers on gallery

Energy, efficiency and interface

We discover the unique Nokia 6 struggles a bit for those who push it too onerous. The poor factor solely has an entry-level Snapdragon 430 chipset.

Energy has improved this time round. The brand new Nokia 6 has a Snapdragon 630 chipset, with a sooner clock pace and considerably extra highly effective Adreno 508 GPU.

We have solely taken the Nokia 6 (2018) for a fast spin to date, however Android runs very properly, as you’d hope. Judging by our earlier expertise with Snapdragon 630 telephones, it should not have an excessive amount of hassle with high-end video games like Asphalt eight both.

Similar to each different current Nokia smartphone, the brand new Nokia 6 runs a very plain model of Android. It’s a part of the Android One platform, which means there aren’t any bonus apps to take up house and no customized interface components to get in the way in which.

Take a look at it: similar to a Pixel cellphone, proper? Some may say this additionally means there’s little to set the Nokia 6 aside, however there’s nothing incorrect with clear and easy software program.

There shall be two variants of the brand new Nokia 6, one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, whereas the opposite may have a 4GB/64GB configuration – however each will include a microSD permitting you to increasing the storage additional.

Digital camera

Not like dearer Nokia telephones such because the Nokia 7 Plus, the brand new Nokia 6 has simply the one digicam on the again. It is a 16MP sensor with an upgraded Zeiss-brand lens.

We have solely tried it out in a comparatively dingy workplace to date, and in such situations the pictures come out fairly mushy. Nonetheless, that is to be anticipated of a non-stabilized digicam that doesn’t have nice large sensor pixels.

Across the entrance there’s an 8MP selfie digicam, and also you get the Nokia Bothie function. This allows you to seize these birthday presents being opened and the look of disappointment in your face on the similar time. Instagram gold.

Battery

Battery life is one other space we will’t choose fairly but. You get a three,000mAh cell similar to the final Nokia 6, however we do have some cause to suppose stamina could also be a little bit higher than that cellphone’s one-day stamina.

The brand new model’s Snapdragon 630 chipset is extra environment friendly because it makes use of a 14nm course of, though we’ll be stunned if it makes it by way of two days’ use. Not given the way in which we deal with our telephones anyway.

You additionally get quick charging as customary this time round. Whereas the unique Nokia 6 does assist quick charging, you don’t get a quick charger within the field. And who needs to spend extra cash whenever you’re already on a price range?

The 2018 Nokia 6 will get you from zero% to 50% cost in 30 minutes. Whereas not the quickest round, we’ll take that kind of enchancment.

Early verdict

The Nokia 6 (2018) isn’t fairly a ground-up revamp of this mid-range line. Nonetheless, it does make some notable enhancements that deal with a few of our quibbles with the final model.

We get extra energy, higher charging and, optimistically, not less than barely longer battery life. The core enchantment stays the identical, although: a metallic unibody cellphone with a SIM-free value that received’t make you cross out.

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