Low cost and great battery, Nokia 2 gets its pitch right

Noel Campion says the new Nokia 2 will please those looking for a low cost smartphone offering long battery life

Low cost and great battery, Nokia 2 gets its pitch right

Noel Campion says the new Nokia 2 will please those looking for a low cost smartphone offering long battery life

The reliable Nokia brand has almost been forgotten in a country where it once dominated the mobile phone market. The company has since gone through a lot of changes and owerships but is now releasing new phones running on Android.

The Nokia 2 is a budget smartphone that’s aimed at those who want battery performance over high-end features and who aren’t willing to pay more than €99.

So, let’s start with the good stuff, the impressive 5-inch display. For a budget phone, it’s surprisingly bright and vibrant. The IPS LCD screen has good viewing angles and is plenty sharp with a resolution of 720p and an acceptable pixel density of 294ppi.

The Nokia 2 won’t win any design awards, but it doesn’t look too bad either. Its got rounded corners and a matte black, plastic cover on the back, that can be removed to reveal the sim and microSD slots, but the battery isn’t user removable.

The power and volume buttons on the left edge feel good and pleasingly tactile. On the top edge you’ll find the 3.5mm headphone jack and on the bottom edge the microUSB port for charging. Strangely, despite the massive bottom chin, the Android navigation keys are on screen.

The Nokia 2 also has an 8MP shooter with flash in the top centre position on the back and a front facing 5MP selfie camera on the front.

The phone feels good in the hand with a decent weight to it that makes it feel comfortable to hold. It’s heavier than typical budget phones, which makes it feel more premium. Fingerprint sensor and face detection are not present on the Nokia 2, which isn’t too surprising, but you can still use a PIN for security.

There’s only a single firing speaker placed on the back but it puts out decent sound quality and volume. I found it loud enough to watch videos and even listen to podcasts etc.

The Nokia 2 is powered by the Snapdragon 212 processor with just 1GB of RAM, running Android 7.1.1. You can upgrade storage via microSD but the onboard storage of 8GB is almost a deal breaker in 2018.

Nokia 2 really shines in terms of its battery performance; this isn’t too surprising considering it houses a massive, 4,100mAh battery.
Nokia 2 really shines in terms of its battery performance; this isn’t too surprising considering it houses a massive, 4,100mAh battery.

After installing my most used apps I was left with only a few megabytes. Also, 1GB of RAM isn’t enough for Android 7 and this is evident while using the phone. If you intend on taking photos, factor in the cost of a microSD card because you’ll absolutely need one to store your snaps.

Opening apps is slow and you’ll frequently see screen redraw as you move from settings or options in apps. Installing new apps often required that I first uninstall old ones. You can move some apps to the microSD card but this will only make them load more slowly.

Games are a bit of a no, no on the Nokia 2 also, although I was able to play some less graphically intensive 2D games.

The Nokia 2 has little to no bloatware and is running an almost clean version of Android but don’t expect an update to Oreo anytime soon. Apart from the slow performance, the clean Android experience is good with features like swipe right to access Google Now or saying ‘OK Google’ to activate Google Assistant all being present and very useful.

The 8MP rear camera has just about acceptable quality and even features things like auto HDR mode. Overall, photos taken with the Nokia 2 were hit or miss with lots of noise in low light shots and it tended to overexpose parts of photos taken in good light.

Where the Nokia 2 really shines is in the battery performance and this isn’t too surprising considering it houses a massive, 4,100mAh battery. That’s the biggest battery I’ve used in a smartphone. Take into account the fact that it isn’t powering a high resolution display and has a less than powerful CPU. The result is a phone that’s good enough to get its intended user through two, even three days of use on a single charge.

The Nokia 2 is for those who want a budget smartphone for limited use and fantastic battery performance but isn’t ideal for kids who want to play the latest games.

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