Nokia may have taken a big-hit almost a decade ago when it went from hero to zero in a matter of years but the company’s releases at the MWC 2017 in Barcelona duly suggests that those struggles will now bear fruit. The Nokia 3 is one of the 4 different smartphones announced at the conference and this particular device sits in the budget to mid-ranged price bracket.

All aluminum exterior

The Nokia 3 is similar to its more expensive counterpart, the Nokia 5, in terms of build materials as they both feature aluminum unibodies with a metal frame separating the front and back panels. However, this smartphone features three capacitive buttons atop the front bottom bezel unlike the Nokia 5. Its 8.5mm width further adds to its negatives and we wouldn’t had spared this much thickness even if the smartphone was dust or waterproof.

Nothing special about the display

That’s because we’re talking about a 5.0 inches IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with 294ppi pixel density but with Corning Gorilla Glass protection. Equating to a 720p resolution, the Nokia 3 complies with the norms of modern day smartphones but it’s all we’ve seen many times before. That being said, we’re not taking anything away from its satisfactory performance.

A tale of twin cameras

The reason we’ve referred to the Nokia 3’s cameras as “twin cameras” is not because the smartphone has a dual-lens primary setup. Rather the device’s primary and secondary cameras both contain 8 megapixels worth of power which is great for the selfie camera at-least. Other than the megapixels, you also get geo-tagging, touch-focus and an LED flash with the primary sensor as well.

Pretty much budget-level hardware

The smartphone is powered by a 1.4 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 processor with 2 gigs of RAM. Not a 100% lag-free, the built-in Android Nougat would still do well with this much processing power. 16GB internal storage and an external card slot are mainstay features while a front-mounted fingerprint scanner, a 2650 mAh non-removable battery and 4 different color schemes bring the curtain down on this budget release from Nokia.

Nokia 3 pros:

• The build quality is excellent; not many budget smartphones can boast of this
• 8 megapixel selfie sensor is surely a huge plus
• Fortunately, Nokia didn’t ditch the fingerprint scanner
• Not many budget smartphones contain Corning Gorilla Glass display protection

Nokia 3 cons:

• Really thick at 8.5mm
• Could’ve done better with its display resolution
• The primary camera is pretty plain with little to no features