Nokia has been pretty decent in the midrange game ever since their comeback with the Nokia 6. They’ve released a number of low end and midrange phones, even a flagship since then. Now, the 2nd wave of Nokia android phones are finally out of their Chinese exclusivity phase. The one we’re talking about is the Nokia 5.1 Plus. Priced at roughly Rs. 27,000, the Nokia 5.1 Plus is bound to give some Chinese alternatives a run for their money.
Design – Glass phone front and back
The material of choice used to make the Nokia 5.1 Plus is glass. It definitely makes the phone more appealing to the eye, but you’ll almost certainly need a case to prevent damage from accidental falls. The phone is also 8.1mm thin; not too thin, but thin enough to be stylish.
The front of the phone is almost all screen, save for a small bottom bezel and a notch at the top which houses the front facing camera, sensors and earpiece. On the back there is a vertical dual camera setup and LED flash. Right below the cameras is where the fingerprint sensor is comfortably found.
Display – the notch is here to stay
The Nokia 5.1 Plus is another phone to follow the trend of notches with their almost bezel-less displays. It is a big screen in a normal sized phone, 5.86-inches to be exact. Saving AMOLED screens for their flagships, Nokia has graced the Nokia 5.1 Plus with an IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1520*720 which is kind of subpar given the resolution found on numerous phones in this price range are FHD+. This unconventional resolution equates to a 287ppi, which will be noticeable. The screen itself is not exactly 2:1 since it’s a 19:9 screen, making it a tad taller than the average bezel-less display.
Cameras
The Nokia 5.1 Plus comes with 3 cameras. 1 on the front for selfies and 2 on the back in a dual setup. The selfie camera is an 8MP shooter with an aperture of f/2.2. The main setup consists of a 13MP main shooter and a 5MP secondary depth sensing one. The 13MP sensor has an aperture of f/2.0 and comes with phase detection auto focus, whereas the secondary one is only used for depth sensing for when you want to take those portrait shots. Video recording maxes out at 1080p at 30fps.
Hardware – Be Humble
The hardware on the Nokia 5.1 Plus is as modest as it comes in this segment. We have 2 flavors of the phone, one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage and the other with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. Thankfully, you can expand that by up to 256GB with an external microSD card. The processor in the Nokia 5.1 Plus is a Mediatek MT6771 Helio P60 which is an octa core chipset. The battery on the Nokia 5.1 Plus is a 3060mAh one, which should see you get through most of the day. Android 8.1 Oreo can be found on the Nokia 5.1 Plus and you can keep your hopes high for a quick update to Android 9.0 Pie soon.
Nokia 5.1 Plus pros:
- It has a large screen
- The phone is aesthetically pleasing to look at
- Quick updates thanks to Android One Program
- Cheap Price
Nokia 5.1 Plus cons:
- Low pixel density screen
- Hardware is not that impressive compared to other Chinese alternatives