Introduction:
It’s not always that I have to really have to stress over what to write about a device. Some devices are inherently good and some are inherently so-so and some are outright bad. But what if we go beyond what’s possible after bad? Well, you have the answer in the form of a device from none other than Nokia. We will discuss what exactly bad business decisions are and what companies should avoid.
Before that, let’s discuss a bit about Nokia’s past. Everyone knows Nokia and their funky devices from back in the day. They were really popular and dominated the market but a slew of bad business decisions ultimately led to Nokia’s demise at the hands of Microsoft. The Finnish company should really have a change of personnel at this moment because now the Nokia brand name simply isn’t enough to make customers want to buy a device and the Nokia 2 is a classic case in point.
Nokia is one perhaps one of those companies that like to cling to their old values where specs didn’t matter and if a phone was robust, it would sell. While robust phones are always a welcome sight, simply being robust isn’t merely enough now to sell devices in large numbers. So let’s discuss why the Nokia 2 should be avoided by everyone and what exactly are its advantages and disadvantages.
Design and Display:
The Nokia 2 employs a minimalistic approach to the design which is synonymous with the rest of the current Nokia range from HMD global. The device likes to play the part and looks more premium than it actually is. The body employs a two-tone finish and while the rest of the body is plastic, the side frame is aluminum, giving the device a bit more structure. The device actually feels nice to hold in hand due to its compact size and comfortable proportions. The back cover of the device is removable and it has dual sim slots out of which one of them is a hybrid slot that can accommodate a memory card. Despite being able to remove the back cover, the battery isn’t actually user replaceable. The back cover once removed feels really cheap and fragile and bends easily. Amazingly the device is rated for IP52 splash protection, but how exactly did Nokia manage to achieve it with that flimsy back cover is questionable.
The Nokia 2 comes with a 5 inch LTPS LCD display with Corning Gorilla glass v3 protection. The display has a resolution of 720p as expected and the display is rather good. The colors appear vibrant and Nokia claims that it has one of the best displays in its class. Now that is a rather bold claim but the screen does have 1300:1 contrast ratio and the overall display appears to be quite good. Other than that the front has three touch-sensitive buttons for navigation which are laid out nice and bold.
Performance:
Or rather the lack of it -the rant at the beginning was leading up to this part. The Nokia 2 is probably one of the worst performers in the targeted price range. It comes with an ancient Snapdragon 212 chipset which is a chip back from 2015. It is a 32-Bit SoC (yes you read that right) so certain apps may throw up compatibility issues. The CPU consists of four Cortex A7 cores clocked at 1.2GHz and is coupled with just a gigabyte of RAM, that’s 1GB (yes you read that right). The thing that bothers me is that, why? Just why? I mean, it’s not like the device is going to be sold on a budget of Rs.3000, so why such sub-par specifications? They could’ve just used a MediaTek chipset but that would mean eating into the sales of the Nokia 3. I mean, forget to multitask, if you can keep a few tabs open in chrome and still be able to do something on the device, then it’ll be great. Even opening apps and navigating throw up significant lags.Talk about a colossal disappointment with a device.
Software:
The Nokia 2 comes with a stock version of Android like the rest of the range. It is devoid of any bloatware, although that is probably for the best as the device comes with a measly amount of internal storage and oh, not to forget that it doesn’t actually come with the state of the art Snapdragon 835. Even in regular usage, the experience gets choppy; forget games and other CPU stressing apps. Other than that, the camera software gets a revamp and is different from the rest of the range.
Camera and Storage:
The Nokia 2 has an 8MP rear camera with LED flash and it does support a bunch of shooting modes such as HDR, Exposure Compensation, tap to focus and ISO control. The Camera UI has been given a new skin and as a result, it appears to be uniform across the range. The front selfies are handles by a 5MP fixed focus camera. Rest assured they won’t be competing with the iPhone 8 anytime soon.
The Nokia 2 has a paltry 8GB of RAM out of which 4GB is available to the user. Again I wish to ask Nokia, just why? What’s the point of 8GB of storage in this price segment? 16GB is a minimum nowadays, and even the most reputed brands don’t offer 8GB of internal storage anymore. Fortunately, the memory can be expanded using the hybrid sim slot up to 128GB.
Battery and Connectivity:
The battery is one aspect where the Nokia shines and is probably the Nokia 2’s most advertised aspect. It has a 4100mAh battery which Nokia claims will give the user a battery life of up to 2 days and we believe them.
Connectivity wise, Nokia 2 will eventually get an Indian launch and so we can speculate that it’ll support Indian network bands. It also has FM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and 3.5mm jack for connectivity and uses the micro USB standard for interfacing.
Conclusion:
You would have to be pretty strange to even consider buying this device. It falls miserably short in the specifications department and the whole configuration isn’t as balanced as Xiaomi. The Nokia 2 release date in India is expected to be near January 7, 2018, and it retails worldwide at a price of 99 euros which is roughly 7000 Rupees. At this price point, there are a lot of better options and unless Nokia can get the pricing down to Rs.4000 or closer, it shouldn’t be a device that anyone should buy.
