HMD Global launched five new smartphones at this year’s Mobile World Congress. The company launched the Nokia 7 Plus as a mid-range phone that the company said will also act as a “flagship for everyone”. After playing with the device for over a week now, I have come to the conclusion that it actually is.
The Nokia 7 Plus comes with an 18:9 6-inch touchscreen display that offers a resolution of 1080-by-2160 pixels at a PPI of 403 pixels per inch.
On top of the display, you get a 16-megapixel front shooter for all your selfie needs. On the right edge of the device, you will find the power button and the volume rockers.
You get the dual SIM slot on the left edge. Up top, there is a lone 3.5mm audio jack, while at the bottom, you get the USB-C port. Flipping the phone around gets you face-to-face with a dual camera setup along with the fingerprint sensor right below it.
The Nokia 7 Plus comes with Zeiss optics and it performs really well. We didn’t see much shutter lag when tapping the shutter icon, and the results looked good.
The rear dual-camera system has a 12-megapixel and a 13-megapixel lens, and they both allow for 2x optical zoom. The cameras also allow you to take “bothies,” which is when you take a photo or video with the front and rear camera at the same time.
Under the hood, the Nokia 7 Plus is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 octa-core processor and 4GB of RAM.
The phone packs 64GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 256GB via a microSD card. The Nokia 7 Plus runs Android 8.0 and is powered by a 3800mAh non-removable battery.
The overall build quality of the device is very good. The phone comes with a ceramic coating on the back and there are no antenna lines to be seen on the phone. The phone also comes with a copper-accented metal frame running around the device on the edges, which makes the Nokia 7 Plus look premium. The phone runs the Android One version of the Android 8.1 Oreo operating system.
Flipping through multiple open app windows felt fluid. We did not encounter any sort of lag – the transitions and animations were smooth. In the performance division, the Nokia 7 Plus plays well. The mid-range SoC coupled with the 4GB of RAM allows the Nokia 7 Plus to pack in quite a punch.
I did not encounter any lag or stutter when playing 3D intensive games or browsing through social media pages. Games ran perfectly fine without dropping any frames and getting hot. Audio performance was also good on the device. Call quality was clear and loud, both through the receiver and the speaker.
The dual camera setup does an amazing job of shooting some really good pictures and video footage. The Pro camera mode is a charm and works wonders. Images looked pretty impressive under most lighting conditions. Portrait mode worked really well when using the front camera – the result was images with sharp details and accurately blurred backgrounds.
The Nokia 7 Plus also excels in the battery life compartment. On a single charge, I was able to use the phone form almost 1.5 days. For a price of AED 1399, the Nokia 7 Plus is a very good bet. It delivers on style, performance and camera features without slapping a horribly expensive price tag on it.
Price: AED 1399
