Nokia finally made a comeback in the smartphone industry, and the credit goes to HMD Global for taking the initiative of breathing life into the once-legendary mobile brand name.
The first Android-based smartphone, Nokia 6, was launched in China over the weekend, joining the league of competent players. Nokia 6 isn't a flagship, but makes a suitable fit in the budget premium smartphone category. It is priced at ¥1699, which roughly translates to Rs 16,000 if launched in India. But the handset is exclusive to China, so its arrival in India is quite unlikely.
Nevertheless, here is how Nokia 6 stands against its rivals in the market:
First, here is a look at the features that Nokia 6 has to offer. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset, 4GB RAM and packs 64GB onboard storage with microSD card support. Nokia 6 features a 5.5-inch Full HD display with a 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass.
In terms of photography, Nokia 6 has a 16MP rear-facing sensor with f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, dual LED flash and an 8MP front camera. Making its Android debut, Nokia 6 runs stock version of the latest Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box.
The aluminium unibody with chamfered edges holds a 3,000mAh battery. To add a premium touch, Nokia 6 packs a fingerprint scanner at the front, and the dual speaker system is powered by Dolby Atmos and a power amplifier chip for enhanced audio.
All of this sounds great, doesn't it? So now let's take a look at the competition.
For Rs. 17,000 and less, many smartphones from Chinese brands like Lenovo, Xiaomi and LeEco are available, which offer top-notch specifications and design. Starting with the chipset, there are several smartphones priced under Rs. 15,000 that run Snapdragon 430. If you scale up your budget to under Rs. 20,000, there is Lenovo Z2 Plus and LeEco Le Max 2 giving you Snapdragon 820 chipsets.
Moving on to the design, Nokia 6 uses 6000 series aluminium. The same material was used in the iPhone 6 series in 2014, which resulted in the bendgate issue. We hope Nokia 6 doesn't go down the same road as Apple.
Also, the design of Nokia 6 doesn't really stand out in the crowd. We feel it bears a close resemblance to Cool 1 Dual, which was launched in collaboration with LeEco and Coolpad last month.
The RAM and storage offered in the Nokia 6 smartphone is quite generous, but nothing worth drooling over. Nokia is simply matching the standard criteria for handsets priced in the same range.
We haven't had a chance to review the Nokia 6 yet, but the camera setup looks quite impressive. However, it is disappointing to see the Nokia smartphone come without its proprietary PureView camera, which made the brand quite popular in the evolving smartphone era.
Bottom line?
We wouldn't be too sure about spending thousands on Nokia 6 if it ever made it to India. HMD Global needs to up its game to best utilise the Nokia brand name. It would be important for Nokia to watch the current trend and surpass the expectations instead of just meeting the standards.
