Nokia 8.1 full review

Nokia 8.1 full review

Specs

• Camera 12 and 13 megapixel rear
• Camera 20 megapixel front
• Snapdragon 710
• Andreno 616
• Android 9 pie
• 64g storage
• 4g ram
• Glass front and back and aluminium frame.
• IPS LCD display 1080 by 2280 409 ppi

Build and Design

Looks amazing, is nice to hold, Great size, i personally think phones are to big these days so holding something a bit smaller is a pleasant change. And the glass and aluminium give it a really awesome feel, a premium feel.

It a nice looking and feeling display, i wish they put a slim case in the box as I was terrified about dropping it until i bought a cheap case from amazon. Link in the description.

Performance

Fluid, hassle free, consistent. These are the three ways I would describe the pros of the performance. Day to day use I get the same performance day in day out. It’s not superfast but it’s not slow and is optimised for battery life over performance, this is my opinion as i have no proof of this but the battery life is exceptional, More on this soon. Gaming is smooth, and I had no issues with the device. I got occasional hiccups however mostly smooth no fuss performance.

Software

This part of my review is fairly simple, it’s mainly stock android. No fuss, no gimmicks, no BS. 1 phone app, 1 calendar app, 1 clock app, 1 email app. Happy days. Now i did install nova launcher but that was out of preference rather than necessity. Android 9.0 is fresh with some weird quirks. I will say it doesn’t feel like it’s fully optimised software. When I compare it to a motorola stock android device there is a noticeable difference. Also a bit weird was only some owners have notch settings and others don’t. Here is a link to how to install the notch settings if you don’t have them.

Battery life

I Ihaven’t had a phone with this kind of battery life for a long time. 3500 mah battery life but definately 2 days use, even a day of hardcore camera and video work and i still got home with 50%. On average use 2 days is not out of the ordinary, compared with my note 9 4000 mah battery than needs to be charged by 5pm no matter how much i use it.

Camera

Colours are slightly over saturated, Not as bad as some others. Nice clear images, crisp and sharp. When using the camera make sure your screen brightness is up high as at first i didn’t and thought the pics were really dull. Macro shot look great, dynamic range is fairly good for the price and Low light the pics are average, I have to keep reminding myself of the price range here. Low light pics and vids were pretty mushy and even though it’s the third of the price of an iphone I still expected slightly better pics in low light. Now the front cam is crap, very very overly sharpened and the light flair is just horrendous. It goes to show that megapixels aren’t everything and yes they give you detail but it’s what you do with the detail that counts. The device also suffers in video quality, it captures ok video but not the best and in low light video is horrendous.

Gaming & Media

The screen gives good image quality as long as the brightness is turned up and it isn’t hard to watch content and be satisfied. Netflix, youtube, viewing pics and vids from whats app etc. Audio is average, very average, I don’t get to much tinny feedback but the audio is a miss, I can’t put my finger on it but i was left wanting.

Gaming is great, for a chipset that isn’t known for blazing fast speeds i don’t have a negative experience in gaming and would be happy to game on this as much as I would on any other device, PUBG. Asphalt 9 and Leos fortune were all a joy to play with no noticeable lag or skipped frame rates. Not for me anyhow.

Overall Experience

This is a nice device to own for 500 bucks, it’s above your bottom end Huawei and Oppo devices yet still holds its own in most areas.

Pros

• Gaming
• Performance
• Battery Life

Cons

• Front Camera
• Software nuances
• Video quality