Friends+Design
- Nice, clean, attractive polycarbonate based design - both looks and feels great - and a lot batter than what you might expect for its bottom-of-the-barrel pricing
- There is a copper strip running around the periphery of the smartphone that combos well with the rest of the phone
- Unlike glass-backed phones, the phone also retains its looks without becoming a mess of fingerprint smudges after a day of use
- Good build quality too - will survive a few drops without trouble - the durability of the Nokia phones of yesteryear is on full display here
Display
- The phone's screen is a 5.5" IPS display with a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1280 x 720 - it's not exceptional - but it's functional and gets the job done
Software
- Software is where the Nokia 2.1 truly shines, and has a leg over its competition in this price bracket - it features a clean, stock version of Android Oreo (Go edition) and will be updated to Android Pie as well
- Android Go edition also means that you have lighter version of apps like Google Maps, which helps on such a low specced phone
Performance
- Average performance - performance is not a strong suit of the Nokia 2.1 being backed by a low power Snapdragon 425 and a measly 1GB of RAM - there are frequent lags during daily use, multi-tasking is a pain, and the phone will not meet the needs of anyone except very basic users (messaging, calling, light browsing, simple games)
Camera
- The camera is fairly quick at taking shots, which is worth appreciating in this price segment - the camera app is also relatively well-done, with the HDR, Panorama, flash, manual mode, and delayed shot options easily accessible (those are also all the options you'll get with the camera - no-frills is the theme of the day)
- When it comes to actual quality though, the camera is strictly average - this is a cheap phone and the camera was simply not a priority in its design - colours are dull and bland, details are low, dynamic range is abysmal, low-light performance is ordinary
Audio
- The two full-size stereo speaker grilles on the front are great to see - and it's something that even a lot of flagship phones can't claim - the speakers get relatively loud as a result (though of course the sound quality is just about ok, which is all you can expect at this price range)
Battery
- Excellent battery life - the low specs of the phone, simple software, and the large battery pack (4000mAh) result in some pretty great battery life - you should comfortably get 2 days of use
More
- Probably the most critical flaw of the device is the 8GB of internal storage - it's simply not enough for 2018, and you will very quickly need to resort to using the expandable memory slot even with bare minimum apps - which will result in a further degradation of performance (accessing stuff on a microSD card is almost never as quick as accessing it on internal memory)
- Overall, while the Nokia 2.1 might make sense if you are a very basic user and are really after stock Android, but for most, phones like the Redmi 6A will be a much better value proposition with better performance and better storage
