Design
- Excellent, tank-like build quality and industrial design - the phone has been milled from a single block of 6000 series aluminium, and feels incredibly solid in the hand
- The accents around the rear camera and the frame add a nice flair to the design
- Supports face recognition too, apart from the fingerprint sensor, and it works fairly well
- At 8.5mm, the smartphone is not the slimmest out there and it feels quite bulky in the hand - the thick borders above and below the screen do not help matters, and single-handed use over long periods might not be very comfortable as the phone is a bit too wide
- The fingerprint sensor at the back is not the best - it is slow and inaccurate at times, and the location is somewhat unergonomic
Display
- Nice, 5.5-inch LCD screen - a step up from the original Nokia 6 with punchier colours and higher brightness (however, the viewing angles could have been better)
Software
- One of the best parts about the new Nokia 6 is that its now part of the Android One series, which means it will be getting direct and quick updates from Google itself (HMD Global has promised updates to Android P as well as Android Q, when they are released)
- Of course the UI is stock Android which is always a good thing, in terms of keeping things nice and simple - the only additions are some simple add-ons like 'Glance screen' (which shows notifications for missed calls, alarms, and notifications without waking the phone from sleep) and a couple of motion-triggered gestures
Performance
- The Snapdragon 630 equipped Nokia 6 (2018) does very well with overall speed/performance, even with intensive use, and handles everything thrown at it, and in those terms is a big leap over the earlier Nokia 6
- It also does not get warm even when playing resource-intensive games, navigating around town with the GPS, or recording videos in full-HD - which is always a good thing
Camera
- The cameras on the Nokia 6 are a mixed bag - they do decently well in good lighting (especially the rear camera), but not quite so in low lighting - they are decent at still photography, but video recording is pretty average
Audio
- Call quality is clear and crisp, and network reception is good too
Battery
- Decent (though not great) battery life - will last the day with moderate use - similar to the earlier Nokia 6
- The battery now also supports fast charging - you will go from an empty tank to around 40 percent in 30 minutes, which is fairly good
More
- It is not a phone that will get easily damaged by dropping, and wear & tear, and it could well be a contender for the most durable smartphone of the year
- Support for OZO audio recording gives a very good audio recording quality
- Supports the modern USB-C port (instead of the microUSB port of the earlier Nokia 6)
- On the whole, the Nokia 6.1 provides a solid option in a very competitive segment - it wins out on 2 key parameters - the stock Android UI and promise of future updates, and the ruggedness of the phone - at the same time, it is beaten by the likes of the Redmi Note 5 Pro in terms of having a beautiful modern bezel-less display, better ergonomics, and better camera performance, especially in low light