Nokia 2; Should you get it?

The Nokia 2 is HMD Global’s most affordable handset right now. Nokia came back with a bang offering a lot of devices at different price points. This is the first Nokia device I’ve actually got to use though I have interacted with the Nokia 6 and Nokia 5 before.

I am writing my impressions after a couple days of use. That’s why I am confident saying the device has good battery life.

The phone is currently available on Jumia Kenya for Ksh. 11,400 and is not only your best bet at using a Nokia phone if you’re on a budget, but also your only solution for being able to make voice calls on Faiba 4G/LTE.

These are my favourite things about this phone:

Design – they didn’t make it appear or feel cheap. Yes it is made of plastic, but it doesn’t look bad or feel bad. Problem is the back scratches easily. Front screen is however Gorilla Glass protected.

Stock Android – Nokia haven’t added or tweaked much with this phone. And that’s why all Nokia 2s will be receiving Android 8.1 Oreo soon. Meaning this phone could be the first (and the cheapest) handset with Android 8.1 Oreo in the market.

Call Quality – this could be due to the fact I’m making calls over LTE, and those are obviously better. If you’re getting this phone, get a Faiba sim card, and feel the difference.

Battery – I’ve gone two days from general setup, a little video streaming, tethering to other gadgets, and some social media. Having a 4100mAh battery is obviously the reason this phone can last that long.

Display – I don’t particularly love the display resolution, I just love the way the screen is set up on top of the body. It looks really good. The 5 inch 720p display is acceptable because it is a 5 inch phone, but Nokia should have at least worked with a 1080p panel. Hopefully the next version of the Nokia 2 comes with a 1080p display.

Nokia Tune – LOL, this was expected. It has been years since I heard the Nokia tune. They’ve changed it so much but it still brings back the memories.

What I dislike about the phone:

Heavy – the first thing I said when I held the phone was that it was heavy. And that’s what everyone has said about this phone. Is it that it has a 4100mAh battery or is it the material used?

Specs: 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage is just too little for this day and age. Gladly you have expandable storage, and that once the phone upgrades to Android 8.1 Oreo, the Android Go program promises to make the experience on such lolwy spec’d phone much better.

Performance: With such specs, and a Snapdragon 212 processor, you can’t expect to get impressive performance on this device. There are lags here and there when opening an app or switching between apps. It isn’t as bad as on other low end phones. It is mostly unnoticeable unless you’re doing so much work at once, so it shouldn’t bother you.

Cameras: No the cameras aren’t that bad. See samples below. But as you can see there’s nothing wow about the pics.

Micro USB – The phone comes with the normal outdated micro-USB port. Hopefully this is their last device not to have USB type-C.

Volume and Power buttons – they work alright, but they feel soft and the feedback isn’t that good when clicking them. I wish they put them on different sides of the phone.

No fingerprint scanner – There’s totally no justification whatsoever for not having a fingerprint scanner for this price range in this day and age.

Specs:

Should you get one?

There are obviously better spec’d phones in the market that one can argue would be better options.  But I would get a Nokia 2 right now mainly because of support for Faiba 4G/LTE and the assurance of getting fast and reliable updates to the latest version of Android which is something many companies have failed to ensure.

If these two reasons are good enough for you, get the phone. Also if you just want a Nokia phone and this is how much you can spend for one, get it.

What are your thoughts? Is this a phone you’d want? What do you want to know about the phone?