Nokia 6.1 Plus Review: Trendy Design and Clean Android with Adequate Price

The two mid-range smartphones, the Nokia 5.1 Plus and 6.1 Plus, were presented at the end of the summer and received a generally similar design with a glass case and a cutout at the top of the screen. Nokia 6.1 Plus is the international version of the Chinese Nokia X6 and works, like the rest of Nokia smartphones, on the “clean” version of Android and participate in the Android One program, so you can hope for relatively quick updates and the minimum number of third-party software. Let's see how interesting Nokia 6.1 Plus turned out.

What is it?

Nokia 6.1 Plus - Android-based smartphone with a 5.8-inch IPS-display with FullHD + resolution, 19: 9 aspect ratio and a notch in the upper part, a 64-bit 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor, 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of internal memory, support MicroSD card, 16 + 5 MP dual main camera and clean Android 9 Pie.

What makes him interesting?

Nokia 6.1 Plus is a representative of the average price segment and is equipped with a 5.8-inch display with an aspect ratio of 19: 9, Full HD + resolution (2280x1080 pixels) and a notch in the upper part. Inside, an eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of built-in with the possibility of expansion microSD cards up to 400 GB (hybrid slot). The main camera is double, the modules are 16 MP (f / 2.0 aperture) plus 5 MP (f / 2.2), the front camera is 16 megapixels f / 2.0. 3060 mAh battery with support for fast charging. There is dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 and USB Type-C, but unfortunately, NFC is not installed. Formally, Android 8.1 Oreo was installed out of the box, but the update to 9 Pie has already “flown in”.

What is in the box?

The smartphone is packed in a small, flat box with a smartphone image and the name of the model. In the sliding box - a smartphone, under which is fixed a clip for removing the tray, a 5 V / 2 A charger, a USB Type-C cable, a budget wired headset and documentation.

The smartphone has a body of glass and metal. Front and rear - Gorilla Glass 3 generation, aluminum frame. Due to the elongated shape of the display (19: 9), the smartphone turned out to be compact, as far as possible with a 5.8-inch diagonal display. The screen has corners rounded in the shape of the case and a cutout in the upper part under the camera, sensors and a speaker. With the upgrade to Android 9, Pie has returned the ability to hide the “mono-brow” with the help of the black bar, but it is not curved and does not look very aesthetically pleasing. "Chin" is not too wide, it has the Nokia logo.

Metal frame, round shape, with plastic inserts for antennas. The volume and power buttons on the right, in the usual places. They are also metallic, black, but with silver bevels. At the bottom there is a USB Type-C connector, two slots of the main speaker and a conversational microphone. Above is another microphone and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Not the most comfortable position, but it is there, and now not all smartphones can boast of this. The tray is located on the left:

This is a hybrid tray, like most modern smartphones. Either two nanoSIM, or instead of the second - a microSD memory card. Promise support for cards up to 400 GB:

Our smartphone is available in strict black and white colors, the less familiar blue did not reach us. The back cover is made of the same glass Gorilla 3 generations. There is an oleophobic coating, but it will not save the black version from fingerprints and the smartphone will have to be cleaned regularly to preserve its aesthetic appearance. The layout is generally familiar from past Nokia smartphones: technical information and the Android One program logo at the bottom. Above - a vertical Nokia logo and a round fingerprint scanner, above which the main camera:

The camera module is placed vertically, under the common glass. Consists of, in fact, two lenses and an LED flash. There are no Zeizz marketing labels.

Nokia 6.1 Plus is well built from quality materials, but its main advantage is different. He is very cool in his hand. I do not know, thanks to the form, materials, or a very small width of the body. Rather, all the same due to the combination of these factors. Appearance can not be called original, all in the spirit of modern smartphones of the average price range. Somewhat upset by the fact of having a "monobrow", which was pretty much fed up with in a pile of smartphones from different manufacturers, and from the very beginning it looked not very aesthetically pleasing.

How good is the screen?

The smartphone has a 5.8-inch IPS-screen of elongated shape with an aspect ratio of 19: 9, rounded corners and a resolution of 2280 × 1080, pixel density - 432 ppi. It is protected by Gorilla Glass 3, which is rather strange in late 2018. But this is a question with the manufacturer. There is a good oleophobic coating. The viewing angles, of course, are maximum, the colors are saturated, in general, the picture looks good, the brightness margin is difficult to fully appreciate due to the overcast weather.

There are no separate color display modes or manual adjustment of the color temperature, only brightness settings, night mode, element scale, font size and automatic brightness settings. The ability to hide the cutout came back with the upgrade to Android 9 Pie, it is hidden in the menu for developers.

                                                                   

The maximum brightness is 401.813 cd / m 2 , the black field brightness is 0.44 cd / m 2 , and the contrast is 913: 1. In general, good indicators, as for an inexpensive smartphone. But the screen calibration turned out to be so-so: a very noticeable bias to cold shades, despite the fact that you cannot manually adjust. The color gamut is significantly wider than the sRGB color space:

Comparison with other models:

Device name	Brightness of the white field,  cd / m 2	Black field brightness,  cd / m 2	Contrast
Nokia 6.1 Plus	401.813	0.44	913: 1
Honor play	343.62	0.481	714: 1
Nokia 7 Plus	379.331	0.3	1224: 1
Neffos X9	397.639	0.204	1949: 1
Moto x4	352.576	0.341	1034: 1

What about performance and autonomy?

The Nokia 6.1 Plus is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor. This is a 14-nanometer system-on-chip with a maximum clock frequency of 1.8 GHz, which includes four Kryo 260 Gold cores (customized Cortex-A73) and four Kryo 260 Silver (customized Cortex-A53 ) and Adreno 509 graphics accelerator. The smartphone has 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 64 GB of built-in eMMC 5.1 (plus a MicroSD slot). In general, with applications and Android processor copes fine, no problems arise. But for Snapdragon 636 games - not the best solution. Yes, the games are going on, but heavy PUBG or something like that only on low-medium graphics settings work fine:

Results in synthetic performance tests generally confirm that they belong to the middle price segment and relatively low performance in relation to 3D graphics. Although the processor copes better than competing solutions MediaTek. For those who like to play with a small budget, you can watch something on the 660th “dragon”. For example, Nokia 7 Plus:

The system works stably and even with long maximum loads the processor does not overheat too much. Throttling is, but the performance is reduced only to 89%.

For review, the Nokia 6.1 Plus smartphone came with Android 8.1 Oreo, but one of these days, the update to Android 9 Pie, which weighs about 1.3 GB, was welcomed by air. The interface is not customized, this is pure Android. Traditionally for Nokia. Along with the update, all new Android chips have appeared, except for Digital Wellbeing (monitoring and restriction of use). This thing is currently available only to beta testers.

We will not consider in detail the new version of the OS, this is a topic for a separate material. In general, the logic remains the same, something that was redrawn, something added. Of the most interesting innovations - gesture control (although you can leave the traditional navigation bar). Instead of the traditional three navigation buttons, there are two: the left one returns back. The middle one returns home when touched, calls the application manager with a short bottom-up motion and the application menu is long. In the application manager, the list of cards is displayed horizontally, and quick launch icons appear below. By dragging the same central button, you can browse running applications. Already familiar fast functions have not gone anywhere with a long tap to the application icon. Updated volume control (small pop-up panel on the right).

The bottom line

Nokia 6.1 Plus turned out to be a fairly balanced mid-range smartphone, especially for fans of pure Android without any shells. The smartphone looks good and fits very well in the hand due to its small width. The performance and the amount of RAM and internal memory are optimal for this price segment, and the main camera shoots even better than you would expect. The screen as a whole looks good and has an adequate margin of brightness, but its calibration leaves much to be desired. The smartphone has received most of the modern wired and wireless interfaces, including Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac 2.4 + 5 GHz, Bluetooth 5 LE and USB Type-C, but there is no extremely convenient NFC. In general, the smartphone is pleasant to use, but it also has enough competitors (the price tag is UAH 7800), including the Xiaomi Mi A2 on pure Android,

6 reasons to buy Nokia 6.1 Plus:

• balanced iron;
• nice appearance and comfortable size;
• high-quality main camera (in its price segment);
• Fresh, fast Android OS 9 Pie without shells;
• optimal amount of memory;
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac 2.4 + 5 GHz, Bluetooth 5 LE, Type-C and support for fast charging.

3 reasons not to buy Nokia 6.1 Plus:

• You have already joined Google Pay and you need an NFC smartphone;
• the display is poorly calibrated and there is no utility for manual adjustment;
• You do not like smartphones with a cutout in the screen.