Design of Nokia 5.1 Plus
After holding Nokia 5.1 Plus in hand, the first thing anyone will notice is its premium look. The entire body of Nokia 5.1 Plus is made of high-gloss which gives the phone a stunning look. Looking at the phone, it seems that its price will be above Rs 15,000. At this price, the company has also used 2.5D curved glass on the back panel. Due to the glassy finish, there is a bit of squeak in Nokia 5.1 Plus which makes it slippery. We have had many such incidents when the phone fell on the couch and floor, but there were no marks on it.
The phone has a 5.86-inch display (720×1520 pixels) with an aspect ratio of 19:9. HMD Global has cut corners to keep the price of the smartphone low. The display of the phone is not bad, the colors appear vivid and impressive, the black level is also good. The brightness is sufficient in sunlight, due to which there is no problem while reading things on the display.
All the buttons are given on the right side of the phone. In this budget segment, this Nokia brand smartphone comes with USB Type-C port. On the left side you have SIM-tray (two nano SIMs) which comes with dual 4G VoLTE support. It is possible to increase the storage with the help of microSD card but for this you have to remove the second SIM. This means that only one nano SIM and one card can be inserted at a time. The notch design of Nokia 5.1 Plus is quite big first of all. The notch has not been used properly, this is because the company has not provided notification LED in the notch. You will get a headset with the phone but the company has not provided a silicone cover for smartphones with slippery body. Overall Nokia 5.1 Plus is a great phone. The handset is lightweight along with giving a premium look.
Nokia 5.1 Plus Specifications and Features
For speed and multitasking, Nokia 5.1 Plus will have MediaTek Helio P60 octa-core processor. Recall that HMD Global used Helio P18 chipset in Nokia 5.1 smartphone. At this price, this chipset has scored more benchmarks than Snapdragon 636 chipset. At the time of writing the review, this phone is being sold only with 3 GB RAM / 32 GB storage variant. Talking about connectivity, the smartphone will come with Category 3 LTE, dual-band WiFi 802.11ac, Bluetooth version 4.2, FM radio, USB-OTG and GPS support. But you will not get NFC support in this handset.
Nokia 5.1 Plus runs on Android 8.1 Oreo. Apart from Google apps, the phone also has HMD Global’s support app which provides the user with help related to the phone’s features or the facility of booking an appointment at the service center. If the phone’s power button is pressed twice, the camera app opens. There is no option to hide the notch in Nokia 5.1 Plus, this is not a big problem because games or video players do not stretch too much from the notch.
Nokia 5.1 Plus performance, camera and battery life
We enjoyed using Nokia 5.1 Plus during the review. Due to the glassy finish, fingerprints easily get on it but once cleaned, the marks get removed. If you want to avoid marks on the glassy finish, then keep a cover for it. The phone works properly without any hang while using GPS in navigation, chatting and Uber app. While playing the game, the area near the LED flash starts heating up quickly. Not much of the phone gets heated. If PUBG game is played for half an hour, then the phone starts heating up completely. There is a single loudspeaker at the bottom, the sound is quite loud on full volume. There is a microphone for calls but there is no button to control music playback.
Compared to Nokia 5.1, the camera resolution in Nokia 5.1 Plus has been reduced. Let us remind you that Nokia 5.1 had a 16-megapixel sensor on the back panel, whereas you will get a 13-megapixel primary sensor and a 5-megapixel depth sensor in Nokia 5.1 Plus. But after reviewing, we have no complaints with the rear camera. If there is sufficient light while clicking a picture in landscape shot, the sensor gives better photo quality. Even with auto-HDR, the sensor sometimes does not give the right exposure. The quality of the secondary depth camera in portrait mode is average. After blurring, the photo looks artificial instead of real. Apart from this, additional camera features have also been given such as you can also put a mask on someone’s face. Beauty mode can be adjusted as per convenience, dual, P-I-P, manual and panorama mode are also given in the rear and front camera.
The phone is capable of recording videos at 1080p, stabilization will always be on, there is no option to turn it off. Due to electronic stabilization, the shimmer effect will not be visible much in sufficient light, but the quality of the video was quite poor while shooting at night. You will also get a slow-motion shooting feature in it, which records at a resolution of 720p at an average of 120 frames per second. There will be an 8-megapixel selfie camera, which gives good pictures in sufficient light, the screen flash also does not prove to be effective at night. The focus speed slows down in low light and the landscape mode is affected.
There is a 3060mAh battery to power the phone, the battery life of the phone is also good. We used the phone for the whole day on a single charge. In the HD video loop test, the phone gives a backup of 14 hours 36 minutes. Nokia 5.1 Plus does not come with fast charging support, but the 10 watt charger that comes with the phone charges the phone up to 56 percent in an hour. It can take about 2 hours to fully charge the phone.
Our verdict
It would not be wrong to say that Nokia 5.1 Plus is a great option at the price of Rs 10,999. We can understand that smartphones of other companies offer high resolution at this price, but during the review, we did not face any problem while using the HD + display. The hybrid dual-SIM slot may bother you if you want to insert two nano SIMs and cards simultaneously. Video performance in low light is below average. Nokia 5.1 Plus is a smartphone with great looks at this price. Apart from this, this handset is a part of Google’s Android One program, battery life is good and a powerful chipset has been used in this Nokia brand handset.