Design of Nokia 4.2
The most important aspect of the Nokia 4.2 is its design, it borrows some elements from the Nokia 6.1 Plus and Nokia 5.1 Plus (Review) and looks attractive. Overall, the aesthetic profile is clean, especially in the black variant of the phone. We are reviewing the black variant of the Nokia 4.2, apart from this there is also a gloss pink variant.
Nokia 4.2 has 2.5D glass on the front and back panel which gives it a premium look. On the other hand, nowadays most smartphones are coming with gradient finish. There is a dual camera module on the back of the phone, just below the rear camera is the flash and fingerprint sensor. The rim of this phone comes with a curved profile and glossy finish. If we look at the price of Nokia 4.2, it gives a premium look at this price.
The dimensions of Nokia 4.2 are 148.95×71.30×8.39mm. Nokia 41. has a small profile and is easy to hold and use. You don’t have to adjust the phone after holding it in your hand or stretch your thumb to reach every corner of the screen. The build quality of Nokia 4.2 is also good.
There is a dedicated Google Assistant button on the left side of the phone, which can be useful for those who regularly use the virtual assistant. Pressing it once will open the Google AI Assistant, while double pressing it will open a page with relevant information and suggestions based on the user’s activity and location.
The volume button is given on the right side of the phone just above the power button. There is a SIM tray on the left side of the phone in which two nano-SIMs and one microSD card can be inserted. It is possible to increase the storage up to 400 GB with the help of the card. A 3.5 mm headphone jack and microphone are given on the upper part of the phone, while the micro-USB port, speaker and other microphone are given on the lower part of the phone.
Nokia 4.2 definitely looks premium but there is a downside. Due to the glass rear panel, dust particles and fingerprints are visible. You also do not get a protective case in the retail box so you will have to buy it separately. Overall, Nokia 4.2 is one of the best looking phones in this price range. Nokia 4.2 has only one variant which comes with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage and it is priced at Rs 10,990 in the Indian market.
Nokia 4.2 Specifications and Features
Nokia 4.2 not only offers a premium look but also has a good build quality. Let’s now talk about the specifications of Nokia 4.2. The phone has a 5.71-inch HD + (720×1520 pixels) display that comes with a waterdrop notch. Its aspect ratio is 19: 9 and the pixel density is 270 pixels per inch.
Nokia 4.2 uses an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 processor. 3GB of RAM is provided for multitasking. The processor may disappoint a bit, especially when smartphones priced at the same or lower price are equipped with powerful processors such as Snapdragon 660 and MediaTek Helio P70 chipsets.
If you increase your budget a little, you will also get phones equipped with Snapdragon 675 or Snapdragon 710 processor. Nokia 4.2 has two cameras on the back. The primary sensor is 13 megapixels. This autofocus lens has an F/2.2 aperture. A 2 megapixel sensor will work in tandem with it. There is an 8 megapixel front camera for selfies, whose aperture will be F/2.0.
There are no fun camera features except for Bokeh mode, Panorama and Time-lapse. The default camera app on the Nokia 4.2 lacks features like AR stickers, slow-mo video recording and Night mode. On the software front, the Nokia 4.2 is a part of Google’s Android One program and runs Android 9 Pie. Our review unit was running on the February 2019 security patch.
Since the phone runs on Android Pie, you also get features like Digital Wellbeing, Adaptive Battery, Adaptive Brightness and Navigation Gestures. Ambient Display is another useful feature that shows notifications for incoming messages, calls and alarms without opening the screen. Nokia 4.2 comes with Face Unlock feature but it is not reliable or fast. On the other hand, the fingerprint sensor works fine and unlocks the phone within a second.
There is no bloatware in the Nokia 4.2 and we did not see any ads on the phone. One big advantage with the Nokia 4.2 over its rivals is that it comes with assured OS updates. Android Q and Android R will be rolled out to the phone in the near future. The phone will also get security updates for three years. The viewing angles of the phone are also not very good.
Nokia 4.2 performance, camera and battery life
Let’s first talk about the display of the Nokia 4.2. The Nokia 4.2 has a 5.71-inch HD + display, text looks sharp and video content looks good too. Reflectiveness is an issue if the phone is used outdoors in daylight. Reading in sunlight was acceptable. However, it was difficult to view photos and videos with dark backgrounds.
Everyone wants a phone with a good display that comes with high resolution and wide viewing angles. One good thing about Nokia 4.2 is that it has an adaptive brightness feature for automatic brightness adjustment. Apart from this, a night light mode has also been provided so that there is no problem in viewing the screen at night.
Despite running on stock Android, we found the Nokia 4.2 to be a bit slow. We wish the performance could be made faster. Apps take their time to load. For example, the keyboard in WhatsApp and Twitter takes a while to open when other apps are running in the background.
The Snapdragon 439 processor isn’t that great when it comes to gaming but we still put it to the test by playing games on the phone. We tried games like Temple Run and Candy Crush and it ran smoothly but heavy games like PUBG Mobile took a while to load even when we played them on low graphics.
While playing Asphalt 9: Legends, we felt that the phone became a bit slow. We have also seen the Redmi Note 7 and Realme 3 in the same price range and these phones perform better when it comes to gaming. One thing is clear that if you want to play games regularly then Nokia 4.2 is not for you.
Now let’s talk about the camera performance of Nokia 4.2. Photos taken in daylight were good but there was a lack of sharpness and edge detail in the picture. Photos taken in natural light were crisp and the dynamic range was also above average. Macro shots captured colors well, gradients were visible properly but we got better results from Realme 3 and Redmi Note 7.
Apart from this, you will definitely be disappointed due to the lack of AR stickers, scene mode and artistic bokeh or lighting effects in Nokia 4.2. This phone also does not have a low-light mode, so it was not surprising that noise and grainy textures were visible in the pictures taken in the dark. Now talking about the front camera. The pictures taken with the selfie camera looked natural. The phone keeps the subject and background separate as well as applies a blur effect. But the pictures lack sharpness. You can adjust the intensity of the bokeh effect while taking a picture.
There is an optional beautification filter that works to enlarge the eyes, slim the jawline and smoothen the skin. The phone comes with Google Lens which easily identifies objects. Even though it is slow to identify, most of the results were accurate.
When it comes to videos, both the front and rear cameras are capable of recording videos at full-HD and HD resolutions, but there is no way to adjust the frame rate or aspect ratio. The video quality is average. Colours are decent but there is some difficulty in locking focus.
There are two major issues with the Nokia 4.2 that might disappoint users. The phone has a bit of a problem when locking focus, which affects the quality of photos. The other major issue is that the phone can be a bit slow. We often had to wait for a few seconds and tap the shutter button multiple times before the camera tried to lock focus again. This issue occurred with both the front and rear cameras.
To check if the issue was caused by out-of-date software on our review unit, we tested on another Nokia 4.2 phone that was running on the May 2019 security patch but we still encountered the focus lock issue.
The 3,000mAh battery powers this phone and barely lasts a full day. We made a few phone calls, used social media apps, did some web browsing, watched a few videos on YouTube, played games for about 30 minutes and also used a few productivity apps. The battery capacity is definitely on the lower side.
In our HD video battery loop test, the phone lasted for only 10 hours and 13 minutes. Talking about charging speed, the charger that comes in the retail box takes more than two and a half hours to fully charge the phone. Nokia 4.2 does not have fast charging support. About 10-15 percent battery was consumed after playing for about 30 minutes. Nokia 4.2 also gets a little hot.
Our verdict
The Nokia 4.2 certainly looks good and many will appreciate its stock Android experience. The notification LED around the power button is also well placed, apart from that, there are not many other features worth mentioning. The Nokia 4.2 doesn’t have a powerful processor and its camera performance is also not great. The camera app also lacks many features that customers would want. The price of Rs 10,990 is too high for this phone.
Nokia 4.2’s hardware specifications and overall experience are compared to its rivals Redmi Note 7 ,Review) And Realme 3 ,ReviewNokia 4.2 is not very powerful as compared to its predecessor. Apart from this, Nokia 4.2 is also not as powerful as its predecessor. Asus ZenFone Max Pro M2 ,Review, Realme 3 Pro (Review) and Redmi Note 7 Pro ,Review) are also good options which can be a profitable deal to buy.