Nokia 5.3 is the new Nokia mid-range phone priced below the 200$ mark.It is expected to be released in India in the month of June at around the ₹15000 mark.
Nokia after its re incarnation from HMD-GLOBAL have been recently in the news for its fastest 5G connectivity test.Its first 5G phone the Nokia 8.3 is also coming soon.It is now available for pre order in India from official Nokia site.The 4GB variant is priced at Rs.13999 and the 6GB at Rs.15499.
After Nokia’s return it has launched many new smartphones but to be honest they have not created any big stir in the market.Can the Nokia 5.3 change the tide for them?That is the big question. Let’s have a look at the specs and features and I will leave the decision part on you.
DESIGN AND BODY
Nokia 5.3 features 2.5D glass front with a plastic back and frame.The glass is Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The back though plastic is scratch resistant and compositely built. In other words the phone doesn’t look like a low budget phone.
On the back is the circular camera module with a quad camera set-up below which is the fingerprint sensor.The power button and the volume rocker is on the right.On the left edge is a dedicated Google Assistant Key.The phone has a 3.5 mm jack and a mono speaker grill.
The dimensions of the phone are 164.3mm×76.6mm×8.5mm. It weighs 185g.
DISPLAY
A big 6.5″ IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen is featured in the Nokia 5.3 with 720×1600 resolution and ~82.3% screen to body ratio.The aspect ratio is 20:9 and the display has~268 ppi.The display is very bright and has an advertised 450 nits brightness.
Yes you may miss the vivid colours of an Amoled display but that you will have to compromise for price.This display is quite good and I can assure that there wouldn’t be any problem seeing it even in bright sunlight.The big display size with the 20:9 aspect ratio makes for good video watching experience.
OS,PROCESSOR AND STORAGE
Like all Nokia phones the Nokia 5.3 also comes with pure Android experience or as they call it Android One.Out of the box you will get Android 10. There is guaranteed 2 years of OS update and 3 years of security patch updates.So by the end of 2020 you are going to get the Android 11 version.
Under the hood is the popular for this price range Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 SoC which features an octa core processor (4×2.0GHz Kyro Gold,4×1.8GHz Kyro Silver). It runs on 11nm technology.The GPU is Adreno 610.
There are three variants of RAM according to markets-3GB,4GB and 6GB with 64GB onboard storage. The 4GB/64GB is the most common. There is a dedicated micro SD card slot for expandable storage upto 512GB.
CAMERA
REAR CAMERA
The phone sports a quad camera module with a primary 13MP f/1.8 wide sensor,a 5MP ultra wide sensor with 118° field of view,a 2 MP macro lens and a 2MP depth sensor.
Features like digital zoom,auto flash,face detection are present along with HDR, Panorama and LED flash. The Night mode for low light photos takes a little time in processing images and could have been better. Portrait mode is quite good with enhanced Bokeh effects thanks to the separate depth sensor.
Videos of 1080p can be shot at 30 fps. Steady mode or similar feature is absent thus videos while in motion may be shaky.
FRONT CAMERA
On the front is a tear drop notch 8 MP f/2.0 selfie shooter with HDR. It also can capture videos of maximum 1080p at 30fps.
OTHER FEATURES
The fingerprint sensor is rear mounted and is frankly speaking not good enough. Sometimes you may have to touch many times to use your fingerprint to unlock the phone. A cool feature of this sensor is that you can scroll up or down the navigation menu or notification bar with it.
3.5mm jack is supported and a mono speaker is present. The speaker’s maximum audio limit is set high and voice over calls is very clear on both sides.
Bluetooth, Wifi are present.NFC is also supported and hence no problem in using tap and pay option.USB Type C port is present.
BATTERY AND COLOURS
Nokia 5.3 is powered by a 4000mAH battery which supports 10W charging. Nokia uses Adaptive Charging enhanced by AI and claims that the smartphone will give 2 days battery life.
3 colour options are available and Nokia claims they are Nordic influenced.The colours are Cyan, Charcoal and Sand.
CONCLUSION
At the price we are talking about the Nokia 5.3 will be a good bet but it will have tough competition specially with the Samsung Galaxy M21 whose camera specs and display is better but Nokia has the advantage in using a Snapdragon processor.
Anyways Nokia has always been renowned for its hardware and durability.So that will be the plus point if you buy it. What are your thoughts? Please let me know in comments.