Review of Nokia 6.1 Plus - a compact smartphone with an excellent camera and Android 9 Pie

Table of contents

• Specifications
• Packaging and appearance
• Display and Audio
• Performance
• autonomy
• Camera
• Software
• results

In the spring of this year, the HMD, currently owns the rights to the Nokia brand, introduced its new a mainstream smart phone Nokia x6. Initially, he only sold in China, but the model has become popular, so we decided to release it on the international market. There she received the name of Nokia 6.1 Plus, the latest version of Android Pie and quite humane a price.

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Specifications

The smartphone is based on the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 platform. It includes a 64-bit processor with eight cores Kryo 260 operating at frequencies up to 1.8 GHz. For graphics used video accelerator Adreno 509, which makes it possible to run any modern mobile gaming.

Nokia 6.1 Plus is equipped with 4 or 6 GB of RAM, which is sufficient for quick and smooth operation of applications in multi-tasking environments. As an internal storage drive used e-MMC 5.1 to 64 GB, from which the user is available for the needs of about 50 GB. By today's standards it is a bit, but for the first time will suffice. After filling can be installed instead of the second external memory card SIM cards.

The gadget boasts the support of several geopositioning systems, allowing it to determine the location within a few seconds. There is also a dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, Bluetooth 5.0 and a complete set of all the necessary sensors.

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Packaging and appearance

Nokia 6.1 Plus Box is very different from all the Chinese smartphone, visit us on reviews lately. Designers have issued it in a well recognizable style that belongs only by Nokia.

But the equipment did not impress us. Inside, apart from the smartphone, we found only the charger plug with the Chinese, the connecting cable and transparent silicone case. Headphones, a protective film for the screen, an adapter for European outlets will have to buy their own.

The main front surface area occupies the screen. It is surrounded by a thin frame, whose thickness at the sides and top of less than 2 mm. The magnitude of the-screen space - 7 mm.

At the top of attracting the attention of the notorious "monobrov", which is placed front-facing camera and earpiece. A narrow neckline that will fit next to the clock display is not only, but also some application icons. If desired, the "bang" can be masked by a special option in the operating system settings.

Rear cover smartphone Nokia 6.1 Plus made of glass. In the center is placed a block dual camera and flash, framed by brilliant acting frame. The back cover has an oleophobic coating, so fingerprints, which collects its glossy surface, erased with just one flick. However, this may be related to potential trouble: on inclined surfaces slides phone and may fall. Therefore, it is better to put on the protective cover.

The side faces are made of dark matt metal. The power button and volume rocker buttons are a little click, do not stagger, and not rattle.

On the left side is combined tray for mounting a SIM card and an external memory card.

In the center of the lower face is USB Type-C connector for charging and data exchange. On one side of him for two rectangular holes hidden external speaker, on the other hand - the microphone. On the upper side has a 3.5mm headphone jack.

In general, the device we liked its compact dimensions, excellent design and high quality materials. When we embarked on the review, they were afraid that this is just another Chinese smartphone. However, the look and feel of the Nokia 6.1 Plus are consistent with the past glory of the Finnish giant.

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Display and Audio

The smartphone has a display c diagonal of 5.8 inches and a resolution of 1080 × 2280 pixels. Fonts and icons on the screen look great. There is not even a hint of graininess and pixelation.

Quality IPS-matrix demonstrates the wide viewing angles, the correct color and good contrast. The brightness varies widely, enabling the device as with poor artificial light and in bright sunlight. There is an automatic backlight adjustment depending on the environment and a special reading mode, reducing eye strain.

In the presence of high-quality headphones Nokia 6.1 Plus will give you a great big sound with a full frequency spectrum and the general scene. The work of the external speaker can not boast the same excellent performance, but it is not a bad name. For voice ringtones and notifications amiss.

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Performance

Used in Nokia 6.1 Plus platform Snapdragon 636 fine recommended itself in such hits as lenovo Z5 or Xiaomi Redmi Note 5. Her performance enough to deal with any custom tasks that fully supports our testing.

Against the background of the flagships of the performance results do not look too convincing, but do not forget that this is a smartphone 15 000 rubles. In real life, Nokia 6.1 Plus works surprisingly quickly and smoothly. A good optimization software, which we will discuss in detail below, and a large amount of RAM allows the smartphone to cope with even the most resource-intensive easily applications.

The situation is typical with games for smartphones based on Snapdragon 636 platform. On the Nokia 6.1 Plus can run almost any, but for the most advanced will have to reduce the quality of the picture. It is commendable that the smartphone is not too hot even during the hot battles.

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autonomy

If all the previous items Nokia 6.1 Plus scored mostly positive assessment, then the part of the autonomy of anything good to say, unfortunately, can not. The capacity of the installed battery is 3060 mAh - for devices with Full HD screen, and not the most modern CPU is too little.

In the standard mode of use, you can count on one day of battery life - and then if you do not load the Nokia 6.1 Plus heavy tasks or games. However, for those users who are accustomed to charge your smart phone every night, this should not be a big problem.

Nokia 6.1 Plus supports fast charging, but a complete device such a possibility does not provide. Therefore, if you do not want to spend too much time, will have to find a third-party power supply.

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Camera

In years gone by Nokia device boasts excellent photo quality. I am glad that the Nokia 6.1 Plus continues this tradition.

The smartphone installed double main camera modules 16 and 5 Mn. The software allows you to shoot in fully automatic or manual mode. In the latter case, you can manually set the white balance, exposure, and some other parameters. If the standard camera app you are not satisfied, you can set google Camera. The program is renowned for the quality of their shots, especially the night.

In good light Nokia 6.1 Plus for excellent photos. This year we tested had a lot of smartphones, but this seems to be one of the best. There is no artificial intelligence and other trendy stuff, but still the output is a bright pictures with the correct white balance and wide dynamic range.

In low light conditions the pictures are a little bit worse. But then we remembered the special mode of night shooting Night Sight in Google Camera. It allows you to take vivid pictures in low light conditions, even without the use of flash and other light sources. The result was beyond praise, as you can see for themselves on the example of test shots.

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Software

Nokia 6.1 Plus smartphone released under the program Android One, So it installed a clean operating system image. Moreover, the device will receive all patches and updates in the first place. In this we are able to ensure that immediately after unpacking it has been updated to Android 9 Pie.

about the features Android 9 written a lot of articles, so we will not dwell on all functions. Just to say that the operating system did not cause us any complaints. A new way of gesture control works perfectly, face detection detect your owner without error, "Digital Prosperity" leads Application usage statistics and machine learning algorithms can save battery power by analyzing the user's habits. Perhaps, in the operating system and there are some mistakes - it's still a very recent version, but we are at the time of the test is not met.

Also in the new version of OSes has been significantly reworked design, called Material Theming. This applies to colors, design elements, new icons, notification settings, and many other components.

As we mentioned, the original Nokia 6.1 Plus was released only for China. Some online stores continue to sell these devices, keeping silent, that they do not have the necessary language and Google services. Therefore, pay attention to the version of the firmware: it must be international (Global). For example, the smartphone, which was sent to us from the store GearBest, originally present Russian language, Google Play Store and update support. Buyer can only add to your account to install the necessary software and start using the device.

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results

After weighing all the pros and cons of Nokia 6.1 Plus, we came to the conclusion that this is one of the best smartphones in 2018. First of all its supporters will appreciate the clean version of Android, the choice of which was previously limited mostly several models of the company Xiaomi.

Pros Nokia 6.1 Plus

• Compact design, excellent build and quality materials.
• Bright high-resolution screen.
• The presence of a 3.5-millimeter jack, great sound through the headphones.
• Excellent photo quality as the main and the front camera.
• The latest version of the operating system.
• Participation in the Android One program, guaranteed to receive updates for several years.

Cons Nokia 6.1 Plus

• The lack of NFC.
• Dull sound of the external dynamics.
• Weak autonomy.

At the time of this writing, the cost of Nokia 6.1 Plus smartphone is 12 948 rubles for the version with 4 GB of RAM and 13 629 rubles for the version with 6 GB of RAM.

The author expresses his gratitude to the company GearBest for providing the test device.