Design of Nokia 5.1 Plus
After holding Nokia 5.1 Plus, the first thing anyone will notice is the premium look of the phone. The entire body of Nokia 5.1 Plus is made of high-gloss which gives a stunning look to the phone. 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 its glassy finish, the Nokia 5.1 Plus has a rough finish which makes it slippery. Many such incidents happened to us when the phone fell on the couch or floor, but there were no marks of any kind 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 reduce the price of smartphones. The display of the phone is not bad, colors are vivid and impressive, 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 smartphone of Nokia brand comes with USB Type-C port. On the left side you have the 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 will have to remove the second SIM. This means that only one Nano SIM and one card can be inserted at a time. First of all, the notch design of Nokia 5.1 Plus is quite big. The notch has not been used properly, this is because the company has not provided a notification LED in the notch. You will get a headset with the phone but the company has not provided a silicone cover for the smartphone with slippery body. Overall Nokia 5.1 Plus is a great phone. The handset has a premium look and is lightweight.
Specifications and features of Nokia 5.1 Plus
For speed and multitasking, Nokia 5.1 Plus will have MediaTek Helio P60 octa-core processor. Recall that HMD Global had used Helio P18 chipset in Nokia 5.1 smartphone. At this price, this chipset has scored higher in 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, HMD Global’s support app is provided in the phone, 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 as games or video players do not stretch much with the notch.
Performance, camera and battery life of Nokia 5.1 Plus
We enjoyed using Nokia 5.1 Plus a lot during the review. Due to the glassy finish, they easily get marks from fingers but once cleaned, the marks disappear. If you want that the glassy finish does not get marked, then you should keep a cover for it. The phone works smoothly without any lag while using GPS for navigation, chatting and in the Uber app. While running a game, the area near the LED flash starts heating up quickly. Not much of the phone gets hot. If PUBG game is played for half an hour, the phone starts getting completely hot. There is a single loudspeaker at the bottom, the sound is quite loud at full volume. There will be a microphone for calls but there is no button to control music playback.
The camera resolution has been reduced in Nokia 5.1 Plus compared to Nokia 5.1. Recall that Nokia 5.1 had a 16-megapixel sensor on the back panel, whereas in Nokia 5.1 Plus you will get a 13-megapixel primary sensor and a 5-megapixel depth sensor. But after reviewing we have no complaints with the rear camera. While clicking a picture in landscape shot, if there is sufficient amount of light then the sensor gives better photo quality. Even with Auto-HDR, the sensor sometimes does not give the correct 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 are also provided such as you can also apply a mask on someone’s face. Beauty mode can be adjusted as per convenience, dual, P-I-P, manual and panorama modes are also provided in the rear and front cameras.
The phone is capable of recording video at 1080p, with stabilization always on, with no option to turn it off. Due to electronic stabilization, if there is sufficient amount of light, the shimmer effect will not be much visible but while shooting at night, the video quality was quite poor. In this you will also get slow-motion shooting feature 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 amount of light. Even the screen flash does not prove to be effective at night. In low light, the focus speed slows down and landscape mode is affected.
To bring life to the phone, there is a 3060 mAh battery, the battery life of the phone is also good. On a single charge we used the phone for the whole day. In 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 provided with the phone charges the phone up to 56 percent in an hour. It may take approximately 2 hours for the phone to be fully charged.
our decision
It would not be wrong to say that at the price of Rs 10,999, Nokia 5.1 Plus is a great option. We can understand that at this price, smartphones from other companies offer higher resolution but we did not face any problem while using the HD+ display during the review. The hybrid dual-SIM slot may irritate 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 great looking smartphone at this price. Apart from this, this handset is a part of Google’s Android One program, the battery life is good and also a powerful chipset has been used in this handset of Nokia brand.