How cheap is a smartphone to meet budget level requirements? In recent years, as mobile phone prices have continued to rise, this problem has become increasingly difficult to answer. However, HMD Global has not blindly followed the trend, it launched a 5.7-inch Nokia 4.2, Tomtop.com priced at 113.50 US dollars. Not to mention domestic brands, this price is still lower than most people’s definition of cheap in foreign countries, especially when some low-cost competitors such as Moto G7 series have exceeded the $300 mark.
However, even though you paid a small amount for Nokia 4.2, you can still get a narrower border, a rear dual camera, a 3000mAh battery and Google’s latest Android One software. I have to say that Nokia 4.2 is a cheap mobile phone worthy of respect. Although it is better to add more than $200, Nokia 4.2 may be the best choice for the price range of $113.50.
Price and sales channels
Nokia 4.2 is priced at $113.50 at Tomtop.com and is available in black and hummus powder and is available on Best Buy, B&H and Amazon. On the other hand, Nokia 4.2 is priced at £149 in the UK and is sold by Amazon. Currently, the phone only supports GSM operators such as cdma-based networks such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile and Cricket Wireless, while networks like Sprint and Verizon are not supported.
Specifications
Nokia 4.2 is equipped with a 5.7-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1520*720; a front-facing single camera with 8 megapixels, and a rear-mounted dual-camera 13 megapixel wide-angle lens with a 2 megapixel depth of field lens; equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 The processor, with a 3GB+32GB storage combination, supports expansion to 400GB of memory via a micro SD card; runs the Android 9 Pie system with a battery capacity of 3000mAH.
Design
In today’s mobile world, shaped screens are not uncommon, and many flagship machines use Liu Haiping or water drop screens. The Nokia 4.2 uses a water drop screen design. The sides of the frame and the forehead border are still narrow, and the slightly wider chin is not awkward. Overall, the design of this phone can still meet the expectations of most consumers.
The body material is mainly glass panel + polycarbonate frame, rounded corners and curved edges are reminiscent of the iPhone XS. In fact, the size and shape of the Nokia 4.2 is roughly the same as the XS, but its body is thicker. On the back of the Nokia 4.2, you will find a capacitive fingerprint sensor located below the rear dual camera. In actual use, we found that when you want to unlock the phone, you will always accidentally touch the LED flash. This is not a good idea. A wonderful experience.
It is worth mentioning that the biggest highlight of the Nokia 4.2 is its LED power button. The power button on the right side of the fuselage has a built-in “breathing light”, which will be lit when the phone receives a notification message. This design is very nostalgic, reminiscent of the Android phone in the previous functional machine era, but also has a variety of notification flashing lights. Of course, if you don’t like this design, you can turn it off at any time in the settings. In addition, there is a button on the left side of the fuselage, mainly used to support Google Voice Assistant, the specific operation is to call the voice assistant long press.
Unfortunately, Nokia 4.2 uses a micro USB instead of a Type-C port. Although this design is common in low-cost phones, we still want it to be able to configure Type-C ports. After all, micro USB is slowly fading out of the public’s attention. From the point of view of use, everyone wants a charging line with more compatibility and faster charging speed.
The machine has two colors, and we are getting the black version. Although this phone looks very good, it was amazing when I saw the pink version before. The color is matte and cute, but not too much.
The screen display is slightly insufficient
The Nokia 4.2’s 5.7-inch display is not large, the 1520*720 pixels are not high enough, and the LCD display does not provide a sufficiently bright screen color display. Its maximum full-screen brightness is 348 nits, far below the average brightness of the 488-nit flagship smartphone, not to mention the $249 Moto G7 Power (558 nits).
In actual use, since I have already touched many QHD OLED displays with super wide color gamut support and HDR, there is no shocking feeling when watching big movies on Nokia 4.2. The colors displayed are not bright enough and the picture is not enough. Clear.
If you like bright, full color display, Nokia 4.2’s 95% sRGB coverage is simply not enough. Most mobile phones currently have a color coverage of more than 100%, and HMD does not offer any options for more saturated colors. But all these shortcomings, as long as you think of its price of 189 dollars can be forgiven.
Hardware configuration: in line with its price positioning
The Qualcomm 439 processor built into Nokia 4.2 is based on a 12nm process and integrates four performance cores and four optimized efficiency cores. The 3+32GB storage configuration makes the battery capacity of 3000mAH completely sufficient. In the test, we have been browsing the webpage on T-Mobile’s LTE network with a brightness of 150 nit. The machine has been on standby for 9 hours and 12 minutes.
But I have to say that this is indeed a low-end configuration. In daily use, some applications and the running of the game will delay the phone and generate heat. However, in the process of browsing the web and the like generally using the Android operating system, there is no problem. In the test of the large-scale mobile game using “Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds”, I am fortunate to bring this game, but unfortunately, when landing, skydiving began to drop frames, but overall, the operation on the low graphics is smooth. .
On the other hand, like other Nokia phones recently, Nokia 4.2 is also an Android One device that runs the Android 9 Pie system with gesture navigation, adaptive brightness, and application operations. In addition, it has some custom designs, such as Nokia’s own brand camera, FM tuner, supported applications and more. In general, the native Android Android One is still very streamlined and very pure.
Camera: nothing special
Nokia’s 4.2-megapixel main lens takes on most of the burden associated with photography, and the 2-megapixel depth-of-field lens provides a stereoscopic view of imaging. The camera avoids fancy functions and over-processed scenes on the camera, and turns to reality more. What you get when you see it, it doesn’t make people feel that the camera is powerful but not wrong.
From the sample, this scene was taken on a cloudy day after a rain in Bryant Park, New York City. The scenes in the Nokia 4.2 lens have a faint green projection, and the highlights on the canopy are almost dazzling. It features a dedicated Bokeh mode to make full use of the rear dual camera, but its autofocus is not so easy to achieve, in a scene with good lighting, and it takes time to focus on the scene or character to be shot. Self-timer is relatively better, and character imaging is very natural.
To Sum Up
In fact, it is still difficult to recommend a mobile phone within $150, but Nokia 4.2 is still a good choice. Its design is in line with the trend of the times, although the parameters are not beautiful enough, the sense of use is more general, but these are based on the comparison of those flagship machines. Overall, the $113.50 Nokia 4.2 still meets all your imaginations at this mobile phone price.
