Nokia 7 Plus Long-Term Review
A flawed Pixel for the cheap
Everyone remembers Nokia being the king of smartphones back in the day. During the mobile phone boom, Nokia built a reputation for itself through its distinctive phone design.
Fast forward to 2016, Microsoft sold Nokia Mobile to HMD Global. The Finnish company revived the newly acquired brand by adopting Android and selling smartphones from December 2016.
I owned one of its best-selling devices, the Nokia 7 Plus, and after thoroughly enjoying it for three years, I’ve a lot to say about this phone, so let’s get started.
Before diving into all its glory, here are the specs:
• Display: 6-inch IPS LCD, 1920x1080 pixels, 402 PPI, 18:9
• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 660
• GPU: Adreno 512
• Storage: 64GB eMMC 5.1
• RAM: 4GB
• Battery: 3800mAh
• Camera: Front-16MP, Back-12MP primary f/1.75 + 16MP telephoto f/2.6
• Build: Aluminum
• Software (latest installed): Android 10
Display — Gets the job done
The Nokia 7 Plus was the first Nokia phone to use a tall 18:9 aspect ratio, which increases screen real estate while the bezels seem smaller than the rest of its lineup, making the phone visually appealing. Because of the small bezels, it’s easier to hold the phone without accidentally touching the screen, which is a concern with today’s curved-edge screens.
After three years, the screen still looks great, but with phones like the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra sporting an immersive 20:9 aspect ratio, it feels dated.
The Nokia 7 Plus’ IPS LCD display is decent on its own, but it pales in comparison to AMOLED ones, which deliver rich blacks and excellent power efficiency.
The maximum brightness of the panel is 476 nits, which is insufficient. I had difficulty seeing the screen in direct sunlight. There is no smooth 90hz or 120hz refresh rate, no curves of any kind, and no display enhancement magic to boot.
Even with its shortcomings, though, it’s a decent display that has held up well despite its age.
Build — Nokia 3310s durability jokes work here too
Exceptional build quality has always distinguished Nokia devices from other brands. Just like the Nokia 3310, the Nokia 7 Plus is built like a tank. Nokia made the back of the phone from 6000 series aluminum, a rarity in today’s age of glass sandwich smartphones. Even though I have dropped my beloved Nokia many times, it only has one chip in the upper right corner.
Durability aside, this phone needs a case because it’s too slippery, and if you don’t use one, expect a lot of fingerprints to show up on the black color variant (fingerprints are less noticeable on the white variant though).
Design-wise, the 7 Plus’ copper trim literally shines. The trim is also present around the camera ring and fingerprint sensor, which gives the phone a unique look.
The build quality is excellent, and I hope Nokia does not stray from it. It would be great for consumers and Nokia itself if it continues to produce high-quality smartphones.
Performance — Nothing to write home about
This is where the Nokia 7 Plus’ Rs. 28,000 price tag comes into play. Although the specifications clarify that this is a mid-range phone, I noticed a substantial drop in performance when I downloaded more apps, started shooting 1080p 60fps videos, and played demanding games.
If you want to play titles such as Asphalt 9 or PUBG at their highest graphics settings, the Snapdragon 660 will not cut it.
The 4GB of RAM is the device’s real bottleneck though. When exercising, I have my workout app and Spotify running in the background, but when I try switching between them, one app occasionally stops because of insufficient RAM. I can’t even open the camera app while music is playing in the background, because the former hogs almost all the RAM, and Android takes the rest.
I had hoped that Android 10 would solve most of these issues, but unfortunately for me, I was wrong. I found several bugs in this build, and believe Nokia rushed this release to meet users’ expectations as one of the few companies to ship the latest Android update in a few months.
After the Android 10 update, the Nokia 7 Plus had a lot of problems including UI freezing and apps crashing.
It is capable of simple things like editing photos and videos, browsing the web, making video calls, and playing light games, but if you have a lot of apps running in the background, it won’t be able to sustain its performance for long.
Unfortunately, Android 10 was the last official update for the device, so I’ll have to bear with these issues unless I decide to use a custom ROM.
Software — The closest you can ever get to a Pixel
Nokia phones excel in the software department. The pure stock Android experience motivated my Nokia 7 Plus purchase. Given my dissatisfaction with Google’s pricey Pixel phones, I sought cheaper alternatives.
With Android One, Nokia promised two years of software updates and one year of security patches after that. For me, it checked all the boxes.
Nokia doesn’t use an ugly or intrusive skin which degrades the user experience. There is no bloatware, and the only pre-installed app is the camera. If you subtract all the Pixel-exclusive features from Pixel ROM, the experience is akin to a Nokia device.
There is nothing more appealing to me than having the most up-to-date Android OS available. Even though Android 10 has a lot of features and improvements: a new way to navigate with gestures, a dark system theme, battery life improvements, and more, it didn’t impress me at first.
My phone boot looped and then shut down while updating to Android 10! In the process, I lost all my data, which didn’t help Android 10s' first impression. I spent the entire night trying to reinstall it, but gave up and started over.
Every day I encountered many app crashes, consistent lag, as well as decreased battery life (I’ll talk about that later).
While it may seem like a nitpick, the lack of support for new gesture navigation in third-party launchers is a major issue for me because I am fond of customization and custom launchers are the bedrock for it.
Although Nokia delivers Android upgrades at a breakneck pace, I’d rather have it focus on developing bug-free software that is stable rather than racing to deploy it.
Battery — Leaves you wanting more
Coming to battery life, my experience has been mixed. With a 3800mAh cell, the screen-on time is about 4.5–5 hours, which is sub-par.
When the phone was on Android 8.0 Oreo, I eked out decent battery life, but after updating to Android 10, the battery life worsened. There was no benefit to using the update’s adaptive battery feature, so I turned it off. Nokia released updates to tackle this problem, but none of them worked.
On the bright side, the situation didn’t turn so ugly that I had to change my battery outright. Battery life deterioration is a reality, and the 7 Plus did a fair job here.
Camera — It ain’t a Pixel here
Cameras aren’t a strong suit of Nokia and the 7 Plus shows that. The 12+16MP combination with Zeiss optics can produce good shots for Instagram and Facebook, but when compared to the camera kings like Pixels and iPhones, you will see a major difference in picture quality.
The Nokia 7 Plus delivers washed-out photos with crushed blacks, and with the lack of a dedicated night mode, the phone struggles to take a good-quality photo in the dark.
Videos aren’t great either. The lack of OIS produces shaky videos, and the end-result is not impressive. Nokia has capped the video output to 1080 30fps, with no sign of 1080 60fps on the horizon, even though the hardware has the horsepower to support it.
Even if you’re a seasoned photographer, you won’t be able to get the best results out of the pro mode. It takes a long time to focus, and the camera UI is janky. Nokia needs to make the app quicker and easier to use.
The front-facing shooter will suffice for selfies, so no complaints here.
I have used a mod of Google Camera (Gcam) before to enhance picture quality, and it had a noticeable effect! The photos were vibrant and detailed.
Everything was going well till the Android 10 update arrived. Gcam no longer works on the Android 10 builds for the Nokia 7 Plus, and still there’s no explanation for that. As a workaround, I am using the Camera Go app from Google to get some of the main Gcam mod’s features.
To sum it up, the 7 Plus is a decent shooter for taking Instagram and Facebook pictures, but if you’re looking for an amazing and feature-rich camera, then this is not the phone for you.
Bits and bobs
For the little details that add up to a great overall experience, the call quality is excellent and on a par with that of other phones.
Unfortunately, there is no stereo speaker setup, so you can easily block the bottom-firing speaker with a finger while playing games. Even though the audio quality isn’t great, it does the job.
There is no face unlock feature, but the fingerprint sensor works well and also doubles down as a sensor area for swiping down with your finger to show notifications.
Verdict
Whew! I could write a lot more about my three-year experience with this phone, but it’ll stretch this blog out. Nokia has my utmost respect for creating this smartphone because it delivered on its promises.
In today’s saturated smartphone market, where companies release their phones with bloatware-infested skins and cheap physical construction, Nokia dared to do something different and thus, caught my eye.
The 7 Plus is a special phone for me as it reminds me of my Nexus 5X (RIP). I hope Nokia continues delivering premium-quality smartphones and works on its weaknesses. If it can figure out the camera issues, deliver stable updates, and release attractively priced phones, then it has the potential to capture the market as it once did.
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