[Tech Review] Nokia 5: The King is Back

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Like some of you, I've had many Nokia phones over the years. Nokia was the de facto mobile phone for many for so long. With the rise of Android and iPhones, it seemed like the King was dead. Long live the King.

The Nokia 5 is a staggeringly beautiful, well-built and armed with good specs. This is technically classed as a budget phone, but is definitely at the mid-high end of the budget scale. I was searching around for a replacement to my V7 Zyro, which was a surprisingly good phone for £60. I've never really been one to get the latest and greatest phones, the closest I came to a premium phone was with the Nexus 4, but that was only because the Nexus 5 had been released and Google were selling them off cheap. I'm a big tech fan, but I use my laptop or tablet for general web browsing and the likes, so I don't need a phone with all the bells and whistles. When I stumbled across the Nokia 5, my prayers had been answered.

On the outside, the Nokia 5 is beautifully crafted. A seamless metal body and bright, fully-laminated and polarised 5.2" Corning® Gorilla® Glass. A pleasant surprise was to find that it even comes with a conveniently placed fingerprint sensor, which I have to admit has been really very useful. Inside the phone comes with the latest generation Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 430 processor designed for excellent battery life and improved graphics. I'll just point out as well that the battery life really is impressive. With casual use, you'll easily get two days out of a single charge. There is also Near-Field Communication (NFC) for easy sharing of content, and enables you to use your phone to make payments the same as your contactless card thanks to Google Pay (formerly Android Pay). There is a MicroSD card slot so that you can expand your storage by an extra 128GB, on top of the 16GB of internal storage.

I was lucky enough to get this phone during the Black Friday sales through Amazon, but it is still incredibly well priced at £179.99. After several months of using, it's not only met my expectations, but surpassed them. Another pleasant surprise was to receive the Android 8.0 Oreo update just the other week, so Nokia clearly intend on providing good support. The phone runs stock Android (often referred to as Vanilla Android), so you're free to customise it to your heart's content. There's a wide variety of cases available for this phone too, which was something I struggled to get with the somewhat obscure V7 Zyro.

In Summary

I can't praise this phone enough, for the price you are getting a high quality product, from a brand you recognise that can easily compete with even the priciest of phones these days. It's jam-packed with the latest tech, from a fingerprint scanner, to USB OTG and NFC. If you are looking for a budget handset that's also stylish and functional, look no further than the Nokia 5. There are also a few other Nokia handsets, including a low-end budget model to an all-singing-all-dancing premium handset. I for one welcome the return of the King of Mobiles.

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Source:

Nokia 5 Official Website (https://www.nokia.com/en_gb/phones/nokia-5)

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