Introduction
Following the recent $89.50 Nokia 3 deal, I finally got myself one at Woolworths. I saw about 3 left in the drawer at the time of my purchase.
What’s in the box?
- Nokia 3 2017 TA-1020 (Silver)
- Some cheap earbuds with mic
- Vodafone $40 starter kit
- 2x SIM ejectors
- MicroUSB charge & sync cable
- 1A Nokia branded charger
Physical features
White phone, silver trim. The aluminium edges aren’t too cold to hold because of the lovely plastic back. I cannot overstate how nice the soft touch plastic back is. It is certainly a joy to hold. It feels more premium than the plastic backs on my Nexus 5, Lumia 640 and Lumia 532. There’s a good grippy feeling to the plastic without it feeling like the phone might fuse to your hand with stickyness. The texture is soft and smooth, but not unreasonably slippery like the aforementioned phones. This is the material to design phones with. Huge plus. The buttons work well and are defined enough. The colours on the screen look less vibrant than my Nexus 5, with greens looking quite pale. I do not notice the 720p resolution. The 5” screen is nice for someone who loves a small screen. Perfectly usable with one hand! I didn’t mind the capacitive buttons.
Network
3G Network Band
850/900/1900/2100 DC-HSPA+
4G Network Band
700/800/850/900/1800/ 2100/2300/2600 LTE Cat 4
(Perfect for Telstra, Optus and Vodafone when unlocked)
The Nokia 3 works fine with a Kogan SIM inside. Haven’t gotten around to testing other Vodafone MVNOs, but I imagine the situation will be the same. Phone is network locked ($25 to unlock the phone). Interesting thing is that the included $40 SIM appears is activateable on the Vodafone Prepaid 365 Plus plan (unlike the $10 starter SIM on the Nokia 3310). The SIM appears the same on the activation website as a standard $40 SIM and is not locked to any particular plan. If you choose $40 Prepaid 365 Plus, you should be able to use $25 of that included credit to unlock the phone in 6 months for free! (but no promises) Vodafone support says you must pay the $25 with a debit card. Others report that over live chat, claiming to be going overseas can unlock the phone for free. Also amazing is the inclusion of B28 (700Mhz) on this phone. If you happen to get this unlocked, according to Whirlpool this phone is Vodafone/Telstra VoLTE compatible; also VoLTE is advertised on the box and available with prepaid.
Performance
I don’t believe this phone is nearly as bad as some internet reviewers make it out to be. Sure I notice occasional stuttering in some of the animations. The interface is clearly not as smooth as my Nexus 5 running a minimalist Lineage OS, but it’s hardly what you’d call unusable. However typing can be frustrating because the vibration motor is not “tart” enough to give you proper haptic feedback. With quick typing the Nokia 3 just gives you a numbing unstopping “buzz” instead of a quicker “bzt, bzt” so it’s hard to know if you’ve typed a letter. The Nexus 5X possibly has the most “tart” vibration motor I’ve used. You can mitigate this problem by swipe typing because there’s only one finger involved, so it’s not too much of deal breaker. Stock Android certainly helps this phone feel faster, but the janky animations switching between apps and with the launcher is an issue.
Playing Pokemon Go on this phone is perfectly fine, but you will experience quite a bit of lag in the menus. Interestingly enough the actual catching Pokemon and battling in raids is smooth, it’s just the admin aspects of the game that slow to a crawl. I was bothered that the menus were somewhat slower when picking Pokemon for the raid, particularly when my team got wiped. The switching between Pokemon when one gets wiped is a little slower than my Nexus 5. Getting into a raid is also a bit slower, with my Nokia 3 getting in about 8 seconds after the raid starts compared to 3-4 seconds for my Nexus 5/other people’s phones. The worst lagging I notice in Pokemon Go is opening and sending gifts, the Nokia 3 absolutely chokes on those animations, however the core Pokemon experience is still fine since gifting isn’t time sensitive. It’s still perfectly playable. I can still throw curveballs fine and the Pokemon attack animations are smooth, both in battle and catching. I can dodge well and fire off charge moves with any problems. However, for people who want to quickly navigate menus to take down a gym before someone golden razzes, this phone will frustrate. GPS appears to be fine in a sparsely populated suburb and clear weather. I will need to test how accurate it is in the city/cloudy weather. Sunlight legibility is bad even when at max brightness. This is probably a bigger problem for playing Pokemon Go than the menu lag because the screen reflects light and glare much like a 2006 glossy laptop screen does.
A few things I still want to test are: lag in Summer, but so far the phone is shaping up to be a useable phone for Pokemon Go.
Battery life
Nokia 3
GSMArena rating 53h
Pokemon Go Daytime - 3.5hrs continuous
Pokemon Go Nighttime - 4hrs continuous
Time to charge 0 - 100% - 3 hrs
Nexus 5 (2016 battery)
GSMArena rating: 38h
Pokemon Go Daytime - 1.5hrs continuous
Pokemon Go Nighttime - 2hrs continuous
Time to charge 0 - 100% - 2 hrs
The Nokia 3 has a good amount of battery life, however the weak point appears to be standby power drain, which appears to be quite high. There is no fast charging, with the charge times being noticeably longer than the Nexus 5.
Updates
Writing this review on the 18th of July 2018, this phone is on Android 8.0 with a security patch level of June 2018. That’s pretty good for $90.
Other
I find the text and icons to be a bit small. I have already adjusted the text to be bigger, but the icons cannot be adjusted in size with the default launcher. My Nexus 5 is 4 icons across instead of the Nokia 3’s 5 icons.
Conclusion
While the performance is not at the level of a 2013 flagship, I believe that whoever you’re buying this phone will be grateful. The value for $90 certainly is undeniable. At $250, which is what Hardly Normal sells it unlocked for, this phone is very poor value. At $90, however this is probably the best entry level phone you can buy in Australia today, Pokemon is very playable on this phone and fine for a second device phone, although if you can spare the change, I’d shell out more for a smoother experience and a nicer screen. Whether or not the slower response times in Pokemon bother you depends on how short on manpower you are. ~4 seconds can be the difference between success and failure in a raid. It certainly doesn’t help that the fainting animations and menus are slower too, but on the whole you are getting 90% of the required performance for $90.
Verdict: Would I buy this phone again? Yes! 8.5/10 (@ $90).
Thanks for the review!