HMD Global introduced Nokia 3.4 as its latest budget offering in the Indian market. The device is priced at Rs 11,999 for the 4GB RAM with 64GB storage variant. The smartphone is a follow up of Nokia 3.2 and does bring some upgrades over its predecessor. The phone is part of the Android One programme and it guarantees two years of software upgrades. So let’s go ahead and find out all about the Nokia 3.4 in this review.
Design and Display
To begin with, the Nokia 3.4 is made of polycarbonate material. Its back panel has a textured finish, which makes for an easy grip. Therefore the design does not attract fingerprints and smudges that easily. This is a big relief. Thanks to the plastic build, the smartphone is sturdy and light to hold. The rear panel houses a fingerprint reader just below the circular camera module. You can summon the notification panel by swiping the fingerprint sensor up or down.
On the utility front, the power and the volume control button is given on the right side of the frame whereas the left side contains a dedicated Google Assistant button and SIM/microSD card slot. Likewise, the 3.5mm headphone jack and a primary microphone is given at the top. Whereas the USB Type-C port, speaker grill and a secondary microphone are provided at the bottom frame of the device.
With that said, allow us to explain the performance of the display. The Nokia 3.4 has gone with the punch hole cut out instead of a notch. The phone features a 6.39-inch HD+ display with 720×1,560 pixels of resolutions. It offers a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and 400 nits of peak brightness. The display looks vibrant and the colours are acceptable as well given the price point. For HD content viewing the images looked sharp enough so you will definitely enjoy watching videos and reading on the display. So, all in all, the display is good enough for social media browsing, YouTube et al.
Performance and Cameras
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 460 SoC is at the core of Nokia 3.4 and we have a model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage model but you can also go for the higher-end variant, which has 6GB RAM with 64GB storage. While operating the device we encountered frequent lag especially while multitasking, this was bound to happen since it has an old CPU.
While playing high-end games like Call of Duty the performance backfires. On very high graphics and high frame rate settings we experienced stutters every now and then so you need to turn down the setting for smoother gameplay.
On the Nokia 3.4, you do get a stock Android experience running Android 10 that comes with two years of software upgrade and three years of security updates. The fingerprint sensor on the phone may not be the best but gets the job done. It can also be used to call down the notification panel. The day to day performance is decent but when you run multiple apps at the same time you would see that the phone becomes less responsive. One thing we loved about the smartphone is that Nokia has kept the user interface clean from bloatware.
Ok, now performance out of the way let’s talk about the optics. Enclosed inside a circular module the placement of the triple camera looks nice. The set-up includes a 13-megapixel primary sensor, alongside a 5-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens with a 2-megapixel depth sensor and an LED flash. On the front, there is a hole punch to house an 8-megapixel selfie camera sensor.
The normal daytime images as you can see from the samples here the image turned out to be grittier. They lacked details and dynamic range. The pictures you get are slightly pale and yellowish. Whereas the wide-angle shots tend to look dark and lack the much-needed punch.
As for the portraits, the edge detection is good however the portrait shots looked darker. The nighttime images on the Nokia 3.4 looked hazy, soft and lacked details though there is a dedicated night mode that does boost the brightness but in the end, it lacked any sort of detail and sharpness. Now getting to the front camera, subjects look very soft and smooth but lacked details and exposure on the Nokia 3.4.
When it comes to videos it offers [email protected] on both the front and the back. As expected there is no video stabilisation.
As for the battery, Nokia 3.4 gets its juice from the 4,000mAh battery. We experienced 6 to 7 hours of screen time on this phone daily and the battery was not a problem. We used this as our primary phone which consisted of switching between various social media apps, gaming and binging YouTube content. In our everyday usage, it delivered a fair amount of endurance on fairly heavy usage. So the device will last you through a day with some charge left at the end of it. When it comes to charging it takes over three and a half hours to get from zero to 100 percent, which is an absolute pain. This is only because the company ships a 5W power adapter. So we recommend an overnight charge.
The audio performance is just about ok as the bottom-firing speaker is not very loud and lacks bass.
Conclusion
Given its price (Rs 11,300) and specs, the Nokia 3.4 is somewhat a miss and a hit. The design might be attractive, but the underwhelming performance cannot be ignored. Also, its below-average camera performance makes it very difficult for us to recommend this phone to everyone. In case you want all-day battery life and a decent screen, then you can go for it.
Pros
Isn’t too heavy
Stock Android experience and guarantees updates
Textured finish back panel
Cons
Very slow charging
Below average cameras
Price can be lower
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