Friday, July 23, 2021

Nokia G10 Review

HMD Global recently brought a new smartphone in the country that packs a 6.5-inch display, a Helio G25 SoC, a triple rear camera setup, and a massive 5,050mAh battery for under PHP 7K, the Nokia G10. Is this entry-level smartphone worth getting? Find out in our review.

Design and Construction

Upon holding the device, you would immediately feel the smartphone’s matte textured finish. The body is made of plastic and sports the Night colorway. A Dusk model is also available. Because of the matte finish, it is less attracted to fingerprints and smudges. It also provides a good grip and is comfortable to hold due to its slim profile.

The back also features the Nokia logo and its protruding circular camera module where you get the three cameras and a LED flash, which we’ll talk about more later.

Upfront, we can find its 6.52-inch HD+ v-notch display and the 8MP selfie camera and call speaker just above it. It has slim bezels but the chin is slightly thicker with the Nokia branding printed on it.

Found on the right side are the volume rocker and power/lock button that doubles as the fingerprint scanner.

While on the left, we have a triple card tray that can accommodate two nano-sized SIM cards and a microSD card. Also found here is the dedicated Google Assistant button.

Up top, we got the 3.5mm audio port alongside the secondary microphone.

Down at the bottom resides its primary microphone, USB Type-C port, and speaker grilles.

Display and Multimedia

The Nokia G10 is equipped with a 6.52-inch IPS LCD panel with a 1600 x 720 resolution. Color reproduction and viewing angles are okay. However, it’s lacking in vibrancy which is more evident when used outdoors. The resolution is fine as well and the pixel density of 269ppi, is good enough for watching HD videos and viewing photos.

Audio-wise, it’s not impressive. It sounds tinny when set at max volume, which is typical for entry-level phones. It’s okay, though, for online calls and casual listening. If you want a better audio experience, we recommend using wired headphones using its 3.5mm audio jack or Bluetooth earbuds.

Camera

The Nokia G10 packs a 13MP main camera, 2MP macro, and a 2MP depth sensor. Given that it’s an entry-level device, we lowered our expectations for the camera but we actually got decent quality for a phone of this class.

Photos that came out have decent clarity and colors, although there are some images that looked pale. It has nice contrast but lacks a bit of dynamic range. We liked the selfie quality and implements HDR. Night mode is also present, which also does a great job of making the subject seen in low-light conditions. Portrait mode, on the other hand, can be a little bit of a hit-and-miss. The 2MP depth sensor sometimes gets confused between the subject and the background. There’s a macro lens but don’t expect high-quality images given the 2MP sensor. Overall, it’s not perfect, but the camera quality is good enough for social media uploads.

For video, the Nokia G10 can record up to 1080p at 30fps. Aside from it being a little shaky since there’s no OIS or EIS present, the videos also come out a little bit overprocessed with evidence of oversharpening and boosted contrast. Watch the sample below.

OS, UI, and Apps

The Nokia G10 runs on the Android One-certified stock Android 11 with a clean and easy-to-navigate UI. It’s just pure Android with basic Google services and no other pre-installed apps, which is great considering that we only have 48GB of usable space out of the 64GB. There’s a dedicated microSD card slot, though, for your files.

On the other hand, some users might find vanilla Android boring. But you can easily remedy that by installing a launcher from the Google Play Store.

Performance and Benchmarks

The Nokia G10 is powered by MediaTek Helio G25 chipset with an octa-core CPU and PowerVR GE8320 GPU. Our unit has 4GB of RAM, but a 3GB RAM option is also available. Navigating the UI and launching apps is pretty smooth, though we noticed slowness when many apps are running in the background. Face recognition works well, although the fingerprint scanner feels sluggish at times.

We were able to test Genshin Impact on it and it stutters a lot in Medium settings. We recommend setting it at its lowest to get a better experience, but you can still expect some stutters every now and then. But if you’re not into demanding titles, the Nokia G10 can handle light games quite well. Check out the benchmark scores below:

• AnTuTu v8 – 257,914
• 3DMark – 465 (OpenGL 3.1), 638 (Vulkan)
• PC Mark – 5,254 (Work 3.0)
• Geekbench 5 – 148 (Single-Core), 805 (Multi-Core), 1,341 (OpenCL)
• AndroBench – 254.35 MB/s (Seq. Read), 140.98 MB/s (Seq. Write)

Connectivity and Battery Life

The Nokia G10 packs all the standard connectivity features such as dual-SIM, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, and 4G LTE. Pretty basic.

When it comes to its battery, it sports a 5,050mAh battery, which should satisfy users who are looking for a daily driver that can last almost two days of casual use. We ran our standard video loop test and we got 22 hours and 18 minutes of playback while PC Mark’s Work 3.0 battery test yielded 19 hours and 30 minutes, which is good.

Conclusion

The Nokia G10 is one device that we consider a good daily driver for casual users. It’s affordable, has decent cameras and performance, and long battery life. It’s not for those who want to play graphic-intensive games given the entry-level chipset. The small RAM and storage add to that limitation as well. It’s good for social media use, online classes, or entertainment. Should you buy it? If you’re on a tight budget, the Nokia G10 is a good option for PHP 6,990. But if you can stretch the budget a bit, even for a couple of thousand pesos, you might find a better alternative.

Nokia G10 specs:
6.5-inch HD+ v-notch display
MediaTek Helio G25 2.0GHz octa-core CPU
PowerVR GE8320 GPU
3GB, 4GB RAM
32GB, 64GB storage
microSD card slot (dedicated)
Triple rear cameras:
• 13MP (main)
• 2MP (macro)
• 2MP (depth)
8MP front camera
4G LTE
Dual-SIM (nano)
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 5.0
GPS/AGPS, GLONASS, Beidou
Google Assistant button
Fingerprint scanner (side)
Face unlock
FM radio
3.5mm audio jack
USB Type-C
Android 11
5,050mAh battery
164.9 x 76.0 x 9.2mm
194g
Night, Dusk