Hands on with the Nokia 7 Plus – our pick of Nokia’s new smartphones
The true standout star from Nokia's MWC mobiles line-up?
Hands on with the Nokia 7 Plus – our pick of Nokia’s new smartphones
High-price superphones that’ll set you back more moolah than a family holiday? Forget that. The 7 Plus is shaping up to be Nokia’s most exciting phone of 2018, with features fans are desperate for, like an 18:9 screen and skinny bezels, dual cameras, and a drop dead gorgeous design – and an actually affordable price.
Nokia 7 Plus design: budget stunner
A frame that’s machined from a single block of aluminium. Dual anodised edges in contrasting colours. Six layers of ceramic paint. The Nokia 7 Plus is a real stunner of a smartphone. It’s also relatively slim and lightweight, despite the 6in display, so you shouldn’t struggle to slip one into your pocket.
Nokia 7 Plus design: practically painted
That RF-transparent paint helps hide the antennas from view, but means they can snake all over the back of the phone – giving you fewer dropped calls, and saving the modem from working overtime to search for a strong signal. It has a similar texture to the limited edition white OnePlus 5T, only smoother and a little more polished. Not so much it’ll slip out of your hand, though.
Nokia 7 Plus design: on trend
In white and copper, it really looks the business, with accents around the edges of the rear camera lenses and fingerprint scanner, as well as the sides of the phone. On looks alone, you’d expect this phone to cost a lot more than Nokia is asking for it – and part of that is down to the skinny screen bezels, with the all-the-rage 18:9 aspect ratio that makes it look truly up to date.
Nokia 7 Plus screen: plenty of pixels
The 6in screen has a Full HD+ resolution, with the extra pixels filling out that stretched 18:9 aspect ratio. It’s an LCD panel, with great viewing angles and what seemed to be ample brightness. Colours were pretty vibrant, although contrast wasn’t as impressive – a side effect of the backlit LCD panel. Still, there’s plenty of detail for your photos and videos, what appear to be accurate colours, and next to no bezels at the sides.
Nokia 7 Plus cameras: Zeiss on board
Photography is one area that many affordable flagships fall down on, but the Nokia 7 Plus has every chance to make it one of its best features. That’s all thanks to the Zeiss glass, both on the back and up front.
Nokia 7 Plus cameras: dual lens
A 12MP + 13MP dual camera setup on the back of the phone give you 2x optical zoom, letting you get closer to your subjects and adding depth-blurring portrait shooting. We only took a few quick snaps during our hands-on session, and while things looked respectable on the phone’s screen, we’ll have to wait for a full review to give a final judgment on image quality.
Nokia 7 Plus cameras: extra smarts
We also discovered the Pro Camera mode, giving you greater control over your shots with white balance, shutter speed and ISO dials. Nokia also reckons it’ll be adding some AI assistance to its camera, helping with object recognition and even removing haze from the backgrounds of your images. This tech will also enable face unlocking, a la the iPhone X.
Nokia 7 Plus software: pure Android
Nokia is going all in on Android One, meaning you don’t have to worry about custom skins, weird-looking icons or loads of bloatware when you first turn your phone on: the 7 Plus is as close to stock Android as a non-Google phone gets.
Nokia 7 Plus performance: top class
It feels super-quick, too, thanks to the Snapdragon 660 CPU. It’s paired with 4GB of RAM, which is enough to cope well with multitasking, and the reduced power draw should hopefully mean a stonkingly good battery life to boot. Nokia reckons you’ll get two days between charges, which is twice as long as you’ll manage from most mid-rangers.
Nokia 7 Plus initial verdict: our favourite Nokia
Nokia unveiled a whole bunch of phones at this year’s MWC – so it says something about the Nokia 7 Plus that it’s our favourite of the lot. This affordable flagship is doing things you would have had to pay twice the price for just a year or two ago, and it seems to have all the features you could hope for.
Nokia 7 Plus initial verdict: an affordable winner
The gorgeous design, must-have 18:9 screen and face unlocking tech put it side-by-side with established mid-range marvels like Huawei and OnePlus. If you’re a fan of white and copper? Then the Nokia might just be the one to go for at £350/US$490.
