Nokia 8.3 5G Review - Should You Buy James Bond's Phone!? | The Tech Chap By The Tech Chap

My name, it's chap the tech chap okay. Let me explain. Basically, this is gonna, be James Bond's phone. Well, maybe not his actual phone, although it would be fun to see Daniel Craig talk about what his daily driver is. But this is the Nokia 8.35 g, and it's the phone that presumably Nokia is spending a ton of money on to feature as the new bond phone in the upcoming movie no time to die. Okay, that's better! It's going far too hard, not tuxedo, but anyway.

Marketing aside, this is Nokia's new flagship phone, the 8.3, 5g, and it'll, set you back 500 pounds or 700. So it's firmly in the not quite flagship but trying to be better than the usual mid-range type of phone category. It's also Nokia's first 5g phone, although it only supports sub 6, gigahertz 5g, not mm wave, but that's not the end of the world and Nokia says this supports more 5g bands than any other 5g phone right now. So what exactly makes this stand out other than the fact that maybe Daniel Craig may have it in his pocket? Well, for me, recent Nokia have always been about having that fast and pure android software, good cameras, or at least interesting cameras like last year's Nokia, 9 preview, and also not costing an arm and a leg, and so with android one, a quad camera setup and a 500 pound price tag. This should be good now, the first time you pick this up, your first impression is going to be.

This is a big phone. I mean it's 8.9 millimeters thick. It weighs 220 grams, and we get a 6.81-inch screen. It really is a bit of a chunky monkey and while the bezels are pretty thin around three of the edges, we do have a bit of a chin at the bottom here. But if you do want that big phone screen experience, then it's fine, and I think it's a pretty good.

Looking phone overall, we get gorilla glass on the back, although there's no word on the front, so I'm guessing not, but the takeaway is while it looks fairly smart, it does feel a little plastic. It's also very slippery to hold. I do like this polar night color though, and hopefully you do as well, because well, there aren't actually any other choices. We get this circular camera module on the back. The power button here on the right doubles as a fingerprint reader, which I actually quite like, and it does feel more comfortable given its size than saying in screen reader, but then, on the other side slightly bizarrely, we have a dedicated Google Assistant button and as much as I'm trying to get used to it, I keep pressing the wrong one to unlock it.

It kind of reminds me of Samsung's Bixby button in that we just don't really need it, and it's more hassle than it's worth. We also don't get any wireless charging and come to think of it. I don't think there's an yip water resistance rating either. There is a headphone jack, though, if you're still into that sort of thing, but we do only get a single, fairly average speaker, which is a little disappointing, so headphones are definitely the way to go. So let's talk specs, and we get a snapdragon 765g chip which isn't quite a flagship 865, but it's more than powerful enough for any game or app right now, alongside six or eight gigs of ram and 64 or 128, gigs of storage, plus micro SD support.

We also get a good-sized 4 500 William hour battery, and I find that I still have about 30 of my battery left at the end of the day. So no complaints there, you should be able to get a good day and a half out of this with a bit of rationing. But for me one of the biggest selling points is the software. It runs android 10, but because it's an android one phone, I know that's slightly confusing, but it means that you're essentially getting the Google Pixel experience, so there are no skins or horrible ugly UI on top or tons of bloatware, just pure vanilla android, which also means it'll, be one of the first phones to get updates like android 11. So far, so good, then.

But what lets this down a little, I think, is the screen. It's LCD rather than AMOLED, and it's also only 60 hertz, neither of which are really dealbreakers, but so many phones now offer smoother 90 or 120 hertz screens, even the 200 pound, Poco x3, for example, and it does make a difference to how fast everything feels will the average person going into a phone store really care or mind that much about 60 versus 90 hertz? Probably not is the answer, and I think that's why you know apple, probably don't have that much to worry about with the iPhone 12 if they do go with 60 hertz, but given the fact that you can get lots of other phones in this price range with high refresh rates, it's a little disappointing. Having said that, the screen still looks pretty good, and by default this pure display is turned on which boosts everything up, so it's sharper and punchier. It certainly makes videos and games pop a little more, but it can feel a little artificial and over sharpen. Sometimes one of my biggest criticisms.

Right now, though, is when it comes to auto brightness. I think there's a bug- or at least it's not working quite right. I know a few other reviewers have had this issue, but even in bright sunlight, sometimes it will just lower the brightness right down without you doing anything, so you can't even see the phone, so it seems a bit hit or miss the auto brightness detector, but hopefully that's something they can fix in a software update. Now, let's talk about this camera, we get four lenses with the main one being 64 megapixels I mean considering they've partnered with mass optics, and we're getting that preview camera branding. You would expect this to be pretty good.

We also get a 12 megapixel degree ultra-wide lens, but unfortunately no telephoto. So while you can zoom in its digital, only so there's the main lens the ultra-wide, and then we have a two megapixel macro and a two megapixel depth sensor. So it completes that marketing friendly quad camera setup, which every phone manufacturer and the ROG seems to want to put into their handsets these days. The depth lens should help with portrait shots to some extent, but I still find the both blur a bit artificial looking and the macro is pretty much useless. The quality just isn't good enough, so we get the usual array of modes including a night mode and the longer exposure adds more light and detail, but it does start to struggle if it gets too dark.

Nokia is also putting a lot of emphasis on video. You can shoot in 4k, which is pretty standard these days and also 21x9 ultrawide. If you want to give it a bit more of a cinematic feel, but there's nothing really that special to write home about here and then around the front. We have a 24 megapixel selfie camera, although for some reason selfie portraits seem to go really dark and contrast. So the question is: should you actually buy the Nokia 8.3 5g? Well, it is a good phone. I love the software, we got solid performance, good battery life and I think it looks quite nice, although it's not maybe the most sophisticated or most premium phone out there, but I think as a package.

It does a pretty good job, especially given the price, as I say, about 500 pounds. So that is worth bearing in mind that, of course, you're not going to get. You know, Galaxy Note, 20, ultra cans of level of premiums and finish and features. This is a 500 pound or 700 phones, but that argument goes both ways because, while versus flagships, this may look like a pretty good deal. There are so many other budgets, mid-range phones.

Now that actually make this look a little outdated and I think there are just a few too many compromises here: 60 hertz, LCD, single speaker, no water resistance, no wireless charging, it's pretty bulky and the macro and depth lenses. Aren't that useful, I think six months ago. Even most of this could be forgiven, but competition, as I say in the mid-range, has got so strong recently and the likes of the OnePlus word and the motor g5g plus, for example, are better in almost every way plus. If you do just want that stock, android experience, then the Pixel 4a or the upcoming pixel 5 may be a better option. So perhaps if Nokia or HMD global, who actually own Nokia, maybe spend a bit less money on the James Bond marketing budget and a bit more on the handset itself, then we'd be in a better place.

But while there's nothing wrong with this phone- and I think if you do buy it, you'll be pretty happy with it. Given the price and the features, I just think there are better options out there. But what do you reckon? Would you be tempted to buy this? Do you think, I'm being a bit too harsh, and did I just completely ruin the video with that stupid James Bond skit at the beginning? Let me know in the comments below and if you do want to see more from me, then make sure you hit that little subscribe button below I've got loads, more videos coming out this week. Thank you. So much for watching, and I'll see you guys next time right here on the tech chat.

Source : The Tech Chap