Nokia 8.3 phone is not the standout its predecessor was

AS regular readers will know, I’ve strongly recommended some of Nokia’s budget smartphones of late. Its 5.3 model, in particular, was [and probably still is] the best phone you can get for under €200.

I have found its new model, the Nokia 8.3, a little harder to recommend as a standout smartphone.

It’s solid, looks good, has an edge with regard to its version of Android and is competitive on things like battery life and 5G compatibility.

On the other hand, it’s a little average compared to some of the other similarlypriced phones that have just come out, notably Google’s new Pixel 5 and Samsung’s S20 FE. In fact, it’s behind most of those handsets on some important features. This is probably because the Nokia 8.3 was originally announced over six months ago but suffered a very delayed release, resulting in some of its headline features now seeming a bit dated.

The Nokia 8.3 is still a very decent phone, though, for a few reasons.

The 6.8-inch device is, as has become a Nokia habit, very nicely designed. It has a ‘premium’ look and feel to it, partly thanks to the glass rear casing that curves in on each lateral side.

That 6.8-inch display, which has a thin bezel all around, makes the 8.3 one of the largest-screen phones you can get on the market at present.

The display is bright and vivid, although it it’s a more basic LCD variant with a relatively slow ‘refresh rate’ of 60hz. Even though iPhones use this same refresh rate, many rivals have now upped their screens to 90hz or 120hz, meaning they scroll faster.

The upside to a lower refresh rate, though, is better battery life.

Even with that large screen to power, the Nokia 8.3 had good battery life for me, if not spectacular. I found that all-day battery was generally delivered.

The cameras on the Nokia 8.3 are also good, if not spectacular.

There’s no telephoto zoom lens, which is a little disappointing. Instead, there’s a separate ‘macro’ lens for up-close photography. This is fine, but isn’t really a substitute for a decent zoom. The other two main lenses, a 64-megapixel wide and 12-megapixel ultrawide, do a decent job but aren’t quite up there with flagship models.

One of the attractions of the Nokia 8.3 is that it can be used as a 5G device with any of the networks. With 5G rollouts in Ireland still very limited [and in most cases reserved for the most expensive plans], it remains to be seen whether this will be real draw to this phone. But for future-proof reasons, it’s good that it’s there.

That 5G is enabled by the use of a Snapdragon 765G processor, which is zippy and powerful. The phone’s 6GB of Ram also makes sure that there’s no problem whatsoever with getting things down quickly.

Another draw is that it uses Android One, or ‘stock’ Android, which is better, faster and more easily updated than almost any other version of Android out there.

In terms of storage, it’s a little shy with just 64GB on models in the Irish market although there’s a more reasonable 128GB model available in other markets.