Nokia 3.4 Review | Trusted Reviews

Sadly, I don’t suggest the Nokia 3.4 – for one cause. Its day-to-day efficiency is poor, and this quickly turns into a headache, one that can seemingly make you want you’d spent barely extra.

Introduction

The Nokia 3.4 is a price range cellphone, but it surely’s removed from one of the best cellphone round at its worth.

As such, it ought to attraction to those that filter offers by value, or plan to move to the excessive road to see what they’ll choose up for round £100.

As I’ll delve deeper into throughout this assessment, the slowness of this cellphone makes it very frustraiting to make use of.

In case your price range is tight, take a look at our listing of finest low-cost telephones as all of those are way more nice to make use of.

Design

• Plain, however tasteful, look
• Fingerprint scanner on the again

The Nokia 3.4 seems to be and feels fairly good contemplating the low worth. It’s, in fact, an all-plastic cellphone apart from the glass that covers the show.

Nonetheless, I fairly like that Nokia hasn’t taken the usual strategy of making an attempt to make its telephones appear like they’re manufactured from aluminium and glass. The rear plastic has a evenly ridged texture that improves grip, and its look is apparent however tasteful.

Two components elevate the Nokia 3.4 past the type of “generic” design you may anticipate when seeking to spend as little as doable. First up, it has a punch-hole notch quite than a teardrop one – or only a chunkier higher show border. This fashion is often related to Android gadgets which are way more costly than the Nokia 3.4.

The digicam housing is the second characteristic that offers the system not less than a contact of character. Its three rear cameras sit in a hoop, which is extra distinctive than a straight line of lenses.

The Nokia 3.4 is neither too large, nor too heavy. The truth is, its design is more-or-less precisely what it needs to be: inoffensive, with a touch of Nokia character.

A rear fingerprint scanner is slightly gradual, but it surely does the job. Plus, there’s simply the one speaker, which is slightly thin-sounding and quiet. That is one other compromise you’re unlikely to must make for those who spend extra.

Display

• 6.39-inch 720p show
• LCD tech
• Not vastly shiny display

The Nokia 3.4 display is a spotlight. Whereas it doesn’t provide any spectacular tech, it seems to be nice because of a barely warm-leaning color tone.

It is a 6.39-inch LCD with a 720p decision. It’s smaller than most and is as low-res as you’ll discover on this class, however these aren’t vital points in a cellphone this low-cost.

Most brightness isn’t vastly spectacular, and turns into extra noticeable once you take the Nokia 3.4 out on a shiny day. However I believe show high quality is without doubt one of the cellphone’s key strengths when it comes to what you really expertise when utilizing the system.

That stated, the Xiaomi Redmi Notice 9 is much better – and, these days, sells at an identical worth. It gives a bigger 1080p show, which is significantly spectacular at this stage.

Efficiency

• Android One software program
• Two years of software program updates
• Feels very gradual

The Nokia 3.4 is an Android One cellphone. This implies it makes use of Google’s default Android interface quite than one which’s Nokia-made.

It additionally comes with a assure of two years of main software program updates and three years of safety updates. Frankly, that is the least anybody ought to anticipate of a brand new cellphone – however purchase a unit from a price-gouging small model and chances are you’ll not obtain any updates in any respect.

The Nokia 3.4’s interface seems to be nice, however really utilizing it’s one other story fully. This cellphone is irritatingly gradual, and the scenario seems to grow to be worse with the extra it’s used and stuffed with apps.

This seeps into all the things you do with the Nokia 3.4. Switching between conversations in WhatsApp feels gradual. Leaping between Chrome and Google Photographs typically comes with a grating delay. The processing delay of photographs you are taking to ship to a good friend can appear lengthy.

I’d a lot quite a cellphone such because the Nokia 3.4 be utterly unable to play video games similar to PUBG and Minecraft, however allow you to do the fundamentals easily. This cellphone really performs higher for video games than the fundamentals. PUBG runs simply nice.

That is the other of what you may anticipate, given the Nokia 3.4 runs Android One software program, perceived as having decrease overheads than some third-party interfaces.

So, what’s the explanation for this? The Nokia 3.4 has a Snapdragon 460 processor and 3GB of RAM. The CPU ought to be capable of carry out higher than it does – it has eight cores, together with 4 Cortex-A73s that had been as soon as thought of fairly high-performance. Whereas 3GB of RAM isn’t an enormous quantity, I’ve used loads of telephones that run completely properly with that allocation.

The Nokia 3.4’s inside storage is unusually gradual, nonetheless, which might act as a bottleneck, significantly given the restricted RAM.

You don’t get a lot storage, both. There are Nokia 3.4 fashions with 32GB or 64GB, the latter much less extensively accessible within the UK.

This assessment mannequin is the 32GB unit, which might be the plain selection given this can be a cellphone for these on a good price range. Nonetheless, this quantity has proved fairly inadequate. I’ve needed to restrict it to at least one storage-heavy recreation similar to Asphalt 9 at a time, and WhatsApp’s backup library alone eats an enormous chunk of the accessible area. And bear in mind, you don’t really get 32GB to make use of once you purchase a “32GB” cellphone, since Android itself takes up some area.

Today, few assessment telephones make me wish to swap to a different system as shortly as doable. Sadly, the Nokia 3.4 is one such cellphone.

Digicam

• Three cameras on the rear
• Major 13-megapixel sensor
• Lens high quality is pretty poor

The Nokia 3.4 comes with three cameras, which appears beneficiant for a cellphone at this worth. There’s the first 13-megapixel digicam, a primary 5-megapixel ultra-wide, and a easy 2-megapixel depth sensor.

This trio lets you may have quantity of enjoyable together with your images. You’ve gotten two helpful fields of view, and the depth sensor permits for background-blurred Portrait footage. As such, the fundamentals that you just’re more likely to see with telephones at as much as £400 or so – the place zoom cameras begin to seem – are lined.

As you may need already guessed, picture high quality isn’t stellar. The ultra-wide digicam’s low decision means element is restricted, the picture falls aside on the corners on account of lens distortion, and the lens struggles with shiny mild sources. There additionally tends to be a granularity to comparatively flat elements of photos, such because the sky, even in good lighting. However at £100, I’m fully proud of the standard of the ultra-wide.

It’s completely doable to take footage price sharing over WhatsApp or Instagram – and that’s all I might ask for at this worth.

I’ve extra points with the Nokia 3.4’s 13-megapixel major digicam, largely since you naturally anticipate it to be considerably higher than the ultra-wide. Down at pixel stage, its footage are literally fizzier, much less distinct-looking than these taken with the ultra-wide. High quality element seems to be dithered, an impact that worsens on the fringe of the body.

Lens high quality is sort of poor; at occasions you possibly can seen pretty clear HDR ghosting, the place you see an afterimage. That is the results of merging frames, which telephones more-or-less do as customary in most conditions. The Nokia 3.4 additionally repeatedly fails to provide natural-looking skies, rendering them as a bright-to-darker blue gradient that simply wasn’t there. That is seemingly right down to the restricted dynamic vary of the sensor.

Barely dearer telephones can get you near the picture high quality of a high-end cellphone in good lighting, however the Nokia 3.4 is a method off that stage. Evening images is – no shock right here – poor as properly. Nonetheless, the cellphone does have stab at “portrait” images, the place the background is blurred out utilizing software program. The blurring is pretty sound with easy topics, and might make for a dramatic-looking image.

The Nokia 3.4’s video may be very primary. You possibly can shoot at as much as 1080p decision, at a fee of 30 frames per second; 720p at 30 or 60 frames per second are choices, too. However as none of them provide software program stabilisation – the one cause to drop down is to avoid wasting space for storing, which is a respectable concern with this explicit handset.

The Nokia’s entrance digicam has an 8-megapixel sensor and a fixed-focus lens. This implies your face could seem out of focus for those who take an image fairly close-up, so it will get near filling the body. Particulars grow to be fairly tender in imperfect lighting, too, so outcomes are largely on a par with what you’d anticipate from a real entry-level Android system.

Battery life

• 4000mAh battery
• Ought to get you thru the day
• 5w charging

The Nokia 3.4 features a 4000mAh battery, which is mid-size in 2021. It ought to final a full day for most individuals, or maybe considerably longer for the type of particular person I believe ought to really contemplate shopping for this Nokia handset.

I’ve tendde to finish up with round 15% cost left by the tip of a day. There isn’t sufficient of a buffer to help you cost each different day, however I haven’t wanted to provide it a top-up within the late afternoon simply to make sure it lasts.

Nonetheless, for those who use your cellphone as a lot as I do then I’d strongly suggest shopping for one thing slightly dearer, or contemplating a model similar to Xiaomi, which gives slightly extra in your cash. That has little to do with battery capability, and all the things to do with the Nokia 3.4’s efficiency points.

The Nokia 3.4’s charger can be very poor. It’s a 5W plug, as primary as these items come. And which means you’ll wish to recharge in a single day, for the reason that course of can take a number of hours.

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Specs