Nokia 2.4 review: A mixed bag that can be considered for clean Android experience

Nokia 2.4 review: There was a time when smartphones were competing only on the hardware front. Customers would look and compare spec sheets before spending. That is changing fast. The Indian consumer is more aware than ever and seeks a good software experience as much as it values the hardware. Honestly, there are few Android brands that offer this. Nokia, a veteran in the smartphone industry, is one of them.  

HMD Global recently launched its third smartphone of 2020 in India – Nokia 2.4 – betting big on clean Android experience while opting for modest specs. Priced at Rs 10,399, the smartphone aims to bring a large screen experience with stock Android in budget category. I have been using the phone for close to a week and here’s our review of the same.   

Nokia 2.4 review: Design and Display  

Just like most budget smartphones, Nokia 2.3 comes with plastic unibody with a textured matte finish that keeps fingerprint smudges away. Despite using plastic, Nokia has ensured that the phone doesn’t look or feel cheap. It’s a well built and good-looking smartphone. It comes in three colour options - Charcoal, Dusk, and Fjord colour options. We had the last for review purposes. It sits somewhere between a mix of blue and green and looks absolutely gorgeous in daylight. 

The back panel houses a vertically-aligned dual rear camera module, fingerprint scanner and Nokia branding. The look is somewhat spoiled by the manufacturing information given at the bottom. The company has tried to blend the text with the phone but it can be unpleasant to eyes at times.  

The phone is tall, thanks to the 20:9 aspect ratio display. You get the usual volume and power keys around the side panels along with a dedicated button for Google Assistant. Nokia has included a 3.5mm headphone jack but has opted for the micro USB port instead of the more popular Type-C.  

Flip it around and you get a 6.5-inch HD+ LCD display and this is the first thing you would want to consider before spending on this smartphone. This is means everything you watch on the Nokia 2.4 will be played at 720p. In the times of 4K content, this surely feels outdated. Now, some users may argue otherwise and might manage to live with it but 10 to 12 months later, this will surely be a major issue.  

In daily use, there is no problem with the display. It is bright, smooth and colours look good as well.  

Nokia 2.4 review: Cameras 

If you like numbers, the Nokia 2.4 don’t have many to impress. The company is offering a dual rear camera setup which comprises of a 16-megapixel main camera and a 2-megapixel depth camera. This seems really mediocre when compared with what Xiaomi and Realme are offering on their budget smartphones.  

However, Nokia hasn’t done a bad job either. Its software tuning allows you to click some stunning images even with this setup. In fact, I had some harsh feedback on the company’s last smartphone – Nokia 5.3 – and it’s good to see that this one performs well in the camera department. 

In daylight, the Nokia 2.4 takes bright and really good photos. The colours are true and in most cases, sharpness was on top-notch. It’s only when you zoom into these images, you find out that details aren’t that great. Most distant objects are poorly captured. Also, portrait mode needs some work. In many cases, it fails to blur the entire background. 

On the front, you get a 5-megapixel camera which again, does a decent job in daylight. The selfies I clicked in the normal mode were pleasant. You can see that the front camera doesn’t play much with your skin tone too. It’s the background management which is a bit of a let-down, especially in portrait mode. The background is overexposed, ruining the portrait selfies.  

Nokia 2.4 review: Performance  

Nokia 2.4 uses an almost two-year-old MediaTek Helio P22 chipset and comes in only one variant - 3GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The latter can be expanded to 512GB via a micro SD card. Needless to say, this isn’t the combination a tech-savvy buyer would be looking at. But, the world would have been so much different if everyone was using mobile phones to play games.  

For example, this chipset works almost fine for my mother. She won’t be spending on the smartphone to play Call of Duty. It’s the add-free stock Android experience she craves for. However, 64GB internal storage is a bigger problem. A basic smartphone user runs out of storage faster and Nokia could have gone for 128GB ROM.  

Coming back to the processor, it allows you to text, read, stream videos and browse the internet with ease. You don’t feel any lags or heating issues at all. Again, I will underline that this isn’t the phone if performance is what you seek. So, don’t buy if gaming is the priority. 

Moving to the biggest highlight of this smartphone, Nokia 2.4 comes with Android 10 out-of-the-box but is Android 11 ready and the company promises two years of Android and monthly security updates. This is what keeps Nokia alive and should be your reason to spend on the Nokia 2.4. It is one of the cleanest Android smartphones I have used. There is 0 bloatware or adds which enhances your overall experience.  

Nokia 2.4 review: Battery 

Nokia 2.4 packs a generous 4500mAh battery which the company claims is optimised to last for two days with medium usage. I mostly used the phone to click photos, watch some YouTube videos etc and managed to get around 34 to 36 hours of battery. The challenge is there is no support for fast charging and the micro USB port takes time to juice up the device. So, patience is what you will need.  

Nokia 2.4 review: Final verdict 

Expectations can often make or break a smartphone. I had very little from the Nokia 2.4. As it turns out, it performs better than that. However, Nokia 2.4 is an out and out a budget smartphone. It feels and performs like that too. There are things you will appreciate – a decent battery, solid build quality and clean Android experience. There are others that feel sub-standard – processor, display and front camera.  

The best I can say about the Nokia 2.4 is that this is a smartphone you should not ignore despite all the limitations. Yes, there are better options available in the market at the same price. Yet, almost none of them solve the OS problem like Nokia 2.4. At the end of the day, it is a mixed bag that can be considered for a clean Android experience.