Tech review: Nokia 2.3

Nokia's good-looking budget smartphone does minimum well

Price: €150

Nokia 2.3

Adrian Weckler Twitter Email

May 21 2020 02:30 AM

Nokia's latest offering, the Nokia 2.3, does some things very well and others not so well.

It looks and feels great in the hand. This is arguably the best-looking sub-€200 phone you'll find on the Irish market right now. Although plastic, it feels a lot more like a metallic compound in the hand.

It also has a more than reasonable battery life (at 4,000mAh) for a handset that's so inexpensive.

And its use of Android One, which is as close to 'pure' Android as you can get, is an excellent choice. It even has a dedicated separate button for the Google Assistant.

All of these things matter if you're buying this as a primary device that you intend to lean on most of the day.

However, you can really feel the budget specifications kicking in when you go to actually use it.

Its engine performance sometimes struggles, with the Mediatek processor and 2GB Ram often half a beat slower to perform ordinary operations.

For example, you won't want to be in a hurry launching your camera or saving photos. Opening apps takes that little bit longer, too.

Its 6.2-inch display is fine, with a good touch experience and admirable (60Hz) refresh rate.

On the other hand, it's about the most basic resolution you can now get in a new smartphone.

The single rear 13-megapixel camera (with an additional 2-megapixel depth-sensing lens) is just about okay.

You'll get decent detail in good light with poor performance in bad light. The selfie camera is similarly only okay.

There's no such thing as proper stabilisation when using video, although you will get 1080p 'full HD' at up to 30 frames per second.

The Nokia phone's 32GB of internal storage is, by today's standards, a barely acceptable minimum. I found that the phone took up 12GB of that 32GB immediately, with just the basic apps.

Oh, and although it includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, it also uses an older MicroUSB charging port - which means slower charging.

The right person to get this for is not really a teenager, who'll notice the weak power immediately. It's someone who only wants a smartphone to be available or to check in on things.