Nokia 6.1 Plus Looks Great And Sells For Just Rs 15,999, But Does It Rank High On Nostalgia?

If you grew up before the days of the smartphone, you know what the Nokia name stands for. Unfortunately the Finnish phone maker ignored the change too long and then made a bad choice with Windows OS. In the mean time, fans like yours truly, moved to other more contemporary devices.

So when I saw the new Nokia 6.1 Plus in the office, I quickly pocketed it, purely to relive the good old Nokia days. So does the new mid-ranger stay true to the nostalgia? Let¡¯s find out.

Abhishek Saksena/Indiatimes

The glass metal build of the phone feels extremely premium. Think iPhone 8 levels and you won¡¯t be far off the mark. In fact it belies the Rs 15,999 asking price. A quick poll in the office proved that on looks alone, people were gauging the price to be almost double the retail figure. So full marks for the cold hard touch of the metal and glass.

Flashback check: Early Nokias were built to survive a fall off the Qutub Minar, the new 6.1 Plus on the other hand will leave glass shards all over the floor if it fell awkwardly from the table.

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Glass and metal looks great and feels premium Abhishek Saksena/Indiatimes

An area where the new Nokia is making a mark is in the photography department. The 6.1 Plus has two cameras on the rear, a 16 MP sensor supplemented by a 5 MP depth sensor. And the results are impressive. The edge detection in the live focus mode is frankly quite amazing.

It¡¯s still no match for the Google Pixel 2, but then that costs nearly four times as much. Then there¡¯s the manual shooting mode with close focussing option. HDR images preserve a lot of detail without looking comical. At this price, this is one of the better picture taking phones.

Flashback check: It¡¯s apt that the new Nokia phones have good cameras. The Nokia 7650, the first Nokia that sported a camera back in 2002, had only a 0.3 MP camera.

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Ever since HMD Global, the company that has the rights to the Nokia name, started rolling out phones, they¡¯ve stuck to a clutter-free, pure Android experience. More recently, the company said that all their phones will run on Android One. The advantage being that the phone will receive OS updates directly from Google for a period of two years and security updates for three.

So the Nokia 6.1 Plus can be expected to stay current for a period after which people usually start thinking of replacing phones. Another plus is that the performance isn¡¯t bogged down by a heavy skin. Day to day performance is good and most people won¡¯t be left wanting. There¡¯s also the option to add up to 400 GB of memory via a micro SD card to augment the 64 GB storage.

Flashback check: Remember Symbian and S40 on old Nokias. Of course you do. Those were the days when all the customisation you got was the ability to change the theme. There was only one app for chatting and you had to pay for each message. Yes SMS is still alive, but WhatsApp is the new king. This one¡¯s a tie people.

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Colour reproduction and image quality in good lighting conditions is pleasing. Abhishek Saksena/Indiatimes

The notch is a curse brought upon us by Apple and everyone is jumping into the well. It¡¯s present here and I learnt to ignore it after a while. For those who can¡¯t, there¡¯s a way to hide it with black borders within the settings menu. The screen is excellent too. It has a 1080p resolution and because it¡¯s not too big it¡¯s plenty sharp with a pixel density of 432 ppi. You can even fill the screen while watching videos on YouTube and the notch doesn¡¯t intrude. The phone is good for gaming, the Snapdragon 636 with the Adreno 509 doing a decent job of it. The phone gets hot though if you keep pushing it for long. I feel 4 GB of RAM will begin to feel lacking in a year¡¯s time.

Flashback check: Seriously you want me to get started on Snake? You can have you Asphalt and PUBG for all I care. Of course, compared to what you carry in your pocket today you can¡¯t call the Nokias of old multimedia devices. Screen resolutions of the old TFT displays are best left behind. It¡¯s another tie people.

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Our producer looking salty AF in this picture taken in the live bokeh mode. Edge detection works well. Abhishek Saksena/Indiatimes

So let¡¯s look at the whole package. The Nokia 6.1 Plus ticks a lot of boxes. It looks and feels premium. It has the latest Android 8.1 Oreo OS. The battery lasts an entire day. It has a great camera for the price. And performance is par for the course. And as much as I like it, at a retail price of Rs 15,999 I know there are a few phones out there that offer a better chipset at similar price.

Flashback check: Don¡¯t remember old Nokias ever feeling overtly expensive or running out juice before 4 days. Nostalgia sneaks one in at the last instant.

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As I eagerly await your next best smartphone, for now better luck next time Nokia.