Nokia 7.1 launched with HDR10 display and improved cameras

HMD Global has unveiled the Nokia 7.1, the 11th product to be added to Nokia’s lineup of pure Android phone this year. The Finnish company, barely 20 months old is already one of the top 10 smartphone brands globally and in Europe, it’s even more popular. The Nokia 7.1 takes after the Nokia 6.1 Plus and the Nokia 5.1 Plus launched earlier this year, and brings the premium glass-sandwich design to the upper mid-range segment. It surely looks premium, but there’s more here than meets the eye.

HDR10-supported display

The Nokia 7.1 introduces a HDR10 compliant display in that price range. It’s something that has been reserved for expensive TVs and high-end flagship smartphones for now, and the Nokia 7.1 has brought it down to the mid-range segment. While we’re not sure if it’s a true 10bit panel, Nokia claims there’s a dedicated HDR chip in the phone that can process 500 million pixels per second to generate smooth, rich HDR content. It sounds a bit too unreal for a mid-range phone to do that, but it seems Nokia has made it possible. The phone also relies on Pixelwork’s algorithms to upscale standard definition videos to HDR. It certainly sounds impressive and unless we see it in action, it’s hard to believe.

The display itself is a 5.84-inch FullHD+ display with a 19:9 aspect ratio. There’s a notch on top, unsurprisingly, but it isn’t as big as what we’ve seen on other phones. The display is housed in a glass-sandwich body. Nokia claims to have used 6000 series aluminium for the chassis which is covered in a glossy glass finish. There’s diamond cut chamfers on the body much like the Nokia 6(2018) which renders an unique look to the phone. It’s easy to spot the phone among a crowd of similarly looking smartphones in that price segment.

Snapdragon 636 chipset

The Nokia 7.1 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC paired with either 3 or 4GB of RAM and 32 or 64GB of storage. It’s the reason why we believe this is not an upgrade over the Nokia 7 Plus. The chipset also powers the Nokia 6.1 Plus and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro and has proved to be quite the performer in the mid-range segment. It can handle more or less everything you’d need from a daily driver without much of a hitch. Making things simple is the stock Android interface on the phone. The Nokia 7.1 is Android One certified like all Nokia phones this year and promises regular security updates and an update to Android 9 Pie by next month. There’s a 3,060mAh battery that Nokia claims can last the day. If not, there’s a fast charger that comes in the box that the company claims can charge the phone to 50 percent in 30 minutes.

Zeiss Optics

The Nokia 7.1 brings back the Zeiss cameras after a hiatus. The Nokia 6.1 Plus and the Nokia 5.1 Plus didn’t have Zeiss-certified cameras. The Nokia 7.1 offers a 12+5MP dual camera unit certified by Carl Zeiss while up front there’s a 8MP sensor for selfies. The Nokia 7.1 can also take bothies and this time you can ask Google Assistant to take one. Additionally, you can adjust the size of the frame in the bothie and even freeze one of the frames. There’s also the portrait mode which Nokia claims to be powered by AI.

Availability and price

The Nokia 7.1 will be available in European markets from later this month and will be priced EUR 349 for the base variant while the price of the 4/64GB variant wasn't revealed at the launch. That converts to around Rs 27,000 in India for the base variant and Rs 29,000 for the top variant. It’s likely the company will launch the phone at a lesser price in India, if the pricing of previous Nokia phones are taken into account.  The Nokia 7 Plus launched at EUR 399 at MWC earlier this year, which roughly converts to Rs 33,000 in India. However, when the phone actually launched, it was priced more reasonably at Rs 25,000. We are expecting similar skewness in pricing of the Nokia 7.1, provided the company decides to launch in India.

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