Nokia has finally announced the launch of Nokia 3.4 which the company was delaying for a long time. The new Nokia 3.4 is the latest entrant in the budget range where it is sure to face tough competition from the likes of Redmi Note 9, Poco M3, Realme Nazro 20A, etc. In this review of ours, we will highlight what the new Nokia 3.4 has to offer to make it stand in the top tier of the competition.
Design
Nokia has used the unique pattern design on the new Nokia 3.4 as well which we have seen earlier in Nokia 5.3 and Nokia 5.4. The pattern design at the rear side of the phone is giving an aesthetic appeal to the phone. The phone size is compact and fits the palm quite comfortably and thanks to the curvy edges the phone has a better grip as well. The bodyweight of the phone is light as the company has used plastic body which reduces some amount of body weight. The company is now accustomed to using the circular frame at the rear side to incorporate the camera sensors and the new Nokia 3.4 also has the same circular frame inside of which lies a triple camera sensor and an LED flash. The rear side also has a physical fingerprint sensor which is quite fast to respond to touch. The front side of the phone sports a huge display and a punch hole notch.The use of punch hole notch in the Nokia 3.4 which is a budget range phone is something that will get the attention of the users. The placement of the buttons is just like the previously launched Nokia phones whereon the left side lies a Google Assistant button and a dual-SIM tray and a dedicated micro SD card slot and on the right side the power button and the volume rocker. The top of the phone holds a 3.5mm headphone jack, while the bottom is having a USB-C charging port and speaker grille.
Display
The Nokia 3.4 comes with 6.39-inch IPS LED screen and has an aspect ratio of 19:5:9. The screen offers wide viewing space and the colors produced on the screen maintain a good contrast level. The bezels on the screen are quite prominent on the bottom side of the screen where lies the logo of the company whereas the bezels on the sides are slim. The display has a screen resolution of 720×1560 pixels and has 400nits brightness which enables the screen to be visible under bright daylight.
Cameras
Nokia 3.4 has three rear camera sensors which when tested provided satisfying results. The primary sensor is of 13MP wide lens. The secondary sensor is a 5MP ultrawide lens and the third lens is a 2MP depth sensor. The images captured during the daytime maintained a good color level with an average contrast level. Sometimes the images get over-sharpened but overall the quality is ok to be for a smartphone in this price range. Increasing the resolution makes the images unstable so I would suggest using the camera lens in their default mode. The images captured at night were of average quality, not something very exciting. The flashlight though assists you to capture a good amount of light in dim lighting conditions. At night there are some graining and noise effect visible. Overall, it could be said that the Nokia 3.4 delivers an average quality of images which is to me is ok when we look at the price tag of the phone but it surely falls a little bit behind Redmi Note 9 in the camera section. The selfie sensor is 8MP which delivers selfies of good quality as the selfie captured were clear and bright. The selfies did not possess any unwanted effect which we liked about the selfie sensor. Nokia 3.4 can record videos in 1080p@30fps and there is not stability feature so the videos recorded will be a little shaken up if you won’t keep the camera steady.
Platform
The new Nokia 3.4 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 460 processor which has eight cores where four cores are clocked at 1.8GHz Cortex- A73 and the rest four cores are clocked at 1.8GHz Cortex- A53. The processor is mediocre as it is only good for using light applications. The processor gets slow while using heavy apps and multitasking. You have to be very patient while multitasking as it takes few seconds to launch the apps. The 4GB RAM though provides some power to the processor to carry out the tasks. The ROM size of the phone is 64GB which can be expanded with the help of a dedicated microSD card slot. The gaming experience is not that so good as the phone fails to impress us while playing 3D games. The normal games run smoothly but if you try to switch to big games then the phone gets extremely slow.
Nokia 3.4 has the Android 10 stock version and just like the previously launched phones from Nokia, it will be able to receive the update of Android 11 whenever it will be available. The Android One has a clear interface which we liked.
Battery
The battery power of the Nokia 3.4 is impressive as it is powered by 4,000mAh battery power. The battery can last a day if it is used moderately otherwise if you prefer heavy usage like watching movies for hours, browsing, or playing games for hours then you have to charge it once again to make it last a day. The battery draining could have been avoided if the processor would have been more powerful. The charging speed is moderate and the phone comes with a 10W charger and it takes few hours to completely charge the phone.
Conclusion
The Nokia 3dot4 comes with decent cocktail of features and pricing. The smartphone comes in attractive colour options that feel refreshing. The display provides enough area to enjoy content. Cameras do as expected, not very detailed but, can manage decent clicks. The octa-core QS chipset assists the 3dot4 comfortably. The battery can take you for a day under normal conditions. The Nokia 3.4 sells at Rs 11,999 for the base variant of 4GB and that makes it stay away from the crowd with stock Android and Nordic feel.