It has been a couple of years since Nokia marked its entry in the dense competition of Android smartphones through HMD Global, and since then, the company has released a number of competitive gadgets. In its quest to solidify its presence, it recently brought in the Philippines the Nokia 7.2 which is in the middle of being an entry-level device and a mid-range smartphone.
Out of the box, the Nokia 7.2 presents itself well. With its body clad in a matte coating, this smartphone is one of those that you’d want to flaunt, and its matte finish allows users to grip and handle it easily. Apart from the camera, the rear physique of the Nokia 7.2 carries the Nokia logo, and the fingerprint scanner, which we must say, does a seamless job on quickly unlocking the device.
At the top part of the Nokia 7.2 is its 3.5mm headphone jack, while at the bottom sit the USB Type-C port and its single speaker. On its left cheek, the Nokia 7.2 has the sim card tray which has two slots for dual sim, and a separate slot for the microSD card, plus the intended button for Google Assistant. At the opposite part are the volume rockers, and the power button which lits up whenever there’s a notification.
For its display, the Nokia 7.2 flaunts a 6.3-inch IPS LCD PureDisplay with a resolution of 2280 x 1080. Given that it’s an IPS type of screen, using this smartphone under direct sunlight won’t affect the screen’s visibility. Other than its good viewing angles, the Nokia 7.2 also delivers well when it comes to bringing sharp images with just the right amount of color saturation and contrast. When partnered with the decent sound produced by its downward-firing single speaker, these make the Nokia 7.2 an apt and affordable choice of smartphone for users who mostly use their smartphones to stream videos.
Perhaps the most noticeable hardware feature of the Nokia 7.2 is its triple ZEISS camera which are placed in a circular form. Putting it to the test, we used its 48-megapixel camera to shoot different subjects in various settings, and we found out that the strength of the cameras of the Nokia 7.2 lies on well-lit surroundings. The photos it produced show just the right amount of color and detail accuracy. At night, though, the Nokia 7.2 isn’t the best smartphone to capture photos with, since some photos we took appeared blurry.
Another good thing about the Nokia 7.2 is that it runs on Android One with Android 9 Pie, which means it doesn’t have any unnecessary pre-installed apps, therefore giving that pure Android feel. Inside, this smartphone comes equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 coupled with Adreno 512 GPU, and a combination of 6GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. Using the Nokia 7.2 as our daily driver for more than a week provided us with a lag-free experience, even when continuously switching between apps, and playing graphic-heavy games.
The Nokia 7.2 also fared well in our series of benchmark tests, tallying good figures of 168025 on AnTuTu, 6051 on the Work 2.0 Performance Test of PCMark, and 1,356 on Sling Shot Extreme OpenGL ES 3.1 Test of 3DMark. We can’t say the same about its battery, though, since we found this aspect of the Nokia 7.2 quite lacking. It took us a little over 2 hours to have the Nokia 7.2 fully recharged, but when we did a video loop test, it only lasted for 9 hours and 28 minutes.
Just like any other smartphone, the Nokia 7.2 has its fair share of good and bad qualities, but it should be enough for loyal Nokia fans who’d want to put their hands on a decent mid-range device.