A Nokia in the hand

If you’re looking for an affordable smartphone with 4G LTE connection, the latest Android operating system, 5-inch display, and 8-megapixel camera, the new Nokia 3 could well be the answer.
Priced at slightly less than Bt5,000, Nokia 3 boasts a premium design with a frame forged out of a single piece of aluminium and a back cover made of polycarbonate.
The 5-inch IPS LCD display with 1,280x720 pixels is protected with sculpted Corning Gorilla Glass and the phone comes in Silver White, Matte Black, Tempered Blue and Copper White colour options. The Matte Black version I tested looked solemn in my hand.
To make it more affordable, Nokia 3 is powered by the cheaper MediaTek MTK 6737 quadcore processor running at 1.3 GHz, so obviously it’s not blazing fast as those fitted with Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. And it has only 2 gigabytes of working memory or RAM, compared to 3GB or 4GB of other models and 16GB of storage.
That said, I found Nokia 3’s speed was acceptable. The response of the touch screen and menus as well as applications were okay, never annoyingly slow.

Surprisingly for a smartphone of this price, Nokia 3 can also play High-Resolution Audio format of FLAC 24bit/192kHz. I tested it with Sony’s MDR1ABT phones and I found that the sound quality was good with details of the musical instruments clear and the bass powerful. 
The Nokia 3 has two nano SIM slots and an extra microSD slot, meaning if you use two SIMs, you can still expand its storage.
Nokia 3 runs on pure Google Android 7.0 operating system without any interface, which avoids the slowing down you might expect. 
The smartphone supports LTE Cat 4 data connection. I tested it on TrueMove H’s LTE network and found that apps downloaded fast and my snapshots were backed up to my Google Photos cloud storage equally rapidly.

I used the Ookla Speedtest app to measure the speed and the Nokia 3 did well, achieving a download speed of 60.77 Mbsp and an upload speed of 31.68 Mbps.
Nokia 3 has 8-megapixel cameras at the rear and the front. Both cameras use image sensor with large pixel size and aperture to capture good quality photos for a smartphone in this price range.
Nokia 3 is a smartphone from HMD Global, a firm from Espoo, Finland that has bought the Nokia phones and tablets operation. HMD designs and markets a range of smartphones and feature phones targeted at a range of consumers and price points. 
Nokia 3 is available at most retailers for Bt4,850.

Key Specs

- Networks: GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 - WCDMA: Band 1, 2, 5, 8 LTE: Band 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20, 28, 38, 40
- Network speed: LTE Cat 4, 150Mbps DL/50Mbps UL
- SIM: dual nano SIM 
- OS: Android Nougat 7.0
- CPU: MTK 6737, Quadcore 1.3Ghz
- RAM: 2 GB LPPDDR 3
- Storage: 16 GB internal user memory  with MicroSD card slot (support up to 128 GB support)
- Display: 5.0-inch IPS LCD HD (1280 x 720, 16:9), sculpted Corning Gorilla Glass, Polariser, 450 nits
- Camera: Primary camera: 8MP AF, 1.12um, f/2, flash, Front facing camera: 8MP AF, 1.12um, f/2, FOV 84degree display flash 
- Connectivity & Sensors: WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, BT 4.2, GPS/AGPS, FM/RDS, NFC, Ambient light sensor, Proximity sensor, Accelerometer (Gsensor), Ecompass, Gyroscope, Micro USB (USB 2.0), OTG, 3.5mm ADJ
- Battery: Integrated 2630 mAh battery 
- Audio: Single speaker
- Dimensions: 143.4 x 71.4 x 8.48 mm (camera bump: 8.68mm)
- Weight: 155g