Practically two years in the past, I reviewed the $200 Nokia 5.3, which was promised two years of Android OS upgrades and three years of safety updates. How has HMD World, the corporate licensing the Nokia model, fared? It solely simply deployed Android 12 to that gadget, which is a year-old model of Google’s working system.
That’s an enormous delay, however at the least that funds cellphone will get six extra months of safety updates earlier than its assist formally ends. Sadly, issues have gotten worse. Now I’ve the brand new $270 Nokia G400 5G, which is able to solely get two years of safety updates and 0 dedication to Android OS upgrades. It’s going to probably get Android 13, however who’s to say, since HMD shouldn’t be making any guarantees? This appears like a stark angle shift from an organization that prided itself on delivering quick updates and prolonged software program assist again in 2016.
At the moment, most Android cellphone makers provide a software program dedication coverage so you’ve a transparent image of how lengthy the gadget might be supported. The $250 Samsung Galaxy A13 5G, for instance, will get two OS upgrades and 4 years of safety updates. That’s superb, and it means you may maintain on to the gadget with out worrying about it turning right into a buggy, unsecured mess after two years. It helps you to maintain on to your gadget for that lengthy if every thing else is in working order, decreasing the necessity to spend on one other cellphone. It’s simply laborious to advocate a smartphone in 2022 when you don’t have any concept if it should get the newest model of its working system.
Good {Hardware}
{Photograph}: Nokia
The unhappy factor is the Nokia G400 is a fairly respectable cellphone. It seems bland and dreary, coming in only a gloomy gray, and does not have a look at all like a “Nokia” cellphone. However the 6.58-inch LCD display is sharp, colourful, and even has a 120-Hz display refresh charge, so it feels easy and responsive once you work together with it.
Efficiency is respectable. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 480+ chipset inside reliably runs all of the apps you’d need, although you’ll have to wait right here and there for issues to load. (It’s restricted by the 4 GB of RAM.) However over the course of two weeks, I used to be in a position to make use of it simply superb to answer emails and messages, browse Reddit and Twitter, make cellphone calls, and even play informal video games like Alto’s Odyssey. The software program is inventory Android 12, which is good, so that you get little or no bloatware (any of which is detachable), and the interface seems slick.
The 5,000-mAh battery cell has given me a day and a half of common use, and also you get all of the options you’d need in any cellphone in 2022, like sub-6 5G connectivity on all main US carriers (sure, together with Verizon, which many unlocked Nokia units have historically been incompatible with), a headphone jack, fingerprint sensor, and a MicroSD card slot to broaden on the paltry 64 GB of inner storage. I’ve used the NFC sensor to faucet and pay on the subway turnstiles right here in New York Metropolis, and also you even get a charger within the field.
