Nokia 2.4 Review- Steep Price Spoils It for This Good 'Budget' Smartphone

Business Standard Nokia 2.4 review: Steep price spoils it for this good 'budget' smartphone

The Nokia 2.4 seems to be a regular big-screen smartphone. But does it justify its Rs 10,399 price tag? Let's find out

The Nokia 2.4 is a budget smartphone from the stable of Finnish start-up HMD Global, the official licensee for Nokia brand of mobile phones. Like other Nokia smartphones, the Nokia 2.4 boots the stock Android operating system. That said, it is among the few smartphones across price segments that offer vanilla Android user experience, free from bloatware and ads. Also, the Nokia 2.4 seems to be a regular big-screen smartphone. But does it justify its Rs 10,399 price tag? Let’s find out: Design Adding novelty to the Nokia 2.4’s design is its textured polycarbonate back cover with Nordic-themed colour options that look intriguing. For a phone of the size of a phablet, the Nokia 2.4 is lightweight (189g) and comfortable to hold. It, however, is both bulky and tall, so not easy to operate using just one hand. Thankfully, there is no unnecessary bulk here and everything sits well within the frame. Thanks to a uniform built, the phone sits stable on flat surfaces and does not wobble. Overall, the Nokia 2.4’s textured polycarbonate unibody adds some flair to its otherwise boring design, and the lightweight build compensates for convenience hampered by its tall and bulky stature.

Display Justifying the Nokia 2.4’s phablet size is its 6.5-inch LCD screen of an HD+ resolution, stretched in a tall 20:9 aspect ratio. The screen is big, and so are the bezels around it. The screen bezels, especially the bottom one, look prominent and add to unwarranted waste of space.

Coming back to the display, it is bright and vivid but lacks the sharpness due to a limited pixel count. The HD+ resolution also hampers the screen’s capability with regard to multimedia and readability. Multimedia content appears pixelated and videos streamed through over-the-top (OTT) apps like Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar are capped at 480p resolution. Similarly, the text appears jarred and the artwork does not best represent itself on such a screen.

Thankfully, there is a system-wide dark mode, which somewhat improves the UI’s look and feel but does not make any significant improvements otherwise.