Nokia’s 9 PureView is no budget phone, but it’s worth it

HMD has mastered the art of Nokia, and the Nokia 9 PureView is further proof that they have their game in check. It is a masterpiece.

It runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset that is saddled with an Octa-core processor backed by an Adreno 630 GPU and 6GB RAM. Storage comes at 128GB and strangely, there is no external storage support, which is unfortunate, but in this case also unnecessary, seeing that it already has plenty of internal storage in the first place.

The 5.99-inch display has 1440 x 2880 pixels resolution that offers a beautiful show and a brilliant response to it. The display on this phone is just right.

Nokia has gone all out with the cameras, opting for a quintuple array that is five 12MP sensors divided into 2 Red, Green, Blue (RGB) sensors and 3 Black and White sensors backed by a dual-LED dual-tone flash.

Even more interesting is that you can adjust the focus of the phone after you take it, thanks to the depth-of-field. All in all, the magic you can produce with this array is amazing. Upfront is a single 20MP sensor that has HDR support which also produces brilliant selfies.

It is an LTE phone, available in a Single SIM and Hybrid Dual SIM arrangement, supports pretty much every single WiFi version out there including “AC” WiFi, has Bluetooth 5.0, and charges through a USB 3.0 Type C 1.0 connector.

BEAUTIFUL DISPLAY

What I like about this phone is the fingerprint placement underneath the display, which is refreshing and a nice touch to the phone.

This begs the question, why this phone? What makes it so special? Well, it is built for performance, though the chipset could be a bit faster, however, the 6GB RAM, more than many daily runner laptops, gives the phone that extra boost it needs to keep running solidly. The display is beautiful and makes watching HD videos a dream.

With a fingerprint sensor underneath the display, instead of one at the back, the phone is already a winner. The 5 sensor camera at the back offers a lot of magic, but I’ll be honest, it also feels very ridiculous to have a phone with these many cameras. For some, this might even be cool, but it also feels like an overkill.

The selfie camera is, to me, the better camera. A single 20MP sensor with HDR support. What is not to like?

This phone runs on Android 9 (Pie), which is no real surprise. There is Near Field Communication (NFC) support that completes the connectivity package of the phone, and with NFC based services slowly becoming prevalent in this market, it is a welcome addition. The phone ships with a 3,320mAh battery that supports both Wireless Charging and Quick Charge 3.0.
The battery life on this should have been more, but these days, they have become incredibly efficient, which means you will get your day on a single charge. Pricing? There is going to be a wild variance, but price should be around Sh71,000.