Since inception, Nokia has been one of those companies which has always had something to offer in this range. With time, it has not only stuck to being good at what it offers but has managed to constantly innovate at extremely affordable price points. Take, for example, the new Nokia XL.
A 5-inch budget smartphone for a price that would probably only have got you a 3.2-inch phone as little as two years ago. The phone which was first announced at Mobile World Congress this year finally hit Indian shores now and here’s how it fares.
Although not all of Nokia XL’s fascia is the display – there’s a thick strip of black at the bottom which houses the only touch-button on the smartphone – the phone still manages to look pretty massive. A long press on the back button always takes you to the home screen, otherwise it just takes you to the previous page you were on.
As was the case with the Nokia X, the XL too features a customisable Fastlane. You can choose which apps you want to be notified from and it will show you the notifications and usage history form all these apps. The main screen houses all the apps that you might have installed on the phone. Unlike Android or iOS you don’t have to go to a separate screen to access the whole list of apps. Because this can end up being a very long list of apps on one screen, you can prioritise the apps you use the most and make them more prominent or move them up the screen.
With the Nokia XL, you get a bunch of pre-installed apps and games that include Plants vs Zombies, Danger Dash, Bejewelled 2, Monopoly Classic among others. Proprietary apps include Nokia HERE, a pretty trustworthy GPS service that Nokia has and MixRadio, which turned out to be an awesome app to use. When you first use the app, you can mention a couple of artists who you really like and the app will automatically curate a playlist for you so you don’t have to keep hunting for songs to listen to. The only restriction is that you can only skip six songs an hour, but otherwise it’s a pretty good platform to turn to when you want to focus on things other than making a playlist.
The phone runs on a dual-core 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, the same as the one in the Nokia X. Performance is fine most of the time, but the phone slowed down occasionally when we were browsing.
Nokia XL packs in a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with flash. The camera performs pretty decently for a budget smartphone. Even the slightly grainy selfies from the front camera are something you can definitely make do with.
If you are in the market for a big-screen phone but can’t afford a super-smartphone, the Nokia XL might be worth considering.
₹11,489
Love – Big screen, decent camera, convenient Fastlane
Hate – Low-res display, average build quality