Nokia C3 Review 2020: A Decent Entry-Level Smartphone

HMD Global launched the Nokia C3 in India back in August as an addition to the affordable smartphone options for consumers. The handset was introduced after more than eight months from the launch of the previous model, the Nokia 2.3. This post is a detailed Nokia C3 review 2020.

Nokia C3 price in India

The Nokia C3 comes in two variants at two prices. The 2GB/16GB variant is priced at Rs 7,499 while the 3GB/32GB variant comes at a price of Rs 8,999.

You can buy this phone on Amazon.

You can also buy this phone on Flipkart.

Nokia C3 review

Design

The smartphone packs a removable battery that reminds us of phones from the old time. The back of the device is a plastic panel that can come off to let you install the battery, MicroSD card, and SIM cards. It sports two Nano-Sim card slots.

In terms of the color option, you can choose between Sand and Nordic Blue. Weighing 184.5 grams, the phone is comfortable to hold on the hand for an extended time and not too thick at 8.69 mm.

Overall, the design is simple, the phone looks elegant with a minimalist back that sports a small vertical camera module along with a fingerprint sensor. The back of the phone does not attract fingerprints, offering a good grip for users. The right edge of the phone houses the power button and the volume button while the left edge houses the Google Assistant button. The top edge of the phone houses a headphone jack and there is a Micro-USB port on the bottom edge. The earpiece doubles as the loudspeaker so there isn’t a cutout for speakers.

The Nokia C3 comes with an IPS screen measuring 5.99 inches, protected by toughened glass. The front of the smartphone offers a nostalgic feel, featuring an old-fashioned border instead of a modern notch like other smartphones.

Performance

The Nokia C3 packs the Unisoc SC9863A octa-core processor, consisting of eight 1.6GHz cores. The chip is built on an older 28nm architecture that’s not as energy-efficient as some newer chipsets from Qualcomm and MediaTek.

Continue with Nokia C3 review, the handset offers some other basic features such as FM radio, Bluetooth 4.2, and Wi-Fi connectivity. You need a headset to use the FM radio feature and the phone supports GPS as well as 4G VoLTE. There are a few basic sensors including the accelerometer, ambient light sensor, and proximity sensor. However, the phone doesn’t have a gyroscope or compass, meaning you can get directions in Google Maps and similar apps.

The Nokia C3 runs on Android 10 out of the box with some of Google’s basic applications. It has only one pre-installed third-party app, HDM Global’s My Phone app, which is used for device maintenance and after-sales support. The Settings app provides some basic gestures for customization. The Google Assistant button is handy but cannot be remapped for another function.

Android is decent on the Nokia C3, but the 3GB RAM capacity doesn’t seem enough to run the operating system smoothly. You may encounter some lags when multitasking and working on animations. While the fingerprint sensor works well, the display takes a bit longer to wake up than usual. Using facial recognition for authentication is also slow.

Playing games on this handset isn’t great, it can run games like Sky Force Reloaded, but any title heavier than that struggles to run well or maintain good graphics. This can also be seen on its benchmarks, with 106,338 points on AnTuTu, on par with the MediaTek Helio G35 chipset of the Realme 9 and Realme C12. But its graphics score is lower with just 26fps on GFXBench’s T-Rex test. The brightness is adequate and videos look decent on the phone. Due to its position, the earpiece speaker is really loud, it faces you directly and isn’t likely blocked by your palm.

Battery life

The battery capacity of the Nokia C3 is not large, registering 3040 mAh. It can last for 7 hours, 34 minutes in HD video test. A medium-light user can use this phone for an entire day, but gaming drains the juice quickly. For charging, you get a 5W charger and there’s no fast charging support. Testing shows that you can refill 43% of the battery in an hour.

Cameras

On the back of the phone, there is a single 8MP primary lens and on the front, there is a 5MP selfie lens. In general, autofocus is slow and even worse in low-light conditions and you don’t get the Portrait photo mode, but there’s the auto-HDR function.

If you care about image quality, you won’t be happy to know that daylight photos are underwhelming. Close-up shots are a little better but textures are generally flat and smoothened out. Meanwhile, low-light shots show poor detail and turn out grainy.

Selfies are not great either with poor detail, too much exposure during the day. Selfies in low light turn out grainy and unusable. The phone can record videos at up to 1080 pixels but the quality is really low even in daylight.

Nokia C3 vs Samsung Galaxy M31

At a price that doubles that of the Nokia C3, the Samsung Galaxy offers much better specifications. The Galaxy M31 is priced at Rs 15,499 in India.

First of all, the Nokia C3 and M31 are powered by different chips, Unisoc SC9863A and Exynos 9611, respectively. The screen on the Galaxy M31 is larger, measuring 6.4 inches instead of 5.99 inches.

In terms of the RAM and internal storage, the M31 comes in two variants, including 6GB/64GB and 6GB/128GB. It has four rear cameras, a 64MP primary lens, an 8MP lens, and dual 5MP lenses. On the front, there is a 32MP selfie lens. And it packs a 6000mAh battery.

Overall, you can already see that the Samsung Galaxy M31 offers better features and supposedly better performance.

In this post, we discussed the Nokia C3 review 2020 along with a detailed review. Though this phone may be disappointing for some, it’s a reliable entry-level that’s worth consideration.

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