Introduction
They say third time's a charm and indeed HMD did right by Nokia's legacy. Once the behemoth of the whole industry, it deteriorated to oblivion, only to be resurrected by Microsoft, and then fall again. Android One turned out to be the platform for Nokia to thrive once more and the latest Nokia 7.1 is the perfect example of how well things are going.
The first HMD-made Nokia phones had great potential, but there was noticeable room for improvement. And with the second generation of Android-powered Nokias we do get more! The Nokia 7.1 is not only well-prepared for the mid-range with its Snapdragon 636 chip and capable dual-camera, but it does impress with a large HDR display.
In addition to the trending display, the 7.1 also features a very sleek shape enhanced by the glass-sandwich design. The phone has enough battery backup with its 3,060 mAh unit, and we are glad to see fast charging support present.
One of the best features about each new Nokia is the Android One system, of course. The 7.1, just like the Nokias to come before it, runs on vanilla Android Oreo and will receive on-time updates for the next couple of years.
Unboxing the Nokia 7.1
The Nokia 7.1 is bundled with an 18W charger and a USB Type-C cable. HMD is also providing a headset in the retail package, but our review bundle is missing this.The contents of the retail box may vary by region, so we recommend checking with your local Nokia website.
The Nokia 7.1 immediately impresses with its no-nonsense design. It has a very familiar glass-sandwich build, but HMD has added an extra touch by cutting out cut the frame out from a solid piece of 6000-series aluminum.The 5.84" HDR LCD screen is the most highlighted feature of the Nokia 7.1 and it's an instant attention grabber, alright. The moment we laid our eyes on it we could tell this display has a premium punch compared to the rest of the mid-range gang.
There is a notch on top, obviously, which accommodates the earpiece, the selfie cam, and a bunch of sensors. It's not as large as on the iPhones, and while we can argue a lot whether those cutouts should exist at all, nobody can deny the benefits of the thinner bezels and extra pixels won at the expense of symmetry.
Display
The Nokia 7.1 packs a 5.84" IPS LCD screen with a cutout on top and HDR10 support. It has a resolution of 2,280 x 1,080 pixels and they add up for a very decent 432ppi density. There is a Gorilla Glass 3 on top to keep it safe.HMD has a name for the Nokia 7.1 screen - PureDisplay. In addition to its HDR10 support, it can also upscale to HDR-like quality any SD video in real-time. This can be turned on and off from the screen settings. We tried it and while there is a difference, it's a minor boost in contrast and most of the time barely noticeable.
Being an HDR screen it has to come with jaw-dropping dynamic contrast and it's 1,000,000:1 in case of the Nokia 7.1. We aren't sure what's the official peak brightness, but we measured a maximum one of 600 nits sharp.
Our test showed the maximum brightness you can achieve manually by pushing the slider to the far-right end is 490 nits. This, combined with the deep black levels, led to a very nice static contrast of 1300:1.
Oddly, the Nokia 7.1 may have one very bright screen, but it did just average in our sunlight legibility test. In real-world terms, the handset remains usable outdoors. Just don't angle it straight towards the sun as it gets almost illegible in these conditions.
Nokia 7.1 battery life
The Nokia 7.1 is powered by 3,060mAh battery, not the largest we've seen in a phone of this size. It supports 18W fast charging and the supplied charger fills about 45% of a depleted battery in 30 mins.
We ran our usual tests on the Nokia 7.1 and got an overall endurance rating of 80 hours- an average score but in line with the capacity at hand. The individual scores paint a picture of dependability with about 10 hours in each of our screen-on tests (HDR enabled for videos) and 22 hours of talk time.
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