The Nokia portfolio of smartphones hasn’t seen too many shifts and launches past couple of years as you might have expected. There aren’t that many offerings across the price segments and not too many that are doing very well either. But now comes its budget offering – the Nokia C32. Let’s take a quick look at what it really offers at Rs. 8,999 for the base model and Rs. 9,499 for the higher model.
Design: The C32 comes with a 6.52-inch 20:9 aspect ratio display with a drop -shaped notch to accommodate the front camera. The bezels around the display aren’t symmetric with the bottom one measuring nearly double the breadth of the other sides. The phone has toughened glass on both back as well as on top of the display. The right side houses the volume buttons and Power/lock key near the middle. These keys are just about tactile and don’t feel too cheap to use either, though the volume buttons require a little more pressure to press than the other one. The left only locates the SIM card tray towards the top corner. The top carries the 3.5mm audio jack; while the bottom has the primary mic, USB type C in the middle as well as the loudspeakers. The phone comes in Mint, Pink and Charcoal colour options, the last one is the one I tried. It weighs slightly under 200grams and measures about 8.55mm in thickness. It doesn’t feel very cheap at all and doesn’t have any bends or creeks to worry about out of the box. You get a basic clear case in the box, that does the job.
Display: The phone features a 6.52-inch (1600x720) LCD display that does a decent job for watching videos and viewing images. It’s okay to be used direct sunlight but don’t expect it to be a high quality panel that can handle very rich and vibrant colours.
Performance and software experience: Running on near stock Android 13 with nearly no bloatware and added skin tones. The phone is equipped with an octa core Unisoc SC9863A1 chipset along with 4Gb of RAM and 128GB storage (also comes in 3GB + 64GB configuration). In terms of using popular apps such as Gmail, WhatsApp and Chrome, the phone does a decent job of keeping up with the tasks if there isn’t too many images and videos or more than 3-4 tabs open. Heavier media-centric apps such as Instagram and YouTube, it can show its limits in terms of switching between videos and resuming the app where you left. For tasks using the pre-installed basic apps such as Calling, Messages and Contacts, the phone doesn’t glitch out and can handle these fine. It’s certainly not a gaming device nor is it to consumer heavy media files.
Battery life: Powered by a 5,000mAh battery unit, you can expect the phone to last a day and then some on a regular basis. The bundled 10watt charger can charge it from 1 percent to full in around 2 hours or so.
Camera: Boasting a 50MP main camera along with a 2MP macro camera, you can expect to take somewhat detailed shots when in daylight with neither you nor your subject moving. The main camera can take a bit in terms of shutter lag to capture a shot, which isn’t very surprising. The frontfacing 8MP camera performs okay for an odd selfie for social media purposes provided good lighting and no movement, too, but don’t expect the most well-stitched or vibrant images here.
Call and network: Expect good 4G network reception and also for WiFi without any hiccups. Sound on calls is clear and loud enough that you would expect from Nokia.
Verdict: the Nokia C32 appears like a good enough budget Android device that does basic tasks sufficiently well, comes with a great battery life, okay camera performance and a decent design to top it off. The company promises 2 years of security updates delivered quarterly, and hopefully keeps the OS running well with software updates, too.