Just when you were getting used to the idea Nokia is back on the New Zealand market with the very reliable and good-value Nokia 6.1 - they've released another option... 

 

The Nokia 7 plus is even more striking than the 6.1 with the same copper highlights but a much wider copper band right round the edge of the device. It's probably a matter of personal preference, but I find this a real touch of class and it certainly makes the phone stand out beside other boring-black or all-gold competitors.

Like the 6.1, the 7 plus is molded from a solid block of aluminum and it also has that heritage feel of durability we've all associated with Nokia devices over the years. I haven't dropped it on a snowy European road like they do in the promotional video on the Nokia website, but it certainly feels like it would survive a little bit of rough treatment.

What's more, there's a clear case included in the box. Normally I wouldn't make to much of this, but it's actually a very well-designed case that still manages to show off the Nokia 7 plus' unique copper accents.

One thing accented in copper is the camera, which, as you can see from the image above, is actually two things. Yes, the 7 plus boasts a Zeiss dual-lens rear camera configuration which takes great photos inside and out. The camera setup is designed to achieve a better low-light result, and also offers an effect called "Live Bokeh", which lets you adjust the amount of blur on the parts of your picture you're not focused on.

Once focused on your subject, you also have the option to adjust the brightness of the shot - this worked well enough, although I didn't find the on-screen slider control very responsive. I took some really good pics with this camera and the bokeh is both easy and fun to use, as demonstrated below...

 

The selfie camera is a significant upgrade over the 6.1 too - twice the MegaPixels and it seemed to perform better in low light too. The beauty effect didn't make me unnaturally beautiful, even when wound all the way up. This is a relief because it's a feature that can be overly aggressive on many other handsets. "Live Bokeh" is available on this camera too, along with the "Bothie" option the Nokia 6.1 introduced us to - a side by side picture or video featuring shots from both forward and rear-facing cameras at once. The major photographic limitation here is zoom quality - neither of those dual-lenses are telescopic, so once you get past 3X or so, your close-ups start to lose quality.

Again, as the 7 plus also runs on the androidone operating system, the Google virtual assistant seems ready and waiting at all times. Today I've asked it for the opening hours at the local Farmers and what the Warriors score was - I got an instant and correct response both times. I've also found the Google virtual assistant invaluable this week as a text scanner - there have been several times when I needed to send or print a document I only had in hard copy. Not a problem for the virtual assistant. It recognised the text in photos and screen shots so I could copy it and distribute accordingly. I've used Samsung's Bixby Vision the same way, but my impression is Google is faster and more accurate.

The speaker on the bottom edge is far more powerful than the one on the Nokia 6.1, and I'm actually quite enjoying Charlie Puth's new album through it as I write this - it's pretty loud and seems to have a reasonably wide frequency response.

As you'd expect, you get more processing power with the 7 plus, and while the 6.1 ran smoothly enough (probably due in part to the stripped back androidone OS) there's a noticeable increase in sheer grunt with this one. The whole phone is bigger, of course - it's a 6" display with the more modern 18:9 aspect ratio. It doesn't feel bulky though, as the edges are more rounded than on the 6.1. You get twice the storage with the 7 plus too - 64GB plus whatever you want to add into the microSD slot.

What really blew me away was the battery life. Due to some complicated work commitments, I was up at 2am yesterday and when I hit the hay at around 10pm, I noticed the battery percentage was still at 55%. That's after being connected to a smart watch all day, not to mention several hours playing bluetooth audio via my car stereo and earbuds. That's up there with some of the best performing handsets I've reviewed.

In fact, everything about the Nokia 7 plus stacks up with the high-end big name phones; it looks good, it's powerful and runs smoothly, has plenty of storage and amazing battery life. No, the camera is not the absolute best on the market, but it still takes great pics. Meanwhile, the Google virtual assistant may well be the most useful I've tried.

Sadly, unlike early Nokia smart phones, there's no wireless charging option and there's no IP rating listed on the spec sheet, so it's probably not very waterproof. 

Taking those minor pitfalls into account, this is still a $1200 phone, no question. The good news is; it's only $699.

Click here for more information and pricing on the Nokia 7 plus...