Good old trusty old brand new Nokia.

Still New Zealand's sole supplier of androidone devices.

Still dependable as ever... up to a point...

 

Nokia's newest is the 7.1 - which is a bit confusing because from what I can tell this device is not really a direct evolution from the Nokia 7 plus, but rather a step forward from the Nokia 6.1. Why can't they just give these phones names instead of numbers? It'd be far less confusing.

As you can see from the image above, Nokia has stuck to the unique copper highlights around the edges of the device, but unlike previous models the back is now covered in glass to show off the new "steel" colour. It's actually quite striking and will certainly stand out among other more boringly coloured phones. I really like the way this phone looks. One drawback is the glass is obviously a bit more slippery - and perhaps won't take the knocks quite as well as those previous phones either. In saying that, I have accidentally dropped it out of my pocket onto a hard wood floor with no noticeable damage done, so maybe I'm wrong. The glass does give a more premium feel - even though at $599 the Nokia 7.1 is slap bang in the middle of the now crowded mid-range market.

Like its immediate predecessors, the 7.1 features the androidone O.S., which definitely casts a magic spell over average hardware and makes it perform like the latest and greatest... for the most part.

When you look at the numbers alone, it'd be easy to pass by the 7.1 - just 3GB of RAM seems pretty low these days, especially combined with a mere 32GB of internal storage. Normally I'd shy away from any handset with less than 64GB of space, but at least you can expand up to 400GB with a microSD. Something to bear in mind because I found I was left with less than 8GB to play with once I'd installed all my favourite apps and taken just a few pics.

3GB of RAM seems risky too - but that's where androidone steps in and takes over a lot of the heavy lifting. Apps still launch fairly quickly and smoothly - video plays with no issues and the screen, while comparatively small at 5.84", is extremely clear and I watched the entire sixth season of House of Cards on a recent plane trip with no trouble at all.

Multi-tasking starts to take its toll on the underpowered processor though and I certainly struggled to keep some apps running in the background. This seems to be a common theme with many midrange devices and I find it a bit confusing because some uber-popular apps like Instagram and Messenger keep on keeping on no matter what - never missing a notification. Meanwhile, other apps just go to sleep, no matter how many times I tell the phone not to optimise them. I guess the onus is on the app developers themselves to keep their programs up to date with the latest devices - but it remains a frustration for me, anyway.

What I found even more frustrating was the camera on the 7.1. It's great - or rather, they're great - both the front and dual-lens rear-facing configurations. I actually took some very good, clear photos, in a range of lighting conditions. Only problem is, every time I use the camera, it just about crashes the phone. The camera app is painfully slow to launch, swapping between front and rear views even worse and swapping between the photos you've taken and the live view even worse. It's so confusing to be able to take great pictures, but only once the phone has thought long and hard about it.

It's a bit like making Beauden Barrett play for a high school first XV again - sure he'd be capable of some amazing rugby, but only if the rest of the team can actually give him the ball.

As much as I like the stripped-back, efficient performance of androidone, it obviously has its limits and on the Nokia 7.1., that limit is the camera app. Maybe this is something that can be sorted out with a software update down the track. That's the real advantage of androidone of course, plenty of regular updates, guaranteed.

Pleasingly, there are quite a few hardware compromises that haven't been made to fit the 7.1 into this price range. There's a fast and reliable fingerprint sensor below the camera on the back. It has a pretty good battery life and charges quickly enough. Best of all, the charging cable is USB Type-C - just like all the fancy phones. There's a notch - which seems to be almost standard by now - but it's not overbearing and it's worth it for the extra screen space at the top, especially given there's quite a lot of blank real estate at the bottom - more than enough for a Nokia logo anyway.

Perhaps the most welcome feature of all is NFC. This means, unlike many of its competitors in this price bracket, the 7.1 can tap and pay - or connect to speakers and the like with one touch. Very convenient.

At $599, I'd suggest this device is priced at the top of its market value - not because it doesn't have plenty of premium features but just because there's not always the processing power available to run them.

Click here for more information and pricing on the Nokia 7.1