Nokia has been carving out a decent niche for itself in the smartphone world over the past couple of years by focussing on durable, affordable products with more than a nod to the environment. The company really hit the headlines at the start of 2023 with its first handset it claimed you could carry out simple repairs on yourself.
While not perfect, the Nokia G22 was definitely a step in the right direction in an age when rubbish dumps are overflowing with perfectly good tech (and sometimes that appears to be almost by design. Now we have the Nokia G42 5G, a higher-end version with, as the name would suggest, 5G connectivity which can picked up for just £199.
First off, the handset comes in two colours - purple or grey - and feels good to hold. The back cover is made with 65% recycled materials and houses a three-camera set-up led by a 50mp main lens. On the front, you'll find the 6.56ins HD+ display covered in Gorilla Glass 3.
The display is a winner, especially at this price point. I found it to be bright, clear and came very close to some of the more high-end affairs thanks to its 90Hz refresh rate. There is a fingerprint sensor on the side and you can also set up face recognition, although neither is 100 per cent reliable.
Performance for a phone that costs under £200 is excellent. The Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset is well up to the task and switching between apps or listening to high-end audio via Bluetooth was very smooth and without any juddering delay. The G42 comes with Android 13, while Nokia promises three years of monthly security updates and two years of OS upgrades. Very decent indeed.
Battery performance is another stand-out with a boast of three days under normal usage. Considering my high-end smartphone struggles to make it past one day, I really enjoyed this feature and found it to be pretty accurate. Nokia says the battery will keep 80% of its original capacity after 800 full charging cycles – about four years of charges before you need to change it. It also boasts 20w fast charging.
And this is where we get to the fixability. Armed with an iFixit kit costing around £19, you can fix a screen or a broken charging port - or replace a failing battery - from the comfort of your own home. As the phone has an IP52 rating for waterproofing and dust protection, getting into its innards - while relatively simple - does require some bravery from the user and I'd imagine it might be beyond people who are not tech-savvy.
I still think Nokia is on the right path and give them great props for making the effort. I just think that further down the line we'll start having devices with hot-swappable parts. But that might be sci-fi thinking.
To finish up there’s 128GB of storage that can be expanded up to 1TB with a MicroSD card, plus 6GB of RAM. The camera is capable of taking some very nice shots in all kinds of lighting situations thanks to the use of AI algorithms.
I found the Nokia G42 5G offers an experience way beyond the £199 price tag. And while the repairability can be argued, the quality, performance and OS support cannot.
