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Check out Nokia's latest affordable smartphones and modernized feature phone

By Adrian Diaconescu

Updated: Mar 20, 2020, 9:23 AM

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Nokia Android

Nokia 1.3, Nokia 5.3, Nokia 5310 (left to right)

HMD Global was initially supposed to unveil its latest batch of Nokia-branded handsets ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 23, but for pretty obvious reasons, that never happened. Neither did the company's rescheduled London event today, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the old continent at all levels of society, although life goes on and tech outfits are finding ways of adjusting to the new normal.

Alongside the upper mid-range Nokia 8.3 5G, a trio of significantly humbler phones is going official today with minimal fanfare. Without further ado, here are the most important things you should note about the Nokia 5.3, 1.3, and 5310.

The Moto G Power has a stiff competitor in the Nokia 5.3

No, the Nokia 5.3 doesn't come close to the insane 5,000mAh battery capacity of the recently unveiled and as-yet unreleased Moto G Power, aka G8 Power. The 6.55-inch display of the freshly announced Nokia mid-ranger is also inferior to the Full HD+ 6.4-inch panel on the aforementioned Motorola device with an HD+ pixel count of 1600 x 720 and a small "selfie notch" instead of a trendier hole punch design.

But the Nokia 5.3 and Moto G Power share a more than respectable Snapdragon 665 processor with an octa-core CPU composed of a quad 2.0 GHz Kryo 260 Gold cluster and four Kryo 260 Silver cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. That should strike a very solid balance between energy efficiency and speed, especially when you consider the up to 6GB RAM count of the Nokia 5.3 as well.

The Nokia 5.3 and Moto G Power also have an exceptionally versatile multi camera system in common, although the former phone comes with an extra imaging sensor on its back, while the latter actually wins the megapixel battle between the two. Nokia's newest mid-ranger has a whole bunch of photography tricks up its sleeve, taking 13MP "normal" pictures, using a 5MP ultra wide-angle lens for group shots and capturing beautiful landscapes, as well as leveraging a 2MP macro lens for extreme close-ups and a 2MP depth sensor for bokeh effects.

Powered by a pure version of Android 10 on the software side of things right out the box, the Nokia 5.3 is unsurprisingly "ready for Android 11 and beyond", which seems to suggest at least two major OS updates are guaranteed. Coated in Charcoal, Cyan, and Sand, the handset also comes with a "Nordic inspired design" combining a 2.5D glass front and scratch-resistant "composite" back, as well as a solid 4,000mAh battery and 64 and 128GB storage options to go with 3, 4, and 6GB RAM variants.

The Nokia 5.3 will be available "globally" starting in April at an extremely reasonable "average" price of 189 Euros for the 6GB RAM/64GB ROM configuration. That means this bad boy could cost less than $200 in the US if it ever lands there.

The Nokia 1.3 is nothing to write home about

Okay, the waterdrop-style notch is pretty cool for an entry-level, ultra-low-cost smartphone. But the overall design is nothing special, with fairly thick screen bezels and a plastic rear cover housing a single 8MP camera. The Moto E6s, for instance, looks much better than the Nokia 1.3, which also packs a terribly modest 1 gig of memory in addition to 16 gigs of internal storage space and a quad-core Snapdragon 215 processor.

For what it's worth, the Android 10 (Go edition) OS onboard here doesn't require a lot of RAM to run smoothly. The Nokia 1.3 comes with a 3,000mAh battery that doesn't sound all the bad either, especially when paired with a very frugal 5.71-inch display sporting a resolution of 1520 x 720 pixels.

The global average retail price is set at 95 Euros ahead of an April release, with no words on US availability just yet.

The Nokia 5310 marks the return of yet another classic

Not even the coronavirus pandemic can make HMD break with its tradition of reviving popular "dumb" phones from another era. The modernized Nokia 5310 follows in the footsteps of 2017's 3310, 2018's 8110, and 2019's 210 with a focus on music consumption.

Unfortunately, this is still a feature phone running the Nokia Series 30+ OS rather than Android, which means Spotify and Apple Music support are nonexistent. On the bright side, the Nokia 5310 (2020) can play MP3s and FM radio on a pair of front-facing speakers purportedly capable of "filling the room" with sound. What's perhaps even cooler is the dedicated music buttons of 2007's Nokia 5310 XpressMusic are making a comeback here, alongside an "elegant and clean" numeric keypad and a 5-way navigation key.

The durable design is nicely refined to include curved display glass and rounded corners, while the battery life is as stellar as ever, rated at up to 30 days of endurance in standby mode on a single charge. As you can imagine, the reborn Nokia 5310 is cheaper than cheap, at 39 Euros, looking at a "global" commercial debut later this month.

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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.