Nokia G10

What is it?

An entry-level smartphone from Nokia. However, in an attempt to keep the price down, corners have been cut. There’s no 5G connectivity or 5GHz Wi-Fi support and the 6.5-inch LCD screen only has low 1,600 x 720-pixel resolution.

It’s powered by the low-spec MediaTek Helio G25 processor and just 4GB of Ram. There is, however, a fairly sizeable 64GB of on-board storage, which can be expanded using the micro-SD card slot, plus there’s a conventional 3.5mm headphone jack.

On the rear, there’s a three-camera array – a main 13Mp main lens, plus 2Mp depth and macro cameras. The front-facing selfie camera has 8Mp resolution.

At 196g and 9.3mm thick, it’s not particularly light or slim, but it’s in line with similar budget models. It has both fingerprint and face scanning for logging in, however the latter is rather sluggish to react.

What’s it like to use?

It’s easy to set up and use, with a logical menu structure that’s intuitive to navigate. However, its lower-spec processor means that it’s quite slow when performing some everyday tasks.

The touchscreen is responsive, but the low resolution of the LCD display is noticeable and the screen has an overall bluish tone. Brightness levels are good, however, which makes it easy to read, even in sunny conditions, however the viewing angle is restricted, making it harder to see if you aren’t looking at it straight on.

Call quality is good under normal circumstances, although when background noise levels rise microphone effectiveness suffers, meaning the person you’re speaking to may have difficulty making out what you’re saying. Additionally, sound quality from the single mono speaker is disappointing – thin, harsh and lacking in bass.

How long does the battery last?

Battery life is excellent, lasting 46 hours at maximum screen brightness. Unusually, making the screen a little darker doesn’t extend this any longer.

Its supplied 10W charger takes a lengthy three hours to fully replenish the battery, which is relatively slow compared with most modern smartphones. After 15 minutes of charging, it only gets to 10% charge.

How good are the cameras?

Mediocre at best. In well-lit daylight scenes the rear cameras produce images that have vivid colours, but which are slightly dark and lacking in finer details.

Quality drops off as the light dims and switching to night mode doesn’t help matters much, with dark, noisy images, with colour or brightness changes, and muted colours. Switching the flash on improves the level of detail and colours a little, but pictures still come across as too dark and noisy. Videos are OK, but rather pale and jittery.

The front-facing selfie camera is poor. In bright light, there’s a reasonable level of detail, although colours are a bit cold and pale. However, as the conditions dim the quality deteriorates, with a flat, milky tone developing, together with a loss of detail and increasing levels of noise. Switching to flash helps, but the pictures are then overly bright with odd colouration. Videos are similarly disappointing – noisy, coarse and with fluctuating brightness levels throughout film clips.

Is there anything I should know?

There’s no formal IP water and dust-protection certification on this smartphone, but it passed our durability and screen scratch tests without any permanent damage.

Should I buy it?

No. This smartphone has too many flaws and is best avoided. Even if don’t want to spend a lot, there are much better options than this, so see our Best Buys.