Nokia's lowest end smartphone boasts an impressive battery life and stellar software support, but is ultimately let down by misplaced priorities, and is unable to outvalue the competition.

Since it resurrected the Nokia brand almost two years ago, HMD Global has executed a rather simple marketing strategy to great success: produce acceptably good phones at reasonable prices and let the Nokia brand do the rest of the work. While simplistic at first glance, there is no doubt the strategy has worked: within 20 months of its return to the mobile market, Nokia was already among the top 10 smartphone vendors in the entire world.

This no-frills mentality also permeates Nokia's approach to the software on its phones: it makes next to no modifications to the pure Android experience provided by Google, and makes little effort to distinguish itself. That laissez-faire attitude has itself become a distinction for Nokia. While even $1,000 flagships from competitors may receive the latest version of Android months after its release by Google, Nokia is now the largest partner for Android One, and even its cheapest phones are slated to receive the Android 9.0 Pie update in record time.