Nokia X100 Review – PCMag

At $252, the Nokia X100 is the latest affordable 5G phone on the market. It has a crisp display, solid performance for everyday tasks, excellent connectivity on T-Mobile’s sub-6GHz network, and all-day battery life. That said, it runs a dated version of Android and its camera is just okay. The X100 is a decent value for Metro and T-Mobile customers, but it isn’t strong enough to unseat the $279.99 Samsung Galaxy A32 5G as our Editors’ Choice winner in this budget-friendly price range.

Undeniably Nokia

The X100’s utilitarian aesthetic is consistent with that of most other handsets Nokia has released in the past few years, though at 6.8 by 3.1 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and 7.7 ounces, the phone is definitely a handful. It sports a 6.67-inch, 2,400-by-1,080-pixel LCD with a hole at the top for the front-facing camera. A chunky bottom bezel with Nokia branding contrasts with the slim top bezel and makes the phone look a little unbalanced.

(Photo: Steven Winkelman)

The display is crisp and has excellent viewing angles, but it isn’t bright enough to see in direct sunlight and colors skew slightly cool. Compared with the Galaxy A32’s 6.5-inch 1,600-by-720-pixel LCD, the X100’s screen is sharper but dimmer.

Dark blue plastic on the back of the phone is easily susceptible to fingerprints and smudges. A prominent circular camera module sits in the top center, while a vertical Nokia logo is the only other design element on the back.

The left edge of the phone includes a SIM/microSD slot and a Google Assistant button, while the opposite edge features a power button with an integrated fingerprint sensor and a volume rocker. The fingerprint sensor is fast and accurate, but difficult to reach if you have small hands. The top edge of the phone is bare, while the bottom houses a USB-C charging port and a headphone jack. 

The X100 is slightly less durable than the Galaxy A32 5G. Its plastic chassis and back are likely to withstand drops without much damage, but its Gorilla Glass 3 display may not fare as well. Comparatively, the A32 5G’s Gorilla Glass 5 display means you probably won’t need to worry about cracks from a minor drop. The X100 can withstand splashes and sweat, but it doesn’t have an official IP rating.

5G, NFC, and a Strong Speaker

Although Nokia sells many of its phones unlocked with support for multiple carriers, the X100 isn’t one of them. The phone is optimized for T-Mobile’s LTE and sub-6GHz 5G networks (Metro uses T-Mobile’s network, so you’ll get the same performance). LTE band support for international travel is limited, however, and the phone doesn’t support most 5G networks throughout Europe. 

We tested the X100 on T-Mobile’s 5G network in Chicago and recorded admirable results, with speeds around 108Mbps down and 40Mbps up on average. Those speeds are slightly behind the Galaxy A32 5G, but network congestion, atmospheric conditions, and many other variables can account for the difference. 

Call quality is excellent. The earpiece has a maximum volume of 85dB and noise cancellation works well, so you should have no trouble conducting calls in any environment.

The bottom-firing speaker maxes out at 89dB and sounds surprisingly good. OZO spatial audio creates a natural and lush soundstage. The speaker pushes the mids slightly forward, but not to the point that they drown out lower and upper frequencies.

In addition to a offering a solid speaker and a headphone jack, the X100 supports Bluetooth 5.1 with aptX HD Adaptive. NFC, another rarity on budget phones, also makes an appearance. 

Suitable for Multitasking, Not Heavy Gaming

The Qualcomm 480 5G mobile platform and 6GB of RAM power the Nokia X100. It comes with 128GB of storage, about 100GB of which is available out of the box. If you need more, you can expand storage by up to 1TB via the microSD card slot. 

Despite its lower-end chipset, the X100 handles basic productivity tasks with ease. Apps open quickly and we didn’t notice any significant lag when swiping between screens or any caching until we had more than a dozen browser tabs open. The phone is capable enough for most of your needs, but if you want a little more power, the Galaxy A32 5G is a better option.

Nonetheless, the X100 is capable of handling casual games; we played Alto’s Odyssey for over an hour and didn’t notice any lag or skipped frames. Genshin Impact, on the other hand, is too resource-hungry; it took a long time to load, gameplay was punctuated by lag and skipped frames, and it crashed once in an hour of gameplay. If you prefer hardware-intensive games, the pricier Google Pixel 5a is worth a look.

Although benchmarks aren’t indicative of real-world performance, they’re useful for quantifying differences between similar devices. On Geekbench 5, a suite of tests that benchmark raw power, the Nokia X100 scored 501 single-core (SC) and 1,567 multi-core (MC). The similarly priced Samsung Galaxy A32 5G has a slight edge here, with scores of 501 SC and 1,678 MC, though you may only be able to notice a difference when you subject the phone to a heavy workload.

The X100’s 4,470mAh battery can easily get you through a day of moderate use. In our battery drain test, which streams HD video over Wi-Fi with the display at full brightness, the phone lasted for 13 hours of screen time before shutting down. With more conservative use, we think you can stretch the battery to about a day and a half between charges. When it’s running low, you can quickly add about half a day’s worth of power in about 15 minutes using the included 18W charger. Unsurprisingly, the phone doesn’t support wireless charging. 

Average Camera Performance

A quad camera stack with Zeiss optics sits on the back of the Nokia X100. The primary lens uses a 48MP quad-binning sensor, while a 5MP ultrawide lens and a pair of 2MP depth and macro sensors round out the stack. 

In sufficient light, the 48MP camera is capable of quality shots. Our test photos show crisp foreground detail, excellent depth of field, and solid color accuracy. We noticed some loss of fine detail in most of the images, but this issue is mostly apparent when you view them at full size.

Low-light photos with the primary lens are acceptable. That said, some of our test shots look a little flat, suffer from intermittent noise, and show some lens flare. The camera’s Night Mode seems to make marginal improvements by bumping up the exposure and noise cancellation, while creating a slightly unnatural background blur in the process.

(Photo: Steven Winkelman)

The ultrawide lens does a decent job in sufficient light, but upon close observation, we noticed some edge distortion as well as some loss of fine detail. Several of our photos appear flat, too. In low light, the image quality deteriorates further, with significant background blurring, more distortion, and noise toward the edge of the frame. 

The X100’s macro lens fails to impress. Despite good light and a steady hand, we saw uneven blurring and significant fringing in most of our shots. You may notice marginal improvement with a tripod, but we just don’t think the tiny 2MP sensor and Qualcomm’s basic AI Engine are capable of impressive results under any circumstance. 

The 16MP front-facing camera takes solid shots in sufficient light. Our test shots show accurate color, a natural depth of field, and excellent foreground detail. We noticed some minor loss of fine detail in all of the photos, but again, this isn’t something you can see unless you view them at full size. Portrait mode is OK, but several test photos suffered from object mapping issues, resulting is a loss of bokeh around shoulders, ears, and other areas. 

In low-light conditions, the selfie camera performs pretty well. Our test photos lack some depth and background blurring is more prevalent than in brighter environments, but most are fine for sharing on social media. 

Ultimately, Samsung’s Galaxy A32 5G does a much better job than the X100 with macro photos, its low-light photos look more natural, and we didn’t notice nearly as much distortion with its ultrawide lens. That said, neither camera will truly impress smartphone shutterbugs. If you fall into that category, the Pixel 5a is the least expensive phone you can get that performs well in just about any lighting scenario, but it costs more at $449. 

Android 12 Isn’t in the Cards

The Nokia X100 ships with stock Android 11 and isn’t one of the company’s Google One products, which means that this is probably the end of the line for software updates. Nokia says it will provide two years of security updates, but hasn’t committed to anything on the software side. Compared with the Galaxy A32, which will get three years of OS updates and four years of security patches, Nokia’s upgrade policy here seems stingy. 

If you buy the phone from T-Mobile, about half a dozen apps for bill payment and other services come preinstalled on the phone, and you can’t remove them. Although we didn’t test the Metro variant, we expect a similar amount of bloatware.

An Average, Affordable 5G Phone

The Nokia X100 is capable of handling most common tasks and can easily last a least a day with heavy use. Solid sub-6GHz 5G connectivity makes it a decent option for Metro and T-Mobile, especially if you can get it for free through a carrier promotion. But we wish Nokia would commit to providing more software updates for the phone, and its display, although sharp, could be brighter. As such, the Samsung Galaxy A32 5G remains our top pick in this price range. It works on every carrier, has a little more processing power, takes better pictures, and will receive more software updates. If you’re looking for a phone less than $300, it’s our Editors’ Choice.

The Bottom Line

Thanks to strong 5G connectivity on Metro and T-Mobile, Nokia’s affordable X100 phone offers solid value for the price.

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