Introduction

Ease of Use

Front of the Nokia 8.3 5G

This is one large phone. The 20:9 aspect ratio FHD+ display measures 6.81in and features a 2400x1080 pixel resolution. That's not the greatest resolution or indeed pixel density - for example there are other phones with smaller displays offering the same resolution.

However, the display is crisp enough and surely its larger size makes watching videos and the like that much more enjoyable. We've used the phone in a variety of settings, including bright sunlight, and in general have found the 'PureDisplay' provides clear viewing.

Nokia has maximised the viewing experience with an edge to edge display, save for a slight bezel at the bottom featuring the Nokia logo, while the front camera punctuates the display in the top left.

Flip the phone around and the rear has a lovely 'Polar Night' finish. The appearance of this multi-tone rich blue colour evolves as its angle is shifted from your viewpoint. Gorgeous.

We'd happily buy a protective clear case in order to keep that lovely finish in view. The rear is made from 3D Corning Gorilla Glass - that's less effective than Corning Gorilla Glass 6 found in more expensive phones, but durable enough.

Again, it's no surprise that the polycarbonate 8.3 5G is not weather-sealed. In general, you'll need to fork out a lot more money to get a metal, waterproof phone.

Like most phones these days, that rear is smooth and somewhat slippery. However, somehow the 227g phone feels easy enough to operate single-handed, even the camera app. It's awkward, but possible.

By default, the phone is setup to have the volume control key work the camera shutter, though as always there is that shutter option on screen too. Whether holding the phone single-handed or firmly with both, the camera shutter action seems comfortable.

Rear of the Nokia 8.3 5G

There's plenty going on around the profile of the 8.3 5G. You've got the SIM card slot that doubles up to hold a micro SD card. It's compatible with cards up to 512GB - that's plenty of extra storage over the somewhat modest 64GB internal memory.

Underneath the volume control is the power button that features a fingerprint scanner. The button is sunk within the profile which we like, and the index-finger scanner works well to quickly unlock the phone.

On the other side is a Google Assistant button. In general use we found it intrusive - all too often Google Assistant piped up unexpectedly, offering help. Perhaps that button should be sunk within the profile too (or omitted altogether), in order to avoid so many accidental presses.

Like most phones these days, the 8.3 5G is powered via USB-C on its underside. Alongside the power input is a 3.5mm headphone jack, plus stereo speakers and the microphone.

Battery life is solid - the non-removable unit has a 4500mAh capacity. In reality, out-the-box the phone will maintain a charge for a little over a day, even with that gargantuan display.

There's no wireless charging. However, the phone comes with 18W charger and although there is no info readily available about quick charging, you'll get about 35% power from a 30 minute charge.

That's a quick tour around the phone handset. But before we move on to the camera unit, let's take a look at the features and performance.

The on-trend headline feature is in the phone's name - 5G connectivity. Of course, we're early days with the tech and coverage is limited, but offering the compatibility does 'future proof' the 8.3 5G for when the service is more readily available.

Camera Mode

Asides from that headline feature, the 8.3 5G offers exactly the sort of power we might expect at this price point; a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G processor and 6GB of RAM.

While not headline grabbing, that power under the hood is sufficient for just about any application that you can imagine with this phone. We didn't really experience any kind of lag, even in the camera app when applying effects such as the Portrait mode. (In fact, you see the blur effect in liveview.)

If there is any lag, it is perhaps in video playback, but nothing untoward. During our time with the 8.3 5G there has been the odd occasion when the camera app has stopped responding. However, closing the app and then reopening it has been an immediate solution every time.

OZO Audio is on board. We've explained what this is in great detail in our review of the Panasonic Lumix G100. However, there is no manual control over the intelligent microphones in the 8.3 5G - it's all automatic, presumably through scene detection.

Elsewhere, six-months of Google One comes with the camera (optional, $1.99p/m thereafter) which includes 100GB of cloud storage among other things. Overall, it's easy to set up the 8.3 5G with this service and it's probably worth doing as an easy backup of all your images.

Now we've covered the general function of the phone, let's get down to what you are really here for - the camera.

On paper, the Nokia 8.3 5G camera is very competitive. The 'quad camera' block is positioned centrally on the rear and contains the standard primary f/1.9 lens, an ultra-wide f/2.2 lens with a 120° field of view, a f/2.4 macro lens and a depth sensor.

In addition to those various lenses, it is possible to pinch the screen to employ digital zoom, up to 10x.

Camera Settings

Resolution for each lens varies. The primary lens is 16MP, the ultra wide is 12MP, the macro lens is 2MP, while the depth sensor is 2MP too.

In the Pro photo mode it is possible to activate a 64MP resolution - this isn't active by default despite the camera being marketed as such. If you ever need extra detail or want to print big, this is the mode to choose.

There is of course the front-facing 'selfie' camera, too, with f/2.0 lens. By default it's a 6MP resolution in 4:3 aspect ratio, although a 24MP option is available too, which presumably works on the same basis as the 64MP mode.

Asides from the macro lens, all lenses feature autofocus, including face detection AF. As for video, you get 4K up to 30fps and Full HD up to 60fps (plus a new 'Action' mode that uses 60fps). There's also a 2K video resolution option.

The easy to navigate camera app offers some additional controls that vary depending on the active shooting mode. For example, the CRI LED flash for photos can also be used as a continuous light for video capture. There is a self timer in most photo modes.

Shooting modes include Night, Panorama, Slow Motion and Time-Lapse, plus in addition to the default photo mode there is Pro, Portrait, Video and a new Cinema mode.

Overall, each mode is easy to navigate and glitch free. Panoramas look good although image processing isn't always on the money, while slow motion videos can be customised post capture by selecting the part of the timeline that you wish to be in slow motion.

The speed of time-lapse and slow motion video appears to be fixed. We prefer the Google Pixel 4a approach of offering five different speed options to cover various scenarios. Stabilisation can be applied to slow motion videos post capture.

Rear of the Nokia 8.3 5G

It certainly is worth using the Night mode in low contrast light, with the end results being a bit brighter. However, the overall quality of low light pictures is not quite to the same standard as those using the Night Sight mode of the Pixel 4a.

For video, in addition to the standard, ultra-wide and macro lenses, there are 'Action' and 'Dual Sight' settings. Action gives better stabilised footage at the cost of a notable image crop, while Dual Sight splits the screen in two to record with both front and rear cameras simultaneously - we love that feature.

As far as we can tell, the Portrait mode is the same image area as the standard lens - this is not a 2x telephoto lens. The affect of blur is seen live pre capture, which is really handy.

Pro photo mode and the Cinema mode afford a degree of manual control over exposure, including white balance, ISO, exposure compensation and shutter speed. When in the Pro Photo mode it is also possible to shoot in RAW dng format as well as the standard JPEG format.

Dig into the camera app menu and you'll also notice that photos can be saved in HEIF format - it's a more efficient format than JPEG and we are starting to see greater compatibility with this format.

While in this menu you'll also notice that HDR (High Dynamic Range) is set to 'always on'. It can be changed to auto, though there is no option to turn HDR off. However, the effect is not applied to RAW format images. We much prefer the manual control offered by a Google Pixel 4a through its Live HDR+ sliders.

Front of the Nokia 8.3 5G

We've enjoyed the ultra-wide lens throughout this test, finding the much wider perspective useful in tight spaces and for landscape scenes.

The fixed focus macro lens (which is only available in the standard Photo mode) is much less useful. You need to hold the phone about 4cm from your subject which incurs distortion, plus resolution is low at 2MP. Overall, we've found it very difficult to capture any kind of macro image that we are pleased with.

Autofocus is reasonable, but its speed and accuracy is not the best around. Stabilisation is less effective, too. Overall, we have been more conscious to hold the camera as steady as possible when taking a photo, in order to get a sharp image.

The new Cinema mode shoots 4K 24fps videos up to 60Mbps with full manual exposure control, plus it offers the H-Log picture profile designed to maximise the dynamic range of the camera. Lovely stuff.

A really handy H-Log view assist can be activated to check the effect in real time. Those videos can then be graded using the Cinema Editor app. It's a very basic app, with 10 preset grades and a Zeiss flare that is only available for videos not shot in H-Log. If you are expecting a Cinema app similar to the one found in the Sony Xperia 1 II, think again.

Overall, the Nokia 8.3 5G provides a fuss-free camera experience with enough extra to play with should you want to get creative. It's a different experience to a phone like the Google Pixel 4a 5G - sometimes for better, more often for worse, and we'll summarise that in the conclusion.

Image Quality

All of the numbers are promising with the Nokia 8.3 5G; a quad camera, 64 megapixels pictures, 4K video with H-Log profile and DNG RAW capture.

There's something to be understood with the numbers for photos. The regular resolution of the camera sensor is 16 megapixels (4608x3456), which is plenty enough for sharing any pictures on social media. That's a print size of 15.3x11.6in at 300ppi, again a decent size.

The maximum resolution is for the standard 1.0x lens. The ultra-wide lens is nearer 12 megapixels (4608x2596 pixels) while the macro lens is a paltry 2 megapixels (1600x1200 pixels). That 64 megapixels is activated manually in the Pro photo mode only and creates huge images at 30.7x23.0in (9216x6912 pixels).

The 64 megapixel high-res images are clearly sharper when viewed side by side at the same size than the standard 16 megapixels resolution.

File sizes vary immensely depending on the shooting mode - its 30MB on average for a RAW image, anywhere between 5-15MB for the standard lens and 500KB for macro.

The difference between identical RAW and JPEG images at various ISO settings viewed side by side is interesting. Noise reduction at higher ISO settings is erratic for JPEG images taken in low contrast light. If you're serious about a picture, it is well worth opting for RAW format (the phone will record JPEG simultaneously anyway).

Overall, there are better smartphones out there at the same price point than the Nokia 8.3 5G for low light shooting. For example, intelligent image processing in the Google Pixel 4a renders better low light shots from what on paper is a simpler camera.

Still, with a fast f/1.9 standard lens, chances are the camera will be in its lower ISO settings most of the time, where best image quality is achieved. Furthermore, if you're in bright light, the Nokia 8.3 5G is highly capable of sharp and crisp images with a pleasant colour rendition.

With the standard f/1.9 lens and even the ultra wide f/2.2 lens, detail quality is consistent from centre to edges. In fact, the final pictures usually appear better than what you see on-screen in the camera app.

On the flip side, we'd avoid the macro lens altogether. It's extremely difficult to get a good picture with this lens - there are distortions, blur and the resolution is low. It is possible to focus very closely using the standard lens anyway, so that's your best bet for closeup pictures.

We'd avoid using the digital zoom, too. Even at 2x, interpolation is clear and image quality suffers.

Lens flare and ghosting is an issue when shooting directly towards the sun. Unless you like the distortion, it's probably best not to point the camera straight towards strong light.

Colour accuracy is good as standard, as is evaluative metering. There is always the option of using the Pro photo mode or shooting in RAW format in order to manually select white balance or exposure co compensation, too.

There are further factors affecting image quality; stabilisation and autofocus. Firstly, you may find detail blurry if the camera is not held steadily. Secondly, autofocus works well in bright light, but its speed and accuracy is affected in low contrast light.

Noise

There are 8 ISO settings available on the Nokia 8.3 5G. These crops demonstrate the image quality at each setting for both JPEG and RAW file formats.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 64 (100% Crop)	ISO 64 (100% Crop)
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)

Portrait Mode

The Nokia 8.3 5G features a portrait mode and a 2 megapixels depth sensor lens. The portrait mode uses the same focal length as the standard lens, unlike some other phones that employ a 2x telephoto zoom.

The blur effect is seen live, so you know what to expect once the photo is taken. For the best part, blur is applied really well. There's also a choice of various 'Zeiss' blur effects, including Classic, Smooth, Swirl, Modern, Star and Heart and a slider to manually select the severity of the blur effect. We had fun experimenting here.

We've seen occasions where blur has missed the mark - the effectiveness is mainly impacted by the complexity of the subject's outline and their surroundings. But overall, the mode is great, certainly where the background is clean and silhouette simple. Perhaps the main downside is that it's not a 2x zoom lens - portraits are more flattering at this sort of focal length.

On

Off

On

Off

On

Focal Range

The Nokia 8.3 5G has a quad camera with standard lens, plus an ultra-wide lens with 120° field of view. The digital zoom extends the focal length by up to 10x.

Ultra-wide

Standard

Ultra-wide

Standard

Ultra-wide

Standard

2x Digital Zoom

5x Digital Zoom

10x Digital Zoom

Macro

We've already mentioned it, but the macro lens should be avoided. However, as with any small-sensor smartphone, the Nokia 8.3 5G can focus closely using its standard lens. We've included some of our best examples using the macro lens - it's slim pickings.

HDR

By default, HDR is always on. There is the option to change this setting to auto via the camera menu, but not off. Overall, we've been happy to leave HDR on because the application is satisfactory.

Night Mode

The Night Mode can be used handheld, although you need to keep the phone as still as possible during image capture. The end result is a brighter image than when using the standard photo mode.

In Pro photo mode, shutter speed can be manually selected up to a maximum of 20 seconds, while ISO goes up to 6400. If you can support the phone using a tripod, then this manual control over shutter speed might well be the best option for low light shooting.

Off

On

On

Panorama

High Res Mode

Here's comparison images, one of the 64 megapixels Pro photo mode and the other is the standard 16 megapixels resolution.

Off

On

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Nokia 8.3 5G camera, which were all taken using the 16 megapixel JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Nokia 8.3 5G enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Nokia RAW (DNG) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movies & Video

Product Images

Conclusion

There's a lot to like about the Nokia 8.3 5G. Of course, it is one of the most affordable 5G compatible phones. It also boasts a large display and eye-catching design. We love the 'Polar Night' finish on the rear.

Then there is its general performance. The Nokia 8.3 5G ticks a lot of the boxes without excelling, from it's processor and RAM, decent battery life and its clean Google One Android interface. This is a good all-rounder.

We also have a decent camera specification. Sadly, the reality doesn't quite live up to the hype.

In its favour, the standard and ultra-wide lenses used in good light are capable of making punchy yet natural pictures with good tones and sharp detail from centre to edges. That ultra-wide angle lens comes in handy more often than you might expect.

Portrait mode works well and we like the degree of customisation regarding blur effect. More serious image makers can also enjoy manual exposure control and RAW format in the Pro photo mode.

However, we can't help but compare the Nokia 8.3 5G with the recently reviewed Google Pixel 4a and by comparison the camera functionality often comes up short.

Asides from the ultra-wide lens, there is little else in favour of the 8.3 5G. It's not as good in low light, it's focusing is a little slower, stabilisation less effective, plus it's affected by lens flare.

Also, there are many controls and effects that could be applied better. For example, HDR is automatic with no manual override. Customisation of modes like time-lapse is limited.

In its own right, the Nokia 8.3 5G is a solid phone - Nokia's most capable yet - and in the right hands it is possible to make decent photos and videos. But if the camera is a key concern, there are better options out there for the same money.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	3.5
Features	4
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	3.5
Value for money	4

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Nokia 8.3 5G.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Nokia 8.3 5G from around the web.

Your Comments