We have the Nokia XL for review and it has been our carry phone for more about two weeks now. Nokia XL is the extra large in the Nokia X family that can run Android apps. Take a look at our review and see if you will buy the Nokia XL or skip it for another smartphone.
Design and build
We got the color green and the same as the Nokia X and the other current Lumias, it has the same solid body, thanks to the polycarbonate finish. The Nokia X was launched in March in the Philippines. The XL came in later.
Phone Arena said XL deserves its name because it is really big as compared to the current 5-inch smarpthone in the market. For me it a little bit on the awkward design, a little wider when you hold it but it lacks the resolution that you want in a smartphone.
The polycarbonate body is message that Nokia XL can sustain accidental bumps and drops. Nokia XL has a very simple design — microUSB port at the bottom, 3.5mm audio port on top, volume rocker and power buttons on the right side.
There is only one on-screen button, the back button which took me a little while to get used to it. It is not as responsive as I expect.
Dual micro-SIM, removable battery, micro-SD slot — all of these are hidden at the back of the XL, acccesible when you remove the casing.
User Interface
XL comes with pre-installed Apps – both Android apps and its native apps which includes games. Viber is pre-installed, Facebook, Twitter, Here maps and few more. There is no other way you can customize the screen, you either scroll down or up, but you can change the size of the icons by doing a long press. From the home screen, swiping to the left or right brings you the Fastlane. The Fast lane keeps the history of your activities and phone’s notification. Fast lane is the equivalent of Android’s multi-tasking. You can remove the history by doing a long press while in the Fastlane screen, the menu appears with the configure button on the left and the erase history button on the right.
Swipe down from the home screen brings the settings menu, while swiping up from any open app brings you to the specific app setting. You can also access the Fastlane from the home screen. To go back to the home screen, you have to long press the back button.
Android apps doesn’t require side loading with the XL, Nokia has 1Mobile Market enabled in the phone. It has most of the common Android apps you install in your phone — Facebook, Instagram, Chrome, Dropbox, Spotify, Photo Grid and a lot more.
But don’t get excited. Not all apps behaved well. For instance, Gmail can be installed but it won’t just run. Hang outs din’t work too.
Contacts Transfer. Nokia has included this app to help users transfer their contacts from their old phones with Bluetooth to Nokia X family. This is good if you maintain your contacts in your SIM card. Now, if you contacts are stored in your Google account, just like me, you will have to manually update your contacts.
I was hoping that 1Mobile Market has the Google apps that I can download to manage my contacts just like in any Android phone. So the two weeks of my journey with XL, I would always guess the name of the people calling me. The SMS part was kind of “Who this maybe” situation or I will also guess who the sender is.
Here maps are just awesome. The best app the Nokia has done for us. One because it works offline, you have to download the maps and you are good to go.
Running the Antutu benchmark gave us 7,358 score which is very low.
Camera performance is average. With the current smartphones that has 13MP and has the same price as the XL, you might want to get those instead of the XL.
Battery life is excellent. I achieved a whole day with 3G on with the XL. But, I make sure that the GPS is off. If you are the office boy type that uses the phone as basic gadget for calls, connects it to WiFi for your Viber, email access and do Facebook and Twitter, a good 12 to 14 hours of battery life is expected.
Audio playback is also awesome. The XL has a loud speaker. Spotify playback is really nice on this phone.
There is friend of mine who said he was given a Nokia recently, but he still looks for that Google Play in the phone. While Google Play isn’t there yet, the lack of apps is the next concern of the end users.
Samples.
Raw shots of the camera.
Nokia XL Specs:
- 1Ghz 8225 Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor
- 768MB RAM
- 4GB internal storage, expandable via microSD up to 32GB
- 5 – inch capacitive LCD display, 800 x 480 pixels
- 5-MP auto focus camera, 2-MP front-facing camera
- 3G, HSPA
- Dual- SIM (micro)
- WiFi, Bluetooth
- 2000mAh battery
- Php 8,990
Conclusion
Nokia XL isn’t bad at all. There are few comprising feature that you should take into consideration. Price is P8,990 and you know pretty much that CM Ultra LTE has the same pricing, plus it has 13MP camera. Nokia has to render more over time work for this brand to sell again to the consumer market. The XL series which allows Android apps to be installed is the initial step, but we need more. Otherwise, I will buy phones that is really affordable, costumizable and has Google Play. 🙂
