There was a time when everyone wanted a Nokia phone. They were all the craze back then when the iPhone hadn’t been unleashed to the world yet. Nowadays, the brand is obviously past its heyday, but that doesn’t stop it from still churning out good mobile devices. Case in point: The Nokia 9 PureView. It has a remarkably fun five-camera system, strong performance, great design, and excellent display – if only it didn’t have an appallingly bad fingerprint sensor.
As a part of Amazon’s Labor Day Sale, you can get this head-turning phone for a huge $200 off. Take home a factory unlocked unit for $500 instead of its usual price of $700. What’s more, you can get an additional $50 off instantly when you pay via the Amazon Rewards Visa card, lowering the price to $450.
The Nokia 9 PureView has a beautiful symmetrical design. It has an aluminum unibody paired with Gorilla Glass 5 that looks expensive despite its midrange price. When you hold it, it feels substantial and solid, like a fine piece of digital jewelry. Its 6-inch AMOLED display is similarly arresting, and thankfully doesn’t have a notch, unlike most recent phones. The colors are vivid, it can get super bright, and the contrasts are excellent. The power and volume buttons are also nicely responsive and clicky. However, you won’t be able to find an audio jack. At least the unit comes with a decent pair of wireless headphones. There’s a USB-C port found at the bottom and a downward-firing speaker, which is disappointingly weak, to be honest.
Unfortunately, the screen houses probably the worst in-display fingerprint sensor we’ve ever encountered. Unlocking the phone usually doesn’t work the first time, and you must push extra hard to activate it. This thing will seriously test your patience. Moreover, this was released earlier this year, so Nokia should have found a way to make it work seamlessly. A few system updates would hopefully fix the issue.
It’s in the phone’s back where you’ll find its greatest strength, though: the five-camera system. They look like spider eyes and might trigger people with trypophobia. If you’re fond of arachnids, this phone will definitely appeal to you. Every photo taken using this phone uses all five cameras to collect as much photographic data as possible. Photos look stunning even when raw and even more startling when edited (although you honestly don’t have to). They look very natural and not oversaturated with too much contrast, unlike with other phones. There’s also a 20-megapixel front-facing camera that can take extremely detailed selfies. One great feature is Depth Map, capable of gathering 1,200 layers of depth so you can completely readjust the blurriness of the foreground and background of a photograph.
This phone runs with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It’s not the latest of processors, but it gets the job done and is fast enough with no noticeable lags. Its battery life is also quite good. With normal use, it can easily last a day with a little bit of juice left.
The Nokia 9 PureView is an excellent phone for people who love taking and tinkering with photographs. It’s not perfect, especially because of its abominable fingerprint sensor, but it’s still good.
Take a look at our guide to the best Labor Day sales of 2020 for more options.
