Nokia G400 5G Review: Fine, But With Lackluster Software Updates - WIRED

Nearly 2 years ago, I reviewed the $200 Nokia 5.3, which was promised 2 years of Android OS upgrades and 3 years of information updates. How has HMD Global, the institution licensing the Nokia brand, fared? It lone just deployed Android 12 to that device, which is simply a year-old version of Google’s operating system. 

That’s a large delay, but astatine slightest that fund telephone volition get six much months of information updates earlier its enactment officially ends. Unfortunately, things person gotten worse. Now I person the caller $270 Nokia G400 5G, which volition lone get 2 years of information updates and zero committedness to Android OS upgrades. It volition apt get Android 13, but who's to say, since HMD is not making immoderate promises? This feels similar a stark cognition displacement from a institution that prided itself connected delivering accelerated updates and lengthy bundle enactment back successful 2016. 

Today, most Android telephone makers connection a bundle committedness argumentation truthful you person a wide representation of however agelong the instrumentality volition beryllium supported. The $250 Samsung Galaxy A13 5G, for example, volition get 2 OS upgrades and four years of information updates. That’s amazing, and it means you tin clasp connected to the instrumentality without worrying astir it turning into a buggy, unsecured messiness aft 2 years. It lets you clasp connected to your instrumentality for that agelong if everything other is successful moving order, reducing the request to walk connected different phone. It’s conscionable hard to urge a smartphone successful 2022 erstwhile you person nary thought if it volition get the latest mentation of its operating system.  

Nice Hardware

The bittersweet happening is the Nokia G400 is simply a beauteous respectable phone. It looks bland and dreary, coming successful conscionable a gloomy grey, and doesn't look astatine each similar a “Nokia” phone. But the 6.58-inch LCD surface is sharp, colorful, and adjacent has a 120-Hz surface refresh rate, truthful it feels creaseless and responsive erstwhile you interact with it. 

Performance is decent. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 480+ chipset wrong reliably runs each the apps you’d want, though you volition person to hold present and determination for things to load. (It’s constricted by the 4 GB of RAM.) But implicit the people of 2 weeks, I was capable to usage it conscionable good to respond to emails and messages, browse Reddit and Twitter, marque telephone calls, and adjacent play casual games similar Alto's Odyssey. The bundle is banal Android 12, which is nice, truthful you get precise small bloatware (any of which is removable), and the interface looks slick. 

The 5,000-mAh artillery compartment has fixed maine a time and a fractional of mean use, and you get each the features you'd privation in immoderate phone successful 2022, similar sub-6 5G connectivity connected each large US carriers (yes, including Verizon, which galore unlocked Nokia devices person traditionally been incompatible with), a headphone jack, fingerprint sensor, and a MicroSD paper slot to grow connected the paltry 64 GB of interior storage. I've utilized the NFC sensor to pat and wage astatine the subway turnstiles present successful New York City, and you adjacent get a charger successful the box.