You know what’s better than one camera?
Seven cameras.
The Nokia 9 PureView is a pretty crazy looking smartphone coming from a company that’s
been making phones since before most of us were even born.
This 7-eyed alien monstrosity looking back panel looks like something we’ll find during
the Area 51 Raid.
Huge thanks to ExpressVPN for sponsoring this durability test.
Let’s get started.
[Intro]
Inside the Nokia 9 box, we have an instruction booklet, some headphones with the headphone
jack that are pretty much worthless since this phone has no headphone jack.
Oh look….there’s a dongle…still worthless.
I’ll be honest, the main reason I bought this phone is because I want to see what it
looks like from the inside, but I guess we can check out the outside a bit first.
Let’s start with the scratch test.
You probably know how this works at this point.
I have some Mohs mineral picks that can tell what the screen from by how hard it is.
Plastic scratches at a level 3, and glass scratches at a level 6.
And sapphire, which we’ve seen implemented on a few phone displays, scratches at a level
8 or 9.
The Nokia 9 PureView is scratching at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7, and is
advertised as using Gorilla Glass 5.
The PureView branded lineup of Nokia phones are known for their cameras.
The front camera up here in the top bezel is a 20-megapixel beast that can record in
4K, and is protected under the same front glass.
It is situated right here next to the inlayed wiry cloth mesh.
The mesh is secure though and won’t ever be falling out on its own.
My tweezers can’t even pull it out.
The build of the Nokia 9 seems pretty solid.
The super glossy Midnight Blue back panel oozes over onto the almost glassy looking
smooth aluminum sides.
And they are indeed made from metal.
The volume rocker and power button are also made from metal.
Up here we have some more aluminum and the SIM card tray…with no room for expandable
memory.
High unfortunate since this camera is capable of shooting in RAW – a really large detailed
file size.
So you would think that Nokia would want to make adding additional storage easy, but they
didn’t, and that’s a bummer.
The bottom of the phone has its singular loudspeaker.
No headphone jack, and a USB-C charging port.
Let’s talk about what makes this phone unique….it’s all these cameras.
Don’t get too excited just yet though.
They are all designed to do the exact same thing at the exact same time – add detail.
There are two 12 megapixel color cameras – the main one being in the center.
And then there are three 12 megapixel monochrome black and white cameras.
So, when you take a picture, the Nokia 9 utilizes all 5 cameras at the same time to capture
and merge the detail into a single shot.
Kind of like combining 5 little sensors into one larger sensor to get more light and detail.
There is no zoom or wide-angle lenses anywhere though, which I think is super unfortunate.
There is a dual toned LED flash and a darker circle on the right side that is a time-of-flight
camera used for depth mapping and changing the focus of your image after the fact.
I mean, it’s definitely cool.
Just personally, I think I would rather have a phone that can capture different perspectives.
I like having a wide-angle and zoom instead of just tons of lenses that only add detail.
One good thing about the detail that the camera captured though is that it can be seen from
the screen.
The Nokia 9 PureView has a resolution higher than most smartphones.
1440 x 2880 with 538 pixels per inch.
This is 80 more pixels per inch than the iPhone 10s.
So not only does it take super detailed pictures, but you can also see that detail on the OLED
screen…which lasted about 30 seconds under the heat from my flame.
Even though it did leave a little white burn mark on the display, it’s pretty minor and
the screen mostly recovered.
The Nokia 9, like most other modern flagships, is equipped with an under-screen fingerprint
scanner.
Normally I don’t have any complaints about that.
But this time around, even though the scanner was unscratched and undamaged, it required
an unrealistic amount of pressure to get working.
And after some level 7 deeper grooves, the Nokia 9 continued its plea to go harder, which
is different.
To each their own, but for a fingerprint scanner, regardless of damage, it doesn’t seem to
work all that well.
Even if this was the coolest phone in the world, it wouldn’t be worth very much if
it wasn’t durable.
Nokia has never failed one of my durability tests.
In fact, Nokia’s are some of the most durable phones I’ve ever tested.
The first bend from the back gives us a few creaks and a subtle flex, but no damage yet.
Flipping the phone over and bending again starts to show the back panel lifting off
every so slightly, compromising that ip67 water resistance rating…even if just a tiny
bit.
But the important thing is that the glass on both sides of the phone is still intact,
uncracked, and the phone is still alive.
This impressive Nokia 9 PureView smartphone with 6 cameras on the back passes my durability
test.
It’s definitely a unique looking, eye-catching phone.
With so many cameras on the back, it’s kind of like a googly-eyed monster watching you.
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