Nuu Mobile G3 Review – An attractive £199 phone

Nuu may not be a household name in the UK but they are one of the many Chinese brands entering the UK market premium designs, mid-range chips and affordable pricing. Priced at £199 on Amazon this device is powered by the Helio P25 Octa-Core chip which is comparable to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 that is used on popular phones such as the Moto G5 Plus.

Specification

• Operating System -Android 7.1 (Nougat)
• Processor – Helio P25 Octa-Core39GHz (MT6757T)
• Display – 5.7” HD+ 1440 x 720 (18:9)
• Camera – Rear camera: 13MPx + 5MPx Front camera: 13MPx
• Battery – 3,000 mAh – Express charging
• Storage – Built-in: 64 GB- RAM: 4GB – microSD (supports up to 128GB)
• Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Dual-SIM, Bluetooth® 4.2, USB Type-C, NFC

Design & Build

The stand out feature of this phone is the design and build. While £200 doesn’t quite buy you a full-screen display with a notch, you get something a little more akin to a 2017 flagship device such as the Mate 10 Pro or Galaxy S9. In fact, putting this next to the Mate 10 Pro there is not a huge amount of difference. The G3 uses a dual glass build with a slight drop off towards the edge of the screen similar to the Galaxy S9. This then gives you slim side bezels, but the phone features a moderate top and bottom bezel. The phone also comes in an attractive shimmering navy-blue colour. The fingerprint sensor is located on the back, just below the dual camera system. Unfortunately, Nuu has omitted the 3.5mm headphone jack. Thankfully you do get a USB-C port, and they have kindly included a USB-C-to–3.5mm which partially makes up for the lack of the dedicated jack.

Display

The 5.7-inch screen is decent enough for the price of the phone. The 1440 x 720 isn’t the best but it will help with performance and battery life. The screen is bright and clear, it is quite good at working outdoors under the sun. While it would have been nice to have Full HD I didn’t find it that noticeable for my daily usage.

Camera

For a £200 phone, you are getting a decent quality camera, at least based on my not very professional opinion. The Nuu Mobile G3 combines a 13-megapixel, f/2.0 main sensor with another 5-MP shooter The phone uses the default Nougat photo app, and it features things link beauty mode, portrait, as well as the standard photo mode. There is also an HDR option that can be enabled easily, and for the more adventurous you get a pro mode. As with a lot of budget phones, consistency and colour accuracy can be a little off; this is never going to compete with the Mate 20 Pro or even the more affordable OnePlus 6T. However, for your average user just posting photos to Facebook and Insta it does an admirable job. I didn’t notice any perceptible shutter lag, and the camera app was quick to load when you need to get a photo fast. When you have taken your shots, all the photo editing and sharing is done by the excellent Google Photos.

Battery

The  3000mAh is a standard size favoured among flagship and budget phones alike. We are starting to see the trend shift towards larger batteries, especially with Huawei, but overall this does a fine job. The combination of the mid-end chip and low-resolution display helps eke out a little more than average life compared to more expensive models. In general, I managed to get through to the end of the day without having to charge it midway through.

Software & Performance

Without a doubt, the biggest disappointment here is the inclusion of Android 7.1 (Nougat), this is software that is two years old now and releasing a device using it is unforgivable in my opinion. The saving grace here is that Nuu has left the OS mostly untouched, with no spammy apps, something other budget brands such as Alcatel should take note from. I’d love to say that with them using a plain version of Android it is likely that you will get regular updates, but this is obviously not the case with it running 2-year-old software. The big concern is security and app compatibility, are things still going to be working well on this phone in two years’ time when the OS is 4 years out of date? I have searched XDA developers and there are no threads with people discussing this phone, so no easy options to upgrade the phone yourself. Criticisms aside, the phone runs well, it is no gaming phone, but it can happily do all your day to day tasks with no laggyness. It could be argued that the target market of this phone doesn’t care too much about the latest and greatest software features but just wants a phone that looks nice and works well. If that describes you, then this phone should tick your boxes. It has a generous amount of RAM and storage for the price, and this goes a long way to making this a solid day to day affordable phone. In comparison, the Similarly priced Alcatel 5 has just 3GB RAM and 32GB of storage.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a good-looking, well-specced budget phone that is sadly let down by an outdated version of Android. Android Nougat performs perfectly well on this device, and I doubt the casual user would notice the difference between Nougat and Oreo. The stock version of Android goes some way to make up for it being outdated, but I am concerned about the long-term security of this device. If the device ever does get updated I would highly recommend it for a budget choice.