If you’re looking for an affordable smartphone with 4G LTE connection, the latest Android operating system, 5-inch display, and 8-megapixel camera, the new Nokia 3 could well be the answer.

Priced at slightly less than Bt5,000, Nokia 3 boasts a premium design with a frame forged out of a single piece of aluminium and a back cover made of polycarbonate.

The 5-inch IPS LCD display with 1,280×720 pixels is protected with sculpted Corning Gorilla Glass and the phone comes in Silver White, Matte Black, Tempered Blue and Copper White colour options. The Matte Black version I tested looked solemn in my hand.

To make it more affordable, Nokia 3 is powered by the cheaper MediaTek MTK 6737 quadcore processor running at 1.3 GHz, so obviously it’s not blazing fast as those fitted with Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. And it has only 2 gigabytes of working memory or RAM, compared to 3GB or 4GB of other models and 16GB of storage.

That said, I found Nokia 3’s speed was acceptable. The response of the touch screen and menus as well as applications were okay, never annoyingly slow.

Surprisingly for a smartphone of this price, Nokia 3 can also play High-Resolution Audio format of FLAC 24bit/192kHz. I tested it with Sony’s MDR1ABT phones and I found that the sound quality was good with details of the musical instruments clear and the bass powerful.

The Nokia 3 has two nano SIM slots and an extra microSD slot, meaning if you use two SIMs, you can still expand its storage.

Nokia 3 runs on pure Google Android 7.0 operating system without any interface, which avoids the slowing down you might expect.

The smartphone supports LTE Cat 4 data connection. I tested it on TrueMove H’s LTE network and found that apps downloaded fast and my snapshots were backed up to my Google Photos cloud storage equally rapidly.

I used the Ookla Speedtest app to measure the speed and the Nokia 3 did well, achieving a download speed of 60.77 Mbsp and an upload speed of 31.68 Mbps.

Nokia 3 has 8-megapixel cameras at the rear and the front. Both cameras use image sensor with large pixel size and aperture to capture good quality photos for a smartphone in this price range.

Nokia 3 is a smartphone from HMD Global, a firm from Espoo, Finland that has bought the Nokia phones and tablets operation. HMD designs and markets a range of smartphones and feature phones targeted at a range of consumers and price points.

Nokia 3 is available at most retailers for Bt4,850.

Key Specs

– Networks: GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 – WCDMA: Band 1, 2, 5, 8 LTE: Band 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20, 28, 38, 40

– Network speed: LTE Cat 4, 150Mbps DL/50Mbps UL

– SIM: dual nano SIM

– OS: Android Nougat 7.0

– CPU: MTK 6737, Quadcore 1.3Ghz

– RAM: 2 GB LPPDDR 3

– Storage: 16 GB internal user memory  with MicroSD card slot (support up to 128 GB support)

– Display: 5.0-inch IPS LCD HD (1280 x 720, 16:9), sculpted Corning Gorilla Glass, Polariser, 450 nits

– Camera: Primary camera: 8MP AF, 1.12um, f/2, flash, Front facing camera: 8MP AF, 1.12um, f/2, FOV 84degree display flash

– Connectivity & Sensors: WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, BT 4.2, GPS/AGPS, FM/RDS, NFC, Ambient light sensor, Proximity sensor, Accelerometer (Gsensor), Ecompass, Gyroscope, Micro USB (USB 2.0), OTG, 3.5mm ADJ

– Battery: Integrated 2630 mAh battery

– Audio: Single speaker

– Dimensions: 143.4 x 71.4 x 8.48 mm (camera bump: 8.68mm)

– Weight: 155g