Functioning

Internally the Nokia X is packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Play MSM8225 SoC, which is a 45nm part with a one.0 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A5 CPU and an Adreno 203 GPU. The device comes with just 512 MB of RAM (or 768 MB in the Nokia 10+), 4 GB of internal storage, plus HSPA, single-ring Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/due north and Bluetooth iii.0 radios.

Putting it bluntly, the hardware in this handset is outdated. The MSM8225 is the lowest-end flake from Qualcomm's previous generation, superseded by the Snapdragon 200 towards the end of concluding yr. This means the Nokia X, a new device released in 2022, comes with a 2-twelvemonth-sometime SoC, which is unacceptable for a class of smartphone that needs all the power it tin get.

If Nokia could have improved just 1 area of the Ten, it would exist the horrendous functioning.

Even worse is the fact that the MSM8225 is a pace lower than the MSM8227 that we saw in Nokia's highly-popular Lumia 520 from early terminal year. At the very to the lowest degree, the hardware of the Nokia X should be on par with a twelvemonth-old entry-level Windows Phone. But it'south not.

One of the just good aspects of the Nokia X's hardware is the inclusion of a microSD carte du jour slot for expanding on the minimal 4 GB of internal NAND provided. With simply 1.3 GB of storage available to the user out of the box, I'd highly recommend purchasing a microSD carte du jour, because that storage volition quickly get filled past apps and photos.

Networking also lets the device down past only supporting HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps, which is well beneath the maximum speeds supported by most HSPA/3G networks. For a handset without LTE, ideally I would accept liked to meet download speeds of at least 14 or even 21 Mbps, so it could friction match the Lumia 520.

Performance around the operating system is truly terrible. At present I'm not expecting the Nokia X to perform at the same level equally the Galaxy S5 or Xperia Z2, just I do expect information technology to give a similar experience to products of the same price point. And in this respect, it fails miserably at performing to an acceptable level.

Swiping, scrolling, zooming, and unlocking all come up with a degree of lag. The Nokia X's weak MSM8225 SoC and 512 MB of RAM is simply not powerful plenty to render the operating system'due south interface at a shine sixty frames per 2nd, or even 30 FPS on occasion. Either that, or Nokia hasn't put in whatever effort to optimize the customized version of Android to run accordingly on this hardware.

A few weeks ago at Computex 2022 I had a brief hands-on fourth dimension with Asus' entry-level handset, the ZenFone 4, which is on sale in the same markets equally the Nokia Ten for a slightly lower price. Dissimilar the Nokia X, operation from the Intel Atom SoC in the ZenFone was perfectly fine, and the Android skin was responsive and smooth to apply for the nearly part. It's a similar situation with Nokia's own fantastic Lumia 520, which delivers nifty performance at a comparable cost bespeak to the X.

The lack of power is most noticeable while opening apps and trying to navigate through different screens within apps. There's a pronounced filibuster each fourth dimension you attempt to perform an action like opening the settings screen or loading an app, which is frustrating because often I thought my taps weren't being registered by the touchscreen. Maybe they weren't, but I suspect it'south got more than to do with the lack of CPU power in this handset.

Web browsing is something I tried to avoid doing on the Nokia 10 because it's often unbearably laggy. Loading up the mobile-optimized TechSpot homepage on the Ten sends the SoC into meltdown as it tries to return the entire page. You lot tin can forget scrolling and zooming, because there'south so much checkerboarding and pixelation that you tin't read the folio for several seconds later on y'all curlicue downwardly a fleck.

The good news is some apps, like Twitter, aren't a complete hurting to use because they don't require all that much CPU ability. Surprisingly, some games similar Fruit Ninja (which is included on the Nokia Ten) perform to an acceptable level, just at that place's no hope at getting the more intense 3D games running at a playable frame rate.

Moving on to benchmarks and I'll be honest, I'm not expecting anything great. In fact my expectations hit rock bottom when both Peacekeeper and Google Octane failed to complete a run in the stock Nokia Browser without crashing.

In Kraken, which I managed to run in the Nokia Browser successfully, the Nokia X performed pretty poorly upward against other Android devices, although the browser is more optimized than Cyberspace Explorer on the Lumia 520. I've also added in results from Vellamo 3.0, although I don't have whatever entry-level device results to compare it to.

The Adreno 203 is showing its age, as you lot can see from the benchmarks to a higher place. It should be capable enough for 2d and depression-intensity 3D games though.

Once again, the Nokia X performs poorly in NAND benchmarks.