Nokia N1 review
Display
The Nokia N1 comes with a 7.9" display, with a squarish 4:3 aspect ratio. It has 1,536 x 2,048px resolution making for 324ppi pixel density. Yes, those are the vital screen measurements of the iPad mini 3 as well.
The aspect ratio falls between A4 paper and the US letter standards, which makes it quite suitable for reading documents, especially at this screen size. You'd have a hard time reading a full page on an 8" 16:9 display.
The display itself is decently bright though we kept the brightness slider in the upper half of its range. The Auto works pretty well too if you want to save some battery. The software can further adjust screen content to better suit the current image on the display.
The contrast is good with fairly dark blacks. The glass is highly reflective though, which hurts the tablet's usability in direct sunlight.
Viewing angles are great thanks to the quality IPS panel though the colors are not particularly lively. Some will be okay with that, but if you prefer punchier colors you may be a little disappointed.
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| 0.2 | 167 | 835 | 0.56 | 450 | 804 | |
| 0.23 | 184 | 808 | 0.65 | 515 | 799 | |
| 0.09 | 100 | 1112 | 0.33 | 345 | 1047 | |
| 0.34 | 281 | 830 | 0.6 | 498 | 822 | |
| 0 | 221 | ∞ | 0 | 398 | ∞ | |
| - | - | - | 0.45 | 631 | 1416 | |
| 0.13 | 126 | 974 | 0.53 | 502 | 955 | |
| 0.28 | 251 | 902 | 0.64 | 577 | 907 | |
The accessibility options include larger text, color inversion and correction modes for a few color blindness conditions.
Connectivity
The Nokia N1 is among the very first devices to support USB Type-C, though that's not entirely accurate. Type-C is a new reversible connector for USB that builds on top of USB 3.1. The cable supplied with the tablet ends on a USB 2.0 plug though.
That's important for two reasons. First is speed - USB 3.1 Type-C cables can go up to 10Gbps, but the N1 is limited to USB 2.0 speeds (480Mbps).
Second is that Type-C connectors are meant to go on both ends of the cable since the standard allows for functionality to go both ways - that's data transfer and even charging! The new standard also brings built-in video output capabilities and native fast charging, neither of which are available on the N1.
Over time USB 2.0 got updates to support external storage (USB OTG) and video out (MHL/SlimPort), but this tablet doesn't do any of that. The promise of USB Type-C is that it can do everything - the one cable that powers a whole desktop setup, like Apple is doing with the new single-port MacBook. Well, that's not the case on the Nokia N1.
The other wired connection the tablet offers is a standard 3.5mm audio jack. Type-C USB ports should supposedly support analog audio out too, but this one doesn't as you should have figured out by now. The tablet does have a Wolfson chip so audio quality should be on a good level, we'll test that in a few chapters.
For wireless connectivity, the Nokia N1 has Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac and that's your sole connection to the Internet. There is no optional 3G/LTE connectivity, at least not yet. There's also Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP.
Now for what's missing. There's no GPS positioning, which should matter to you if you're wanted a compact tablet for navigation. There is no NFC either.
Battery life
The Nokia N1 has a relatively small 5,300mAh battery, 18.5Wh by a different measure. The Apple iPad mini 3 packs a 6,570mAh, 24.3Wh battery. That's 30% more capacity, though the iPad is slightly thicker. If we could choose, we'd pick the thicker tablet with a bigger battery.
In fact, 6,500mAh or so seems to be the norm for tablets around the 8" mark, except for the Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact, which has only 4,500mAh. Sony's tablet is even thinner, but the Z3 has a spectacular battery life. Similar story with the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 - a 4,900mAh battery lasts a long, long time.
The Nokia N1 only managed half the battery life for web browsing and watching videos than the Z3 tablet. It compares more favorably to the Tab S 8.4, at least in the video test. The iPad mini 3 goes for at least 4 hours longer than the Nokia tablet on both tests.
Web browsing
Video playback
We'd point our finger at the battery capacity, but the reality is that both Sony and Samsung stretched smaller batteries to excellent battery life. The Nokia N1 could use a good deal of optimization, hopefully a lot can be done in software as the screen and chipset are fixed and the current results just aren't very good.
Camera
The Nokia N1 comes with decent camera hardware for a tablet - an 8MP camera on the back and a 5MP one on the front, both capable of 1080p video at 30fps.
The software is the letdown though, it's very barebones. It's not very intuitive either, switching between front and back cameras and between photo and video modes takes a bit of random typing and swiping before you figure how things work.
The camera UI is simple, but unintuitive
Photo and video mode is all you get - there's no HDR, no panorama, no in-camera effects, no nothing. The Google Camera is a great free alternative and we'd prefer that over the pre-installed app any day. From the Advanced options you can enable manual White balance and Exposure compensation.
Only a few settings are available
Don't expect miracles of image quality. The 8MP photos come out noisy and over-processed (both over-sharpened and with smeared fine detail), the color balance is off too, while the dynamic range is nothing special. The iPad mini 3 doesn't seem to have much better hardware to work with but the software processing is noticeably better.
Nokia N1 camera samples
Here's a sample from the 5MP front-facing camera. The results are quite pleasing, the dynamic range could have been wider though.
Selfie camera sample
You can compare the Nokia N1 directly with the iPad mini 3 and other compact tablets (like the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact) at our Photo Quality Compare Tool.
Nokia N1 vs. Apple iPad mini 3
Nokia had the best cameras once upon a time, even bought companies for their advanced image processing techniques. That talent has moved to Microsoft or elsewhere since then, as the N1 certainly doesn't benefit from it.
Video camera
Both cameras max out at 1080p @ 30fps videos. They are recorded at a good 15Mbps total bitrate and above average 192Kbps stereo audio.
The image quality suffers from a many of the same issues as the still camera though - lack of sharpness, oversaturated colors, middling dynamic range. The audio sounds good though a couple of times we managed to block the mics with our hands resulting in very muted audio (practically unusable).
You can download an untouched sample if you want a closer look - 1080p@30fps.
If you're interest in video selfies, check out this video:
Here's how the Nokia N1 does at 1080p video against in compact tablet competition:
Nokia N1 in our Video quality compare tool
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