Nokia XL aims to excel in budget segment

Nokia XL's sibling X took many by surprise when it was launched in the Indian smartphone market. There were several apprehensions about how Nokia would put the Adroid open source platform to use. Many wrote it off by terming it as a mere experiment. Hence, when Nokia announced the launch of XL, supposedly a bigger and better version of X, it became clear Nokia intends to make it big in the budget smartphone section.

Design
The Nokia XL is a magnified version of the Nokia X. It has the same proportions, lines and angles, and is available in the same bright set of primary colours. The main differences that you would notice are the addition of a flash on the rear panel and a camera on the front.

At 190g, this phone is noticeably heavier than nearly everything else of its size on the market. Construction quality is brilliant (something you can always count on Nokia for). The XL's finish is just as good as that of any of the more expensive Lumias.

Specifications and features
The XL is built around Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Play processor; a two-year-old dual-core model that runs at 1GHz. There's 768MB of RAM; a paltry 256MB improvement over the Nokia X. There's 4GB of internal storage, of which less than 2GB is available to users. Memory can be expanded up to 32GB with a microSD card.

The screen measures 5 inches across diagonally, compared to X's 4-inch screen. The bigger screen size appeals, but the problem here is that the resolution wasn't scaled up accordingly, so it's still the same 800x480 grid, thereby making the graphics look average. The software is identical to that on the Nokia X.

Performance
The Nokia XL performed slightly better in our tests than its smaller sibling did, which is probably down to the marginal increase in the amount of RAM available. Since all other hardware is the same, there's nothing else we can attribute this result to. We did not face any issues with call quality or 3G reception. Battery life was slightly disappointing though. It lasted about 6 hours with average usage.

Camera
The XL has a fantastic camera. In daylight, images came out crisp. Low-light shots came out well too.

Verdict
With XL, you get a smartphone with a bigger screen size and sturdy build. The flash and front camera are also good. But at Rs 11,500, one is left to wonder whether it is actually worth the money. I feel Nokia XL might just fall behind in the budget segment race.