Nokia G11 Plus review

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Like with the Nokia G11, there is a decent-quality, nicely designed plastic cover with a slight wave pattern and clean material transitions. The phone is 2 grams heavier and slightly larger than the predecessor, but it also has a slightly larger screen.

A new feature is the IP52 certification, which at least promises protection against rough dirt and splash water. The phone is built very stably but creaks quietly under pressure or twisting. Gray and blue are available as color options.

The Nokia G11 Plus is optionally available with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB mass storage or 4 GB RAM and 64 GB mass storage. In Central Europe, you can currently almost only get the smaller storage variant, which costs about 150 Euros.

NFC for contactless payment is unfortunately not available, but a microSD slot in addition to the two SIM slots is. In our tests with the reference microSD Angelbird V60, the reader works on the fairly low class level in terms of transfer rates.

The fastest WLAN standard available is WiFi 5, and Nokia's G11 Plus achieves the usual transfer rates of around 300 - 350 MBit/s. These are very stable in our test with the reference router Asus ROG Rapture AXE11000.

5G is still not supported, but that is not unusual for such an inexpensive phone. There are also not many 4G frequencies, so you should check whether the phone can connect to the network in the destination country when you travel further. The Nokia G11 Plus proved to be quite reliable in short tests of the mobile signal during our test, even though it did not reach the reception strength of high-end phones.

It is great that Nokia promises two major operating system updates and three years of security patches for the G11 Plus. However, an update to Android 13 has already been released, so probably only Android 14 will be delivered after that. As always with Nokia, it is quite pure Android, but you have to put up with some advertising apps. Thanks to Widevine L1, streaming content can also be viewed in HD.

Again, there is a 90 Hz screen, which makes the operation much smoother, even though the slow SoC sometimes gets in the way and produces stutters. The fingerprint sensor moved to the back in contrast to the Nokia G11, but still works flawlessly, albeit with a short waiting time when unlocking. Facial recognition only works based on 2D images and is thus susceptible to manipulations, as we already reported.

The Nokia G11 Plus comes with a new main camera with 50 megapixels, but in return, the 2-megapixel macro lens that was still available in the Nokia G11 has been dropped. This is not a great loss, because its resolution was so low that it could hardly be used meaningfully. The remaining 2-megapixel camera, which is supposed to provide depth information for portrait photos, hardly adds any value either. Effectively, then, there is one camera on the Nokia G11 Plus that can be used for taking pictures.

Camera can take 50-megapixel shots but only in a special mode; by default, 1/4 of the resolution is used and larger pixels are created for this. While the shot of the plants still looks quite usable, with passable detail sharpness and dynamics for such a cheap phone, a strange yellow haze covers the surroundings shot. However, details are still displayed decently for such an inexpensive phone. In low light, the sharpness decreases significantly and you can hardly recognize anything in dark areas.

Videos can be recorded in a maximum of 1080p and 30 fps. The brightness adjustment works quickly but is visibly graduated. The autofocus needs a bit now and then until a sharp picture is produced again.

The front-facing camera has a resolution of 8 megapixels. Selfies look a bit dim and grainy in magnification, even in good lighting. Furthermore, there is no more drawing in dark areas.

Image Comparison

Choose a scene and navigate within the first image. One click changes the position on touchscreens. One click on the zoomed-in image opens the original in a new window. The first image shows the scaled photograph of the test device.

The IPS screen in Nokia's G11 Plus has a resolution of 1,600 x 720 pixels, which is common in the class, but the Samsung Galaxy A14 LTE shows that Full HD is also possible. Unfortunately, Nokia does not install a particularly bright screen. It did not even reach 400 cd/m² in our test with the spectrophotometer and CalMAN software. Thus, outdoor use will probably be difficult, especially on bright days.

We did not notice PWM even at very low brightness, but a blatant bluish cast and the resulting inaccurate color reproduction.

* ... smaller is better

In comparison: 54 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 18886 (minimum: 5 - maximum: 3846000) Hz was measured.

The Unisoc T606 was already installed as a SoC in the Nokia G11, and thus it is not surprising that both are on a similar performance level. The performance is quite low according to the price range, and you already have to deal with stutters while navigating the menus, and even simple applications take quite a long time to load.

This is also due to the fact that only slow eMMC flash is used for storage, which is a norm for the price range.

The phone can heat up considerably under a longer load: We measured up to 48.5 °C. That is clearly noticeable. The SoC also throttles slightly when under heavy load: In the 3DMark stress tests, we still measured 95.4% of the performance that was available at the beginning.

Nokia's G11 Plus has a mono speaker on the back, and a small plastic knob prevents the phone from resting completely flat on the table and covering the speaker. However, it can still happen on soft surfaces.

The speaker can get reasonably loud but sounds very treble-heavy, and not very differentiated so that individual instruments can hardly be heard. The 3.5 mm audio port can be used to connect external audio devices or Bluetooth, for which the most necessary codecs are available. With aptX HD and LDAC, there are also some for higher-quality audio transmissions.

The Nokia G11 Plus can only be charged with 10 Watts, whereas the previous Nokia G11 supported 18 watts. Since the battery with 5,000 mAh is still almost as big as in the predecessor, it takes considerably longer time for a full charge, namely up to 3 hours. The G11 Plus lasted 17:18 hours in our Wi-Fi battery test, which should easily last for a day at work, school or university. There is also enough power for a second day if the phone is used sparingly.

Legend

(+) | speakers can play relatively loud (82 dB)Bass 100 - 315 Hz(-) | nearly no bass - on average 32.1% lower than median(±) | linearity of bass is average (8% delta to prev. frequency)Mids 400 - 2000 Hz(±) | higher mids - on average 6.2% higher than median(±) | linearity of mids is average (10.6% delta to prev. frequency)Highs 2 - 16 kHz(±) | higher highs - on average 6.8% higher than median(±) | linearity of highs is average (11% delta to prev. frequency)Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz(-) | overall sound is not linear (30.4% difference to median)Compared to same class» 74% of all tested devices in this class were better, 5% similar, 22% worse» The best had a delta of 12%, average was 39%, worst was 134%Compared to all devices tested» 86% of all tested devices were better, 3% similar, 11% worse» The best had a delta of 4%, average was 26%, worst was 134%

(+) | speakers can play relatively loud (90.7 dB)Bass 100 - 315 Hz(-) | nearly no bass - on average 27.8% lower than median(+) | bass is linear (4.9% delta to prev. frequency)Mids 400 - 2000 Hz(±) | reduced mids - on average 7.3% lower than median(+) | mids are linear (6.4% delta to prev. frequency)Highs 2 - 16 kHz(±) | higher highs - on average 9.6% higher than median(+) | highs are linear (2.5% delta to prev. frequency)Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz(±) | linearity of overall sound is average (23.5% difference to median)Compared to same class» 44% of all tested devices in this class were better, 9% similar, 47% worse» The best had a delta of 12%, average was 39%, worst was 134%Compared to all devices tested» 64% of all tested devices were better, 7% similar, 29% worse» The best had a delta of 4%, average was 26%, worst was 134%

The Nokia G11 Plus offers a much better main camera than its predecessor, as well as a slightly larger screen. Otherwise, there are no changes compared to the Nokia G11, but there are also some drawbacks: a minimally smaller battery that hardly changes anything in terms of runtime. More annoying are the much slower charging speed and the darker screen.

We like the regular updates for the phone, which are actually delivered monthly and are supposed to continue until 2026. This is a great thing for such a cheap phone. The case is pretty and very sturdy and even has basic protection against splashing water. We also like the pure Android, the stable WLAN connection and the reliable fingerprint sensor.

In terms of performance, you cannot expect much in this price range, and the speaker is also more of a stopgap. At least the most important Bluetooth codecs are available, so you can also connect higher-quality headphones without problems.

Nokia's G11 Plus has a good camera for its price range but saves on charging power and screen brightness.

If the camera is not that important you can also go for the Nokia G11 and save even more. The Samsung Galaxy A14 offers a screen with a much higher resolution.

At the time of testing, the Nokia G11 Plus can be found for around $330 on Internet retailers, for example at Amazon US.

Nokia G11 Plus- 2023-07-1307/13/2023 v7Florian Schmitt

The present review sample was made available to the author as a loan by the manufacturer or a shop for the purposes of review. The lender had no influence on this review, nor did the manufacturer receive a copy of this review before publication. There was no obligation to publish this review.