Recently, we got our hands on the Nokia C32 smartphone for review. Priced at a budget-friendly $110 and falling into the category of “budget devices,” we will be assessing its performance. Today, we will take a close look at the device, try running various applications and games on it, test the capabilities of the 50 MP camera, the 5050 mAh battery, and the processor. Let’s kick off the review by delving into the technical specifications of the device.
Nokia C32 Specifications
- Processor: 8-core processor up to 1.6GHz
- Display: 6.52 inches, 720×1600p, 60Hz
- Aspect ratio: 20:9
- Protective glass: 2.5D
- Battery: 5050 mAh
- Charging: 5V, 2A – 10W
- Power: USB type C
- Headphone jack: 3.5 mm
- Bluetooth: 5.2
- USB connection: USB 2.0
- Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n
- Main Camera: 50+2MP
- Front Camera: 8MP
- RAM: 4GB
- Virtual RAM: 3 GB
- ROM: 64 GB
- MicroSD card: up to 256 GB
- Android version: 13
- Dimensions and Weight: 164.60×75.90×8.55mm; 199.4g
- Colors: Beach pink, Charcoal, Autumn Green
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Package contents
In the box, you’ll find the phone itself wrapped in a transparent polyethylene bag, along with a SIM tray extraction tool, a charging adapter, a USB Type-C cable, and a user manual.
The manufacturer has made an effort to minimize the environmental impact of the packaging by opting for eco-friendly materials.
Nokia C32 Design
The model is available in three colors: Graphite Black (Charcoal), Autumn Green, and Beach Pink. I received the latter for review, and I must admit, the smartphone in this color looks really cool.
Let’s start with the front panel – the screen bezels are quite small for a budget phone: 4 mm on the sides, 4 mm at the top, and 9 mm at the bottom. The screen is covered with 2.5D protective glass. The design of the front camera is quite standard – the camera is integrated into the upper screen bezel, where you’ll also find the speaker for calls.
On the right side, you’ll find the functional buttons for volume adjustment and power, which also houses the fingerprint scanner. I didn’t notice any play, squeaks, or panel bending during use. On the left side, there’s only one tray for two SIM cards and a memory card of up to 256GB.
On the bottom edge, you’ll find a microphone, the main speaker, and the Type-C port. At the top edge, there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack. The frame of the body is metallic, and the back panel is made of tempered glass. The Nokia C32 is protected to the IP52 standard, which means it is resistant to dust and spilled liquids.
The smartphone sits comfortably in the hand, thanks to its flat edges providing a secure grip without digging into the palm due to their rounded transition to the back panel. The glass back panel houses the main 50 MP camera, a secondary macro camera, flashlight, and the Nokia logo.
Nokia C32 Display
The Nokia C32 features a 6.5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 720×1600 pixels and a refresh rate of 60 Hz. The screen size is 68×151 mm with a pixel density of 269 ppi. Without closely scrutinizing the screen, the relatively lower resolution is hardly noticeable, yet it contributes to better battery life and reduces the load on the processor. The automatic brightness adjustment works adequately, providing sufficient brightness both indoors and outdoors, unless in very bright sunlight. The colors are also decent and remain undistorted when viewing the screen at an angle.
Ergonomics
The smartphone has moderate dimensions of 164.60×75.90×8.55 mm and is not too heavy, weighing 199.6 g. After a whole day of use, the wrist is in good condition. Why am I mentioning this at all? Because it is crucial for the elderly, children, and users who are constantly glued to their phones. As we know, prolonged wrist strain can lead to various problems. The phone fits comfortably in the pocket, causing no discomfort during walking or slow jogging. Speaking of one-handed smartphone use, with my average-sized hand, it was generally easy.
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Battery life
Comparing devices on the market, it’s evident that in gadgets from both the mid-budget and flagship segments, batteries around the 5000 mAh mark have become the norm. However, this doesn’t imply that they exhibit identical performance, reliability, or endurance.
The Nokia C32 is no exception – it comes with a standard battery that charges the smartphone from 0% to 100% in approximately 2 hours when using the provided charging block. Conveniently, when the phone is charging, the estimated time to reach 100% is displayed on the lock screen.
Now, let’s talk about the most interesting aspect – how long does the smartphone hold its charge? The manufacturer assures us that the phone will last for 3 days without recharging. I want to confirm that the manufacturer is not deceiving us – it’s indeed the case. With the Nokia C32, you can continuously watch videos for a whopping 22 hours at average brightness and play online games continuously for almost 17 hours with minimal performance loss. However, for everyday use, the battery should genuinely last for 3 days. On the downside, I would like to mention that the included charging block can heat up to 40-50°C.
One interesting feature I found is the super power-saving mode, where the user can select only 3 applications that they can use while the mode is active.
To conclude this section, I want to highlight that the phone performs admirably – it operates for a considerable duration and maintains its performance even with a low battery.
Software
The Nokia C32 runs on the full-fledged Android 13, providing a smooth and intuitive user experience. The system offers a plethora of settings and additional security features, including emergency alert modes, data transfer modes, and call settings.
The software is standard, and I didn’t notice any hang-ups during testing. On the positive side, one notable feature is the ability to open two applications simultaneously in split-screen mode.
Unlocking methods
In the “Security” section, you can choose the appropriate method to unlock the device. We are most interested in the fingerprint scanner and Face ID, as these are the two most common ways to quickly unlock a smartphone. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised because I did not expect such a good fingerprint scanner and fast facial recognition on a budget smartphone.
But first, let’s talk about the fingerprint scanner.
From my experience, I can say that I’ve often struggled with fingerprint scanners on the budget smartphones I’ve used, encountering various issues, big or small. I would typically end up disabling the feature because it performed poorly. However, with the Nokia C32, this problem doesn’t exist. The fingerprint scanner here is excellent, and I didn’t encounter any issues during the testing period.
As for unlocking with facial recognition – I can confirm that it works very quickly, even in low-light conditions.
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Processor, graphics and memory capacity
The Nokia C32 is powered by an octa-core processor with a core architecture consisting of Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 1600 MHz each. The device is equipped with 4 GB of RAM and internal storage options of 64 GB or 128 GB, with the possibility to expand it further using a microSD card up to 256 GB. Handling graphics is the PowerVR Rogue GE8322 chip. Overall, it features a standard setup for a budget smartphone. Let’s delve into the components in more detail and run a few performance tests..
Overall performance and in games
Before we proceed with the tests, let me share a few words about my personal impressions of the performance level. The smartphone is quite responsive. Navigating through the OS, installing, launching, and using applications, web browsing, and watching YouTube videos happen swiftly. I didn’t notice any significant lags or slowdowns in the smartphone’s performance throughout my usage.
The hardware of the Nokia C32 is sufficient not only for regular daily tasks but also for handling modern mobile games with low to moderate resource requirements. Of course, in more resource-intensive games, you may need to compromise on graphics or settle for lower FPS. However, overall, the smartphone handles games well in most cases. I installed and tested several contemporary games, and here are my observations.
PUBG MOBILE
The game runs at a stable 35-40 FPS on low settings, and if you reduce the graphics to the minimum, you can achieve approximately 45 FPS. I’ll note that there are occasional micro-freezes observed during button presses for shooting.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The smartphone handles this game without any issues on maximum graphics settings. The gameplay is smooth, and it feels like a stable 40+ FPS. There were no freezes or noticeable slowdowns during several hours of gameplay.
Free Fire
The gameplay remains smooth even on maximum settings, showing 45-55 FPS. I didn’t notice any freezes or significant slowdowns during several matches, making the gaming experience very comfortable.
Standoff 2
On maximum graphics settings, the game runs consistently at 35-45 FPS. By reducing the graphics to medium, you can achieve 40-50 FPS, and on low settings, the game maintains a stable 50+ FPS.
Diablo Immortal
The game started on medium textures, but the FPS does not go above 30 frames per second, with drops in particularly intense battles where there are many enemies and effects on the screen. In general, you can play Diablo Immortal on the Nokia C32, but I wouldn’t say it’s comfortable. There are constant drops below 25, and even 20 FPS.
With relatively simple or moderate hardware-demanding games, the Nokia C32 performs well. However, if you want to play something more resource-intensive, like Diablo Immortal, there will likely be issues with insufficient performance. You may need to compromise on graphics settings or settle for low FPS with drops.
Cameras
The camera application of the Nokia C32 is simple and straightforward. It doesn’t boast an extensive array of settings and modes. The available photo modes include standard 13 MP, 50 MP (maximum resolution), HDR, portrait, macro, “Night” mode, and interval shooting. Additionally, there is a Dual LED flash.
The main camera on the Nokia C32 is 50 MP, and there is a 2 MP macro camera. The maximum resolution for video recording is Full HD (1920×1080 pixels) at 30 frames per second.
The front camera has a resolution of 8 MP, and its maximum video recording resolution is also Full HD at 30 frames per second.
There are not many advanced settings for both photos and videos in the application. I’ll show everything available in the screenshots.
Photos and videos on the main camera
The photos taken with the main camera turn out quite good for a budget smartphone. You can capture photos in formats like 4:3 (50 MP), 1:1, 16:9, and Full. In good lighting conditions, the photos from the main camera are quite impressive for a budget smartphone. The images exhibit sufficient detail, vibrant colors, and high contrast.
During evening and night photography, the quality noticeably decreases: there’s a significant loss of detail, and a grainy effect becomes apparent. In general, such a quality drop in low-light conditions is typical for budget smartphones. Therefore, being overly critical in this aspect might not be justified. By the way, there is a separate “Night” mode, but I didn’t notice a significant difference when using it.
Regarding video recording, in good lighting conditions, the main camera captures decent footage. Unfortunately, there is no stabilization, so the video image may experience some jitter. The smartphone also performs reasonably well in evening and night video recording, but it often struggles with focus issues.
Photos and videos on the front camera
The quality of photos and videos captured with the front camera is in line with budget smartphones: pale colors, overexposure, occasional focus issues, and low detail in evening and night selfies.
In general, using the front camera is possible, but one shouldn’t expect too much from it. Evening and night videos with the front camera lack brightness and detail.
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Sound
The sound is quite ordinary, with acceptable quality. The speaker doesn’t produce any irritating noises or distort the sound. Watching videos and playing games with sound from the speaker is perfectly fine. The volume level is generally sufficient. One clear downside is that there is only one main speaker, located at the bottom edge of the smartphone. Personally, I often covered it with my finger when holding the smartphone horizontally.
For music playback, it’s certainly better to connect a decent headset or headphones. By the way, the Nokia C32 features a standard 3.5mm audio jack.
Communication
The Nokia C32 supports the simultaneous installation of 2 nanoSIM cards and 1 microSD memory card with a capacity of up to 256 GB. Supported mobile network standards include 2G, 3G, and 4G (LTE). The maximum network speed is 4G LTE CAT 4, and it does not support 5G.
For testing, I checked the performance with my mobile operator Vodafone, and I didn’t encounter any issues with cellular connectivity. The connection is stable, and the signal strength, as well as the mobile internet speed, is consistent with the usual experience.
There are no complaints about the quality of the built-in microphone and speaker. During phone calls, I could hear the other party clearly, and they could hear me as well. The volume level of the earpiece is more than sufficient.
Conclusions
The Nokia C32 is indeed a solid smartphone for its price range. It boasts an original design, quality build, acceptable performance, excellent battery life, and an affordable price. While the cameras are not the most advanced, they can’t be labeled as poor. One drawback could be the performance in more demanding games, which may not be as strong as in pricier models. Overall, considering its price, the Nokia C32 is a worthwhile smartphone that deserves attention.
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