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Evening Standard

Lifestyle

Stuart Pritchard

Nokia T10 Review: does Nokia’s new budget tablet live up to the hype?

Nokia Kindle Amazon Apple Google

I know what you’re thinking: “Nokia? Isn’t that a brand from that period of time we call ‘the past’? Aren’t you supposed to be reviewing cutting-edge tech and not dredging up dinosaurs like some poor-quality palaeontologist?”

Well, firstly, yes, the height of Nokia’s powers may have been around the mid-2000s and, secondly, I’ll get you for that ‘poor-quality palaeontologist’ remark.

Indeed, while Nokia was once the world’s biggest selling mobile phone brand, Nokia neglected what was going on with Apple’s iOS and the Android operating system, preferring to focus on physical phone design instead, and missing the smartphone bus in the process.

But that was back then. Since 2017, Nokia has been owned by a plucky band of former employees who just wouldn’t let it lie, resulting in the release of a slew of new smartphones and, for the Nokia-nostalgic, a range of feature phones that hark back to Nokia’s heyday, with small screens and actual buttons you actually have to press. Weird, right?

Take a Tablet

However, branching out even further, the former Finnish phone giant has now turned its collective hand towards tablets, releasing the budget T20 and even more, erm, budgety T10. While the former features a 10-inch screen as opposed to the latter’s 8-incher, I think 8-inches is ample for anyone and is certainly easier to handle and, indeed, slip inside a pocket for transportation. So, with octo-inches being the order of the day, this is the story of the T10…

So, what have we got? In brief, a rather sleek, slender and solidly built Android OS tablet with a nicely crisp HD (800 x 1280), fully laminated display that sets it pretty squarely against Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD 8. This is a tough proposition to take on, particularly as the 32GB Fire HD 8 retails at £99 rather than the new Nokia’s asking price of £149. But then, with the T10 you don’t have to pay extra to get shot of unwanted adverts, also you get the full Android 12 and not the Kindle’s limited Fire OS version of it, meaning you can use all the of Google’s apps and not be limited to the Fire’s slow-going Silk browser - so already the extra expense is looking worth every additional penny.

Under the Hood

Available in 4G or Wi-Fi-only, the T10 comes with 3GB or RAM and 32GB of internal storage that you can expand to a far more capacious 512GB with the assistance of a MicroSD card, so stuffing it full of your favourite things is not going to be an issue. Also on that score, as you can access Google apps, the option to use Google drive is open to you too, so go mad.

Running the whole shebang is an octa-core Unisoc T606 chipset featuring 2x ARM Cortex A75 cores at up to 1.6GHz and six ARM Cortex A55 cores also at up to 1.6GHz, which may not seem overwhelming impressive to the kind of nerds who know what all that means, but the Nokia T10 is certainly not sluggish in performance, whether you’re streaming Netflix HD certified content or indulging in a little online gaming.

There’s also an integrated ARM Mali-G57 MP1 covering the GPU side of things, which, while only a mid-range GPU, when paired with the power-efficient sextet of Cortex A55 cores you’re going to find yourself on the receiving end of some damn impressively immersive high-fidelity gaming.

Sound & Vision

So, the fiddly bits inside are all in good order, what about the experience? Well, the display is HD and the touch sensitivity is hugely responsive, while images are sharp, vibrant and detailed, so no complaints of that score. On the sound-side, stereo speakers at either end boasting OZO Playback make for reasonable sound, while a standard 3.5-inch headphone jack and Bluetooth 5.0 mean you can up your audio game while also ceasing to annoy the hell out of anyone around you. Overall, then, the T10 performs excellently on the entertainment front, which is what it’s all about.

Naturally, the Nokia T10 comes armed with cameras, namely a 2-megapixel snapper on the front for ‘felt cute’ selfies and possibly far more serious video conferencing. But what really impresses is the fact that, unlike the afore-compared Kindle, the Nokia have chucked a whopping 8MP soul-stealer, with a flash, on the back, to let owners take images that are both detailed and not shrouded in darkness. What’s more – also taking this reviewer (yes, me) by some surprise, the front camera even musters up Face Unlock for a level of security unprecedented at this price point.

Sense and Sensorbility

Keeping you orientated when you switch from landscape to portrait and vice-versa, the T10’s accelerometer works swiftly so as not to leave you hanging as other tablets might, whole an ambient light sensor keeps the screen at just the right level of brightness as you move from shadows to light and, finally, the 4G voice variant Nokia T10s also feature a proximity sensor.

With toughened glass keeping your screen safe and an IPX2 water resistance rating saving you in any sudden showers, the Nokia T10 has clearly been very well conceived, with all tablet bases covered straight out of the box.

What’s more, looking to the immediate future, a large 5100mAh allows for all-day usage, while, looking into the middle-future, three-years of free monthly security updates will keep the T10 safe from those nefarious people that lurk online lusting after your data, and two-years of Android OS updates also come bundled as standard, keeping the T10 fresh as a digital daisy for longer.

Verdict

I have a Kindle Fire – there’s no point in trying to disguise that fact any longer. I use mine for reading books on, which may seem shocking to many of our younger readers, but mostly because I find the Fire OS rather restrictive when it comes to other elements of online entertainment. Plus – there’s no denying it – it can be tediously slow in operation.

The Nokia T10 seems to suffer none of these problems and, as outlined earlier, allows access to Google for far quicker browsing than Silk could ever dream of delivering. It’s also very well built, fitting comfortably into my man-mitt without having to worry about it slipping and heading to a potentially shattering finish on the floor, as you might with anything any larger.

Offering excellent performance on all points and costing a mere pittance (relatively), the Nokia T10 is as impressive as it was unanticipated. As such, if you’re in the market for a tablet that can tick the majority of the boxes but are not blessed with the kind of hardcore disposable income that lends itself to the top-end of tablets, then the T10 comes highly recommended.

Nokia, take my money.

£149 | Nokia