Nokia 5.1 Plus review

Software

As with other recent Nokia phones, the 5.1 Plus is part of Google's Android One series. All devices that are part of this series have close to stock Android and relatively quick updates. Nokia has promised two years of major Android updates and three years of security updates for its devices from the date of launch.

Just to be clear, Android One devices still receive updates from the OEM, not directly from Google, as some erroneously believe. As such, when you get the update, if at all, is decided by the OEM.

Nokia Launcher

Speaking of updates and Android versions, the Nokia 5.1 Plus comes with Android 8.1 Plus out of the box, which is obviously out of date at this point, which says everything about Google's Android One program. The reality is, Android One was never quick to get updates and while it's still quicker than most OEMs, it's nowhere as quick as the Pixel series or even some OEMs like OnePlus.

Rants about Android One aside, this is pretty much stock Android Oreo that we have seen many times before. The software experience on the Nokia 5.1 Plus is identical to that on the 6.1 Plus we checked out a few weeks ago. That means it has the same strengths and weaknesses.

The strengths would be the relatively stock Android, which for some is still very important. Nokia also does very little meddling here, and you won't find a lot of apps from the company, something that's not true for all Android One devices.

Settings menu

However, there are other aspects of the device that could have used more attention, such as the notch, in particular. Nokia still doesn't allow apps to access the area around the notch in fullscreen mode. The notch also awkwardly intrudes into the display area, and you can see some notification icons and volume bar sliders go under the notch area. This was also an issue on the Nokia 6.1 Plus, but it's even more obvious here due to the bigger notch. The icons are not even the same size, and the battery icon is strangely taller than the other icons in the status bar.

For what it's worth, the phone does ship with the Widevine L1 DRM. However, neither Netflix nor Amazon Prime Video support HD streaming on this phone as of this writing. There are more factors that go into enabling HD playback beyond just the DRM version, one of them being developer motivation. Besides, even if the phone did support HD playback, this is not a screen you'd want to binge watch videos on.

That aside, there's not much to complain about. Outside of the expensive Pixel phones, Android One devices remain the best way to experience stock Android for those who seek it. The upgrade experience has been rather disappointing, but at least the company is promising updates. It's just the matter of when you'll be getting them that's uncertain, even though that was one of the things Android One was supposed to solve.

Performance

The Nokia 5.1 Plus has a MediaTek Helip P60 chipset with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The Helio P60 is a known quantity at this point and we were greatly impressed by its performance in the past on devices such as the Realme 1 and the Oppo F9. In fact, the Helio P60 is even more powerful than the Snapdragon 636 in the Nokia 6.1 Plus, which would have put Nokia in a bit of an awkward situation.

But to avoid that, Nokia has downclocked the Helio P60 on the Nokia 5.1 Plus to some extent. The P60 on the aforementioned Realme and Oppo devices runs at the full 2.0GHz clock speed on all its cores. The P60 on the Nokia 5.1 Plus, meanwhile, runs at 1.8GHz.

We were really interested in powering up Geekbench and checking where exactly does this put the Nokia 5.1 Plus between the Nokia 6.1 Plus and the other Helio P60 devices, not to mention all the other phones in this segment.

Unfortunately, our review unit from Nokia would not let us run Geekbench. Something prevented the Geekbench application from connecting to the internet, which it requires before it can run the benchmark. We checked with our colleagues from other publications, and they too said that their Nokia 5.1 Plus review units had a similar issue, so it's either a bug or a conscious effort from Nokia to disallow running the benchmark on this phone.

Anyway, we did run the rest of the benchmarks, we usually run, and the Nokia 5.1 Plus was predictably slower than the other P60 phones. It was also slower than the Nokia 6.1 Plus even though it had no right to be. The only area where the Nokia 5.1 Plus raced ahead was in on-screen graphics benchmark, where the low 720p resolution display gave the phone considerable advantage over the others.

It's a shame Nokia had to nerf the P60 chipset on the Nokia 5.1 Plus. Sure, there could be some legitimate power consumption concerns, especially since the phone does not exactly have the biggest battery in the world (the other P60 phones have about 17% larger batteries). But not wanting the cheaper device from stealing the thunder from the more expensive one also seems like a fairly legitimate concern from a marketing perspective.

Benchmarks aside, the Nokia 5.1 Plus is an absolute pleasure to use. The animations and transitions within apps flow smoothly, you can start an app or launch a game or play a video, and it all happens fluidly without any stuttering or dropped frames. Scrolling through apps is smooth too, and even multitasking works brilliantly. This feels like a phone that is comfortable with anything you can throw at it, and it does all of it without complaining.

The only concern here would be the 3GB RAM and 32GB storage, both of which will likely age faster than the processing power of the chipset. It's unfortunate that Nokia currently does not offer any higher spec variants for this device.

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

• Honor Play
  204876
• Oppo F7
  139414
• Realme 1
  138524
• Realme 2 Pro
  132958
• Realme 2 Pro
  132958
• Xiaomi Mi A2
  130927
• Meizu 15
  128680
• Nokia 5.1 Plus
  119428
• Nokia 6.1 Plus
  115571
• Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
  86374
• Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
  77964
• Realme 2
  75434

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Honor Play
  39
• Meizu 15
  15
• Xiaomi Mi A2
  15
• Realme 2 Pro
  14
• vivo V11
  14
• Realme 2 Pro
  14
• Oppo F7
  12
• Realme 1
  12
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  12
• Nokia 6.1 Plus
  10
• Nokia 5.1 Plus
  9.6
• Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
  9.5
• Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
  6.5
• Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
  6.5
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  6.4
• Realme 2
  6.1

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Honor Play
  36
• Nokia 5.1 Plus
  20
• Meizu 15
  16
• Xiaomi Mi A2
  14
• Realme 2 Pro
  12
• vivo V11
  12
• Realme 1
  12
• Realme 2
  12
• Realme 2 Pro
  12
• Oppo F7
  11
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  11
• Nokia 6.1 Plus
  9.6
• Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
  9.1
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  6.3
• Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
  6.2
• Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
  6.1

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Honor Play
  22
• Xiaomi Mi A2
  9
• Meizu 15
  8.7
• Realme 2 Pro
  8.2
• vivo V11
  8.2
• Realme 2 Pro
  8.2
• Oppo F7
  7.5
• Realme 1
  7.5
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  7.5
• Nokia 6.1 Plus
  6.3
• Nokia 5.1 Plus
  5.9
• Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
  5.5
• Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
  3.6
• Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
  3.5
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  3.5
• Realme 2
  3.5

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Honor Play
  21
• Meizu 15
  9.2
• Xiaomi Mi A2
  8.6
• Realme 1
  7.5
• vivo V11
  7.4
• Nokia 5.1 Plus
  7.4
• Realme 2 Pro
  7.2
• Realme 2 Pro
  7.2
• Oppo F7
  6.7
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  6.5
• Realme 2
  6.3
• Nokia 6.1 Plus
  5.9
• Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
  5.1
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  3.5
• Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
  3.4
• Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
  3.4

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Honor Play
  32238
• Xiaomi Mi A2
  21378
• Meizu 15
  20786
• vivo V11
  18818
• Nokia 6.1 Plus
  14903
• Realme 2 Pro
  14576
• Realme 2 Pro
  14576
• Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
  14119
• Nokia 5.1 Plus
  13873
• Oppo F7
  11873
• Realme 1
  10880
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  10536
• Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
  10484
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  10472
• Realme 2
  6703

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Honor Play
  3294
• Meizu 15
  2556
• Xiaomi Mi A2
  2240
• vivo V11
  2218
• Oppo F7
  1953
• Nokia 6.1 Plus
  1951
• Realme 1
  1940
• Realme 2 Pro
  1911
• Realme 2 Pro
  1911
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  1904
• Nokia 5.1 Plus
  1868
• Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
  1523
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  1262
• Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
  1226
• Realme 2
  1039