How much should a smartphone cost? The Nokia C12 feels too retro

Removable back? Check. Replaceable battery? Check. Headphone jack? Check. One solitary camera? Check. Smartphones don’t have to be expensive to be decent. So which inexpensive smartphones out there meet the minimum requirements? Which ones can I recommend with a clear conscience? I kick off my search with the Nokia C12, which comes in at a recommended retail price of 119 euros/francs.

Nice back, display A-OK

The Nokia C12 has a removable back made of plastic. Its slightly grainy texture gives it a good grip and keeps fingerprints at bay. Not only that, but I like it better than the Xiaomi 13 Pro’s reflective back, which is sure to have been made with higher-quality plastic. In line with the IP52 standard, the entire smartphone is protected against water droplets – that’s a step down from the standard which affords protection against water spray.

The front of the Nokia C12 boasts a 6.3 inch IPS display. I like the colour rendering, and it isn’t at a disadvantage compared to AMOLED displays. The benefit offered by the latter only becomes clear when I activate the C12’s dark design. The IPS panel doesn’t quite manage to achieve a black enough black. In fact, it seems to be more of a grey. Nokia doesn’t specify the display’s brightness, but when the sun’s out, I need to go into the shade to make out what’s on the screen.

At 1600 × 720 pixels, the resolution is low, but the pixel density of 278 ppi is still close to the 300-ppi limit. Above that figure, the human eye can’t discern any difference in sharpness when viewing the display from a typical distance, i.e. when holding the smartphone comfortably. This puts the Nokia C12 just within the limit.

It’s unusual that Nokia has decided to do without a fingerprint sensor on the C12. As well as password or PIN entry, I can also conveniently unlock the phone via facial recognition. It works a bit slower than on more expensive smartphones, but it recognises me reliably.

A smartphone that demands patience

For the C12’s computing power, Nokia uses the SC9863A1 chipset produced by little-known manufacturer Unisoc. It has eight processing cores, half of which clock at 1.2 and half at 1.6 gigahertz. That’s relatively slow. Not only that, but the chipset is manufactured with the 28-nanometer process. For comparison, the mid-range chipset contained in the Nothing Phone (1) is manufactured with the 6-nanometer process. As a rule of thumb, the finer the manufacturing, the more power the processors can deliver.

The phone I’m testing sports three gigabytes of memory. However, Nokia only sells the version with two gigabytes of RAM as standard. Despite my three gigabytes, the Nokia C12 still leaves me unsatisfied. App loading times are noticeably longer, and I have to wait for what feels like an eternity until a tap of the touchscreen triggers a visible action. I don’t have the patience for this, so sometimes it causes me to double type. Android’s gesture commands become almost unusable on account of the smartphone’s sluggishness. The speedier smartphones I usually use are to blame for my impatience – because of them, I haven’t experienced any delays in a while.

To quantify the performance of the Nokia C12, or rather its processor, I was keen to run Geekbench 6. The thing is, this benchmark test doesn’t run on smartphones. Subsequently, I revert to Geekbench 5. The results are sobering: 126 points in the single-core and 459 points in the multi-core test. The graphics interface Vulkan manages 109 points. Even compared to the Nokia X30’s Snapdragon 695, this is a disastrously low score. Smartphones with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 from 2022 achieve about ten times as many points.

The Nokia C12 has a modest internal memory of 64 gigabytes, but it can be expanded with a microSD card. The performance is only sufficient for simple games and the camera doesn’t need much storage space for photos. So despite my typical smartphone habits, I could almost consider the 64 gigabytes acceptable.

Removable battery

The Nokia C12’s 3000 mAh battery is replaceable. You don’t need any tools to change it. Simply take off the back and remove the battery with your fingers. The capacity seems low compared to the typical figure of 5000 mAh. Nevertheless, I make it through the day okay despite the humble hardware. That being said, the C12 doesn’t give you hours of use.

The Nokia C12 is charged via a micro-USB port. This feels like a relic of the past, and isn’t particularly fast. The maximum power is 5 watts. For comparison, the 25-watt Pixel 7 Pro is considered slow, requiring two hours instead of one for a full charge. The Nokia C12 needs a couple more on top of that.

Old ports and standards

It’s not just the micro-USB port that feels outdated, it’s the Wi-Fi standard too. Wi-Fi 4 really is outdated. Another outdated yet still very useful feature is the 3.5 millimetre headphone jack. Wireless headphones can be connected via Bluetooth 5.2 – a modern standard.

It’s also worth mentioning the features Nokia has decided to do without. The C12 doesn’t have NFC, so you can’t use it to make mobile payments. Its location services only use GPS; Galileo and Glonass are both alien concepts to this smartphone.

Android Go? Android Stop, more like

Nokia has installed Android 12 Go on the C12. This is essentially a slimmed-down version of Google’s operating system, designed for cheaper smartphones. It gets by on less memory and occupies less storage space. The same applies to the Go version of several Google apps.

However, Nokia has given the storage space it’s gained from this to six pre-installed third-party apps. Together, they take up 570 megabytes. Although this doesn’t sound like much, you’re only left with 54 gigabytes of the 64 gigabyte storage when you start using the phone.

Not only that, but Android 12 Go isn’t the latest version. Android 13 Go came out in October 2022, several months before Nokia launched the C12. If that wasn’t annoying enough, Nokia doesn’t provide Android updates for the C12. You just get two years of quarterly security updates. In my book, that’s not enough support – even if it is a budget smartphone.

No need for retro filters on this camera

On the back of the Nokia C12, there’s just one 8-megapixel camera. Meanwhile, the front camera takes selfies of just 5 mexapixels. The issue here isn’t the paltry number of cameras, nor is it the single-digit resolution – it’s the quality. When posting your snaps to Insta or other social media channels, you won’t need a retro filter.

Colours and level of detail

No, the camera’s lens wasn’t fogged up. And no, I didn’t forget to take off the protective sticker. Even so, the photo isn’t sharp, and the blurriness progresses as you get closer to the edges. On top of that, the colours seem lacklustre. Hardly a pretty picture.

It’s a sunny day in the park, but neither the blue between the clouds nor the green grass get a chance to shine here. We might as well be looking at a poorly digitalised analogue photo from the 1970s.

Portrait

The Nokia C12’s camera app is equipped with portrait mode. It’s wide-angled and pixelated, with a background just a little less sharp than in automatic mode. It also looks overexposed when compared to me in the shade. Other smartphones often compensate this better via HDR mode.

Nighttime

The camera app even has night mode. However, even that isn’t enough to rescue the quality of images taken in darkness.

Selfies

Looking at the selfie, I’m able to make myself out, as well as the fact I’m in a park. Still, I wouldn’t want to use the image.

Conclusion: a false economy

Sure, the Nokia C12 is a smartphone, but it’s not much fun. Even taking its low price into account, I’m unconvinced by it. The only reason to get it is if you want a smartphone that’ll force you into a digital detox.

Its removable battery and ability to accommodate two SIM cards bags the Nokia C12 some plus points. Plus, I like the plastic back. The display does the job, but the hardware’s too slow. Not getting functional Android updates is disappointing, and the camera doesn’t make me want to take photos.

On the whole, that’s too many drawbacks for me to say, with a clear conscience, that you should get the Nokia C12 if you’re not willing to splash out. If you want a usable smartphone, you’ll need to pay a bit more.

For my next review, I’ll increase the budget by about 60 euros/francs. Let’s see if I get enough bang for my buck with the Motorola Moto G13.

Header image: Jan Johannsen