ZTE Axon 30 Ultra

Here's something a little off the beaten track for the UK. A ZTE device. In this case, the Axon 30 Ultra, which is pretty well priced based on specs and may even be pretending to be a £1,000+ flagship. We played with other Axon devices previously and I remember them having excellent stereo speakers, so I approach my time with this one full of hope!

Firstly, a nod to our PSC MeWe Group member Andy Moon for loaning us this unit for review. Do come and join us at MeWe if you're reading this and haven't. We have a cracking little community and you'd be welcome to try us out. Anyway, back to the phone..!

The ZTE Axon 30 Ultra arrived just as I was completing my Sony Xperia 1iii vs Motorola Edge+ comparison review in which I was saying how much those two devices looked like each other (in a global sense). Well, blow me down if this couldn't have met the very same criteria! A little wider but otherwise, in many ways similar. Anyway, that boat has sailed so we'll press on here with a straight bunch of thoughts.

I can just about get my finger and thumb to join around the waist of the device, with TPU in place or not. The supplied in-the-box TPU is clear, fits perfectly and only leaves the front edges exposed. The edges are slightly curved from front and back meeting the aluminium surround with quite a sharp edge, like the Nokia 8 Sirocco. Along the right side there's a power button and volume rocker, both of which feel sturdy and very well made. On the left, there's nothing, the top is all-but clean and the bottom houses the central USB-C port, SIM Card Tray and speaker. There's no IP-rating with this phone and maybe we're heading towards the territory where that might be expected and included.

On the Gorilla Glass 5 back there's a huge camera island! It's top-left (in portrait) and looks/feels very Samsung. There's a cluster of 3 lenses, a fourth periscope 'square', flashes and sensors and labels! There's also a 'tab' label coming from the side which only appears to be that - a label with NEOVISION PHOTOGRAPHY marked on it. The other label boasts the presence of 3x64MP shooters with their apertures. The ZTE/5G logo is in 'landscape' which gives the impression that the phone should be held in landscape orientation when using the camera.

The camera island sits proud of the back by about 2mm, but this doesn't seem to detract from the phone's balance in the hand. It's actually a surprisingly light phone at 188g and very pleasurable to hold for those who are OK with (yet another) 6.67" screened device! The front is Gorilla Glass 5 again and has virtually no bezels left and right as the screen starts to slide around the curve - with just a small amount top and bottom to aid with Gestures. There's a tiny-weeny Selfie camera hole top/centre which sits below the second speaker (creating stereo) for calls.

The phone has a really nice design, though it could be argued that it's pretty much like any other phone out there these days with little to differentiate it from many, many others. Except for perhaps that camera island on the back. It sits nicely in the hand, feels well made, classy and premium. I guess that without a TPU on it does feel different from some others which make use of plastics - and miss out on that final aspect of quality. But then the TPU goes on! I'm not sure if other variants differ, but this one has Dual SIM (back to back), both for 5G data.

The front panel is an AMOLED one, 1080p and a 20:9 ratio returning 395ppi. It looks perfectly good to me and I love OLED - there's something special about it which I personally have never seen from an LCD. The refresh rate of the screen can be wound up to 144Hz in settings - or anything you like along the way to preserve battery - 120, 90, 60 or Auto - where it decides for you, based on what you're doing. Regular readers here will probably know what I'm going to say here with my near-60 year-old eyes - that I really need to look closely to see any difference. I'm sure younger people into gaming will disagree, but I'll plump for the battery savings!

The screen gets very bright when increased manually or on adaptive and out in bright ambient light. The colours are rich and saturated, but for those not happy, there are plenty of settings to tweak with the way it looks. It must be a Samsung panel, I'm guessing. One of the clear advantages of OLED screens is of course Always on Displays and ZTE don't miss the flight here!

There are a good number of options to choose from with the Always on Display along with settings to have always on, briefly after touching the screen or scheduled. My Nokia XR20 could really do with that feature! There are a nice bunch of options from analogue to digital, pretty graphics or text. The AoD shows whatever you choose including time, day, date, battery state and icons for notifications. If you double-tap (anywhere) you then get the 'lock screen' with cards showing a bit more detail about the notifications (like Pixel) or you can press the in-screen fingerprint scanner to open up fully.

The in-screen optical fingerprint scanner is supported by Face Unlock. They are both quick and easy to set up and work flawlessly in my tests here. There is a very, very small delay when you place your finger on the target (which is placed about 25% of the way up the screen) but only the picky (and capacitive die-hards) would complain!

This review unit has 128GB storage and 8GB RAM but you can buy one up to 1TB and 16GB RAM if you can find one! There's also a middle-ground option of 256GB of storage. You should be careful when choosing storage however, as there's no microSD Card expansion here so what you buy is what you get. You can, of course, use streaming and cloud-based data these days - as long as you're connected and/or plug in adapters and storage to the USB-C port (with a charging split if needed). I have tested this on-the-go with my usual 512GB microSD with adapter and my 2TB Extreme SSD and all is well with both. Watching a film on this glorious screen is a treat, especially with the stereo sound.

I was surprised to discover that HDMI-Out (by cable) is working perfectly too, which means that all that lovely content can easily and readily (armed with a cable and adapter) be sent to whatever big TV/monitor you fancy! This feature is slipping away with many, so I was pleased to see ZTE including it still.

The data I spoke of above is exchanged quickly when plugged in, assisted by the all-but bang-up-to-date SnapDragon 888 chipset. It really is fast. Just now and again that can be useful and helpful to get things done in a hurry. Speed around the UI is blazingly fast with this 5nm SoC and I saw no slowdown anywhere during my test period. Didn't have to wait for anything to open/re-open with the 8GB RAM, which is clearly more than adequate for the latest version of Android to run sweetly. I did run Geekbench 5 and found the results to reflect a very high rating, only trailing the Sony Xperia 1iii and Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max of the current sample phones kicking around PSC Towers recently.

Android 11 is present here of course, as we're not into 12 territory yet, but I was a tad concerned that the Google Security patches wouldn't update past May 2021, when we're now in September. Maybe ZTE don't prioritise these monthly updates like others now seem to, but it was certainly a mark down in my eyes. I remain hopeful that going forward they will keep it up to date more and that (at least) Android 12 will come along, if not 13.

I'm delighted that the Axon 30 Ultra has stereo speakers of course and further, that they appear to be 'real' stereo and not a hybrid software-driven mix which actually end up more like just dual speakers. What is done in software is very clever of course, but there's nothing like the real thing! The output really is very good with DTS:X Ultra engaged, up there with the Motorola Edge+ for volume and not far off for bass. It's more harsh and top-heavy without it engaged but the hit on volume when turned on is minimal. Once you're inside the 'personal audio preferences' you can get to a bunch of pre-sets and graphic equaliser via a custom setting. You can also switch the stereo effect from Traditional or Wide to 'In-front'. YMMV but I found the Wide setting useful when watching a film, to throw the stage wider and make separation more pronounced. The speakers don't 'turn round' so the left stereo channel always comes out of the earpiece and right, bottom. Net result is that the sound ain't half bad. Certainly good and loud, good stereo and adjustable to make quality better.

There's no 3.5mm audio-out socket here, so we're relying on either a USB-C ear/headphone set or Bluetooth. There is 24-bit audio enhancement for output and you can tell the difference between this and some more ordinary. It's certainly louder than non-enhanced units with good strong bass and a good balance, tested here with my reference headphones. It wasn't quite too loud for me at top volume, but it wasn't far off. Turning to Bluetooth, as we have come to expect, tested here with various headphones and earphones, it's boomingly bassy and ludicrously loud for my ears, depending on the attached gear, of course! I settled on 50% volume.

The ZTE headline here for this phone is that it has 200 MILLION PIXELS! That's what the camera units add up to if you exclude the Selfie, so 64MP+64MP+64MP+8MP. Nothing is quite as it seems however, in intent. It's all well and good to shout about your hardware, but the question is whether or not the software supporting it renders usable (or dare we hope) excellent pictures. To run through the shooters, there's a 64MP f1.6 main camera with OIS, a 64MP f1.9 (35mm equivalent) secondary, a 64MP f2.2 wide-angle third and an 8MP f3.4 5x Optical Zoom unit with OIS. There's a 16MP f2.5 Selfie up-front in that very tiny hole (compared to many others' manufacturer's resting point).

I was most interested in the 5x optical zoom, like most people probably, and went on out for the shoot full of enthusiasm. Mixed feelings really on return. It's great that the facility is available of course - and if you don't want to crop or enlarge, the photos are absolutely fine. Social media will be a great platter to show off some great zoom shots. But I didn't have to zoom in very far to find fuzzy edges, artefacts and noise. I've seen much better - and maybe 5x is still just a bit too far yet. The results from the 3x on my Edge+ hold up to much closer pixel-level scrutiny. But, as we often say, who wants to pixel-peep with photos from phones? That's not what they're for - except for those watching closely for improvements as we move forward on a technical basis.

Much more useful is, in fact, the 35mm secondary shooter, the preferred focal length for me back in the day for all sorts of street photography and some level of interior work without going to 28mm. The shots from this lens, unlike the periscope, on closer inspection are much better, surviving much more pixel-peeping, are colourful and very nice. I think that ZTE have majored on this lens as the best of the bunch as it also seems to be even better than the main shooter. The close-focus is nothing to write home about and won't challenge Xiaomi in that respect.

The camera interface is clean enough with Google Lens built-in from the Home screen position. There's the usual line of options to slide/select from, with a Zoom Slider on-screen to the right. This defaults to 1x of course but can easily be tapped for 0.5x wide-angle, 2x Zoom (which upscales the 35mm lens), 5x (for the periscope) and to ludicrous 60x lengths at the top for all-but unusable photos - even on social media to be viewed on a small screen!

The bokeh in the portrait lens (35mm) is very well implemented with a virtual aperture slider across the bottom of the screen so you can adjust the level - and in my tests here, when across to the "F1.0" side, the artificial/hybrid blurring is well done, impactful and doesn't look horribly induced. There's a Multi-Camera option so that you can use toggles on the screen to quickly switch between the lenses and their focal length options and a Night Mode which actually seems to do a very good job pulling light from nowhere! There's always the payoff of course with noise and wrecked pixel-level detail, but you can't defeat physics! For the average user shooting night-time shots, I think that it does incredibly well and makes what should be unusable, usable!

Then there's all sorts of other stuff going on in the More tab, like a fully manual mode which lets the user play with settings of ISO, EV, WB, SS and focusing (doesn't help close-focus though), Panorama, Mono, 64MP to force the full-res rather than Quad Bayer down to 16MP in most cameras, Long Exposure and so on. There's a bunch of Quick Settings available from the hamburger menu en route to the main settings where you can drill down to even more, less often used ones. There's a spirit-level horizon aid if you want it and loads of other stuff. It's a nice enough camera app which stops short of becoming confusing and unclean. As Steve Litchfield will not be getting hands-on with this unit (he's busy reviewing the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra) I'll link you here to GSMArena's appraisal of the camera capabilities over two pages on their website starting here as they get down to the nitty-gritty and do some serious testing.

ZTE's MyOS 11 sits on top of Android 11 here and it's surprisingly clean and logical compared to many phones coming out from the far-east which seem to do everything in their power to confuse, lock people in and keep well away from Vanilla flavouring! There were a couple of pre-installed apps to deal with, but really not very many. The usual FaceBook, browser et al. They uninstall nicely so we can move on. Google apps are employed and nothing doubled-up, so no ZTE email, contacts or calendar for example. There is a useful File Manager (which often work better than Google's Files, I find).

There is an additional item which is becoming more common these days, making a shortcut cluster from a floating button/slider on the screen. Like Sony's Side Sense or Samsung's Edge Panel. ZTE call theirs Z-Pop but it works in much the same way. When you turn it on, you can assign a bunch of system functions to five buttons (though unlike the others, not apps). The 'main' button sits on the screen, dragged to where you want it, then if you tap-hold, drag away from the edge and then let go, you get the other 4 of the 5 buttons in a semi-circle to execute. Works well and is simple. Not sure I'd bother with it, but it's clean enough.

There's a Google Feed option for the left of home for those who want it, a home screen Google Search widget which is removable, a bunch of wallpaper via the long-press home and even Effect - which allows for a choice of animation when switching screens or returning to base. The Widget-picker is far from standard, being a carousel across the bottom of the screen rather than full-page vertical list, but it works well enough. You can change the grid-layout for rows/columns and even opt for all-apps on home screens rather than App Drawer if you like. The app drawer is vertically-scrolling with an A-Z index down the right for quick-picks with, thankfully no Recent Apps list at the top taking up space!

Pull down from anywhere gets you the Status/notification area which is very Android 12/iOS in terms of having big buttons and blue colours when engaged. A secondary swipe gets down to the other buttons which are editable and sideways-scroll if you have too many for one page. There's a ton of stuff in there to choose from, so customise away!

The Settings screen is also pleasantly uncluttered and rearranged too much from Vanilla with no nags to open a ZTE account, for example, often blighting other manufacturers' offerings. Having said that, when you drill down into various settings, it becomes obvious that ZTE have put the MyOS touch on some stuff. But I'm not complaining. It's close enough! There's useful stuff additionally too in there - and some things changed and missing. For example, Display time-out max is 10 minutes instead of the standard 30 minutes.

There's a ZTE Locker which appears to offer a daily change of wallpapers fed by HQ and a very basic set of three Themes, a few tweaks to the Status Bar like not/showing/locating battery % and connection network speed, Dark Mode, Reading Mode and Night Light - we know the drill by now and these kind of additions are all-but standard for Android, certainly v12. Settings are all very pretty with colourful graphics and icons - and nice graphs and charts here and there depicting battery and storage - very Samsung again in many places.

I actually like MyOS 11 very much indeed. A bit like what Motorola/Sony/Nokia do, keeping it pretty much as Vanilla as possible - but add some really useful (and often pretty) enhancements. Yes, there are a few changes and omissions, but I really could live with that. Give me a choice of this and what Oppo, Xiaomi, Realme, Redmi, Samsung (and more) offer, and I'll be all over this, every time.

Connectivity is good with all the usual suspects performing very well indeed. Cellular connectivity appears to be strong, tested here with voice calls where all parties report good and strong reproduction even in a known weak-spot for Vodafone. Data via cellular is very good and strong. Wifi 6e is supported but I have no way yet of testing that advancement - with an ordinary WiFi on a domestic router the signal is strong with a long-reach connection. NFC seems to be present and working fine connecting to other gear, though I couldn't test Google Pay. Similarly, GPS locked on quickly in supporting apps and services and tracked me well, whilst moving. Bluetooth 5.2 seems to offer a decent enough range via the phone's aerial and held onto the signal pretty well with break-up only present when pushed to longer distances or through very thick walls.

The supplied battery is a 4,600mAh unit. Not the biggest out there, but still decidedly decent. In my test period of my average usage I found that I could quite happily get to the end of the day with 30-40% remaining, so if pushed maybe lunchtime on Day 2. My 10% Reading SoT Test returned me 1 hour and 45 minutes, which again, is not the best but certainly far from worst. As always, battery longevity depends very much on what you're using the phone for and how you're pushing it or not, so YMMV for sure. On balance though, there's no reason to fear a poor performance. In the box you get a 65W charger which zips through charging, offering a full charge from flat in under an hour and two-thirds in half-hour. Wow! Having said that, it's a shame that there's no Qi Charging - something I might have expected at this price-point - but something that many seem to be dropping and supplying super-fast-chargers instead.

At time of writing the phone can be bought direct from ZTE in this 128GB/8GB version for £649. There's a lot of phone here for that price. But there are also a couple of items that you might expect, like Qi Charging and an IP-rating (and being fussy, microSD and 3.5mm)! Having said that, this feels very much like a flagship at half the price of many others, it has a super bright and colourful screen with a very fast refresh-rate, it's much cleaner than many in terms of Android, it has a bunch of interesting and fun cameras (highlighted for me by that 35mm shooter), a super-fast processor, great sounding speakers and booming 24-bit audio for headphones. I would be very happy to use this phone as my main unit with my only concern being the commitment by ZTE to monthly security updates. Laying that aside, very highly recommended.

PodHubUK Podcasts for the Month of August 2021

  ...a roundup of our month of podcasting. Links to the team, communities and podcast homes on the net at the foot, so scroll down!

Tech Addicts Podcast

Nokia and their Tablets

Sunday 1st August

Gareth and I are here again for our Sunday roundup of all things tech as we natter over M&Ms and other addictive confectionary! In between all that we wonder if Nokia's new tablet will be any good, Samsung's watch will be a Classic, whether we should shudder at the word Pegasus or just shove it up our BitLocker! ("Go on - shove it!")

The Phones Show

Episode 426 - Video Capture Comparison

Thursday 5th August

Join Steve for an interim show over on his YouTube Channel as he plays hunt the hiss while shooting video with various smartphones over the last decade or so..!

Whatever Works

Episode 143 - Anti-Dirty Bottom!

Friday 6th August

Aidan and I are back again with another hour of chaos and chips (cheap ones)! Loads of stuff as usual to uncover - Whatever Works for us and you - including a fair amount of Sucking and Blowing in unexpected orifices, Fidgeting with Igloos, getting our Power from Towers and even having a poke at The Limp Pics!

Phones Show Chat

Episode 651 - Pixel Precious

Saturday 7th August

Steve and I are joined this week by Mark Hilton who we catch up with on all things mobile phone. New Nokia, Sad Sony and Perfect Pixel? Do join us to find out.

Tech Addicts Podcast

TikTok Tensor Stylophone

Sunday 8th August

It's that time of the week again as Gareth and I pick apart the world of tech in between naughty words! Grab your Play Pass for Retro Toys as you Simple Dimple in Shorts - while we look at the latest from JBL, Lonovorola, HTC and even chat to our Chromebooks!

Projector Room

Episode 93 - The Cat Contract

Wednesday 11th August

Gareth, Allan and I are back again with our fortnightly roundup of what we've been watching in film, cinema and TV. We also scoop up the best of the submissions in our MeWe Group of course and tackle our new Theme: Cats! We discover The Boy Behind the Door, tackle Kindred topics and kick The Mule back into life!

The Phones Show

Episode 427 - Sony Xperia 1iii Review

Thursday 16th August

Join Steve over on his YouTube Channel as he holds the 1iii up against the 5ii with an eye on the coming 5iii - if you follow! Plenty to chew over, lots to love, some not so good. Yet!

Phones Show Chat

Episode 652 - Gun Proof

Tuesday 10th August

Steve and I sneak in a mid-week show in as we get up to speed on a couple of devices in-hand turning out to be a bit more time-consuming to review! The Gun Proof Nokia XR20 and all powerful Sony Xperia 1 III take centre-stage.

Phones Show Chat

Episode 653 - Does Anything in Your Pocket Fold Yet?

Saturday 14th August

Steve and I are back in our regular weekend slot and welcome Ian Furlong once again and catch up with where he's at in mobile. Loads of other stuff too as I mop up the Nokia XR20 stuff and Steve further teases his Sony Xperia 1iii review.

Tech Addicts Podcast

Fiddly Fold and Frustrating Flip

Sunday 15th August

Gareth and I are here again with our weekend catchup of tech that has caught our eye in the last 7 days. Luggage style Speakers, add-on Touchscreens, Realme go their Ownway, bark from Xiaomi and gaming galore!

Phones Show Chat

Episode 654 - From Unbreakable Phone to Broken SIM Tray

Saturday 21st August

Steve and I are back with a two-header this weekend as we swap over the latest Nokia and Sony phones and tell you what we think! We'll be back mid-week again this week, as there's so much to cover and we just didn't have time here.

Tech Addicts Podcast

OnlyFans Off the Cards

Sunday 22nd August

Gareth and I are back - it must be Sunday again! We plough into tons of tech again this week. Robot lawyers, Tablet clones, Patreon Porn, Magnet Cams, Amusement Arcades and African cables get the treatment this week!

Phones Show Chat

Episode 655 - Xperia Three

Tuesday 24th August

Steve and I are back with another mid-week catch-up episode which is all about that - catching up on the stuff we had no time for at the weekend: a Sony Xperia 1iii and Nokia XR20 mop-up. Some other bits too, so why not tune in!

Projector Room

Episode 94 - Cujo Clerk

Tuesday 24th August

Gareth, Allan and I are back once again for our fortnightly roundup of what we, and you, have been watching in film, cinema and TV. Plenty of goodies as usual - with a Dog theme in the middle and much drooling over a certain Ana, but mainly a deceitful jungle cruise at some kind of boss level!

Phones Show Chat

Episode 656 - Dual Decisions

Saturday 28th August

Steve and I welcome back Juan Carlos Bagnell this weekend as we find out what gear he's been using, testing and favouring recently. Loads of top-notch natter to get stuck into.

Tech Addicts Podcast

All of Mi

Sunday 29th August

Gareth and I are back for another wild ride on the UK’s favourite Tech Podcast hosted a bloke from Northern Ireland and a bloke living in Wales! This time we blabber on about Surface Duo 2, contactless payments, an electric cargo ship, Fitbit Charge 5 and much, much, much more. Seriously, loads!

The Podcasts
PodHubUK - Phones Show Chat - The Phones Show - Whatever Works - Chewing Gum for the Ears - Projector Room - Tech Addicts

The MeWe Community Groups (follow the links to join up)
Phones Show Chat & The Phones Show - Whatever Works - Chewing Gum for the Ears - Projector Room - PSC Photos - PSC Classifieds - Tech Addicts

The Team
Ted Salmon - Steve Litchfield - Aidan Bell - Gareth Myles - Allan Gildea

Sony Xperia 1 III vs Motorola Edge+

The Xperia 1, 5 and 10 lines have been the primary concern for Sony over the last two or three years. With each evolution of each of the lines there are improvements and possibly more importantly, retention of the stuff that's good. When I got my hands on the latest of the 1-line, the Mk.III, I was amazed at how similar it felt and looked, in many ways at first glance, to my Edge+ from 2020.

I thought a comparison between the two would be a better starting point than a straight review. Much of the common areas have been covered already by Steve Litchfield and myself on Phones Show Chat, The Phones Show, AAM and this very blog. Here's some links to be going on with for catch-up reading and viewing... Xperia 5 vs 5ii, Xperia 5, Xperia 1iii itself, Xperia 5ii, Xperia 1ii and Xperia 1ii (by guest reviewer Sethu Pillai).

Before we get to the comparison though, one aspect which is clearly different from the 5ii and 5iii is the size. The 1 range are significantly bigger, as indicated above, moving away from the dinky size of the 5-series which is very pocketable and small enough for plenty of one-handed use. The 1-series is simply bigger, in all directions. I can just about get my finger and thumb to meet around the phone's waist with a TPU in place, though it is much easier without. One advantage of that increased size is the increase in width for keyboard use. Instead of it feeling just a little cramped, as for the 5, the 1 lifts that up to be perfectly usable.

It's a gorgeously designed phone - and preferable to the 5 because of the more 'boxy' approach to the edges. It's a subtle thing, and subjective of course, but I like the more 'industrial' square lines whilst retaining the classy and premium feel. The black version here is subtle in design (as opposed to the flashy colours of many other phones) with a new matt finish on the back and beautifully crafted buttons around the rim. Everything about the finish is top-notch including the reassurance of an IP65/8 rating for dust and water.

That matt back is constructed with Gorilla Glass 6 protection and the front, Victus. The frame is aluminium which houses a volume rocker, capacitive fingerprint scanner/power button, Google Assistant button and shutter button on the right. There's a USB-C port and microphone at the bottom and just that SIM Card Tray on the left (which is a Hybrid Dual tray for 2x5G SIM Cards or one and a microSD Card). I don't like the Sony SIM Card Trays - they feel plasticky and floppy - I'm not even sure about the no-tool thing any longer. Up the top is a 3.5mm audio-out socket and sticking out slightly on the back (hidden by TPU) is the long and thin camera island. The front top and bottom edges house the (now incredibly rare) front-facing stereo speakers, one at each end. The bottom (right channel) is longer than the one up the top but we'll come to sound later.

The screen is an OLED panel and 6.5" with 1644 x 3840 pixels (which most of the time runs at 1096 x 2560). This is of course the now standard Sony 21:9 ratio returning 643ppi and can be thought of as 1080p most of the time lifting to 1440p for certain use-cases. There's a switch in settings to lift the refresh rate from 60Hz to 120Hz for those who need it for their applications/games or those who can genuinely tell the difference and/or don't care about any subsequent battery hit.

As you would expect, much like the 5ii the screen is bright and vibrant, colourful with deep blacks - a gorgeous panel which I had no difficulty using outside even in bright sunshine. This seems to have apparently improved since the 1ii, which many found to be less than useful when ambient light levels were high. There are the same white balance controls, Creator Mode colour gamut and contrast tech which I've covered before (see links above) in settings. Bottom line is that the flat panel seems all-but faultless to me.

Some will not like the fact that there are black bars top and bottom housing the speakers and Selfie camera along with other sensors, but I actually prefer this than the screen going out to all the edges, all the time. It's somewhere to swipe from using Gesture Navigation and with the tall 21:9 aspect it really doesn't matter. It's not going to eat into anything much that you're likely to want to view on the screen, including (obviously) 21:9 cinema releases! The only argument might be that the overall footprint of the phone could have been less tall.

So that's the physical done, I'll now get into my comparison with the Motorola Edge+ as promised. I love my using my Edge+ for many reasons and yes, there's more than a year between these releases, but I found myself comparing them anyway. They are both £1000+ flagships (on release) and, as I said, have a similar 'form'. The Sony, as we'll see, outguns the Moto in most areas technically, but I'm here for a real-world use consideration and intend to see how close or far apart they are - and which I'd rather have as my device of choice.

The starting point is probably the front screen. The Sony of course has a completely flat panel whereas the Moto has the outrageous waterfall edges around left and right. Which do we prefer, is the question. They both have pros and cons, some of which is usability and some look/feel. When the fingers slide over the edges of the Moto, the reaction is one of admiration here. How classy it feels, how premium, smooth as silk. But there's also vulnerability. This unit has already been repaired by Moto for a faulty screen component - with a flat screen you don't have that physical vulnerability, laying aside any manufacturing faults. This is going to be a subjective one, like much of the following. My head tells me that a flat screen is a much more sensible option but then I pick up the Moto and sigh!

Both devices are updated with the latest Android OS, being 11, though I certainly have more confidence going forward that Sony will keep their unit up to date more regularly and sooner than Moto will. Moto have a poor reputation here, which they need to fix. Writing at the end of August 2021, the Sony has August '21 Google Security and the Moto, June '21 - which is reflective of the point. Moto tend to get into this 'quarterly' (if you're lucky) update cycle whereas Sony, for Security updates, tends to update at least before the end of 'current month'. Still, we geeks seem to put too much emphasis on being bang-up-to-date apparently! I also have more confidence that Sony will push out Android 12 long before Moto does - and of course 12 is the end of the line with the Edge+ (when it arrives) for OS updates, whereas Sony are supporting their phones in this respect longer.

Both devices have 256GB of storage and 12GB RAM. Both fly with any task thrown at them. Copying data and switching tasks, leaving stuff open in the background - it's all near-faultless and the two phones get a draw on this. Where the Sony wins however, is that it has a microSD Card option, playing nicely with my 512GB card here. The Edge had a card slot, but not the Edge+ sadly. Still, 256GB is a substantial amount onboard.

Another draw is present between the chipsets, Sony with a Snapdragon 888 5G (5nm) and the Edge+ Snapdragon 865 5G (7nm) on the same basis as the above really. I can't see any difference between them in any action, process or execution. We did run a Geekbench 5 test on the two and the overall results placed the Sony above the Moto, but it really wasn't by much. So yes, both blazingly fast for everyone!

I have been surprised by the speaker output with the Edge+ over the months. I don't know if they've tweaked it in updates, but it sounds even better now than it did on arrival. The test though here is less about volume but more about tone, bass and equalisation. Next to each other, the sound is firing from the front (totally) with the Sony and front/top-bottom with the Moto. But this doesn't seem to make any difference really, beyond fingers blocking grilles. The sound output is fine on both and stereo separation good. No equalisation used, 3rd party Music App used, the Sony is very, very slightly louder than the Moto, but the Moto wins on quality. The Sony sounds just a little bit uncomfortable/stretched at top volume whereas the Moto is very happy.

Playing with equalisation via both phones' built-in tools, 'Audio Effects' for Moto and Dolby for Sony, the sound can be further advanced, but again, the Moto seems more tolerant. Effects can be more usefully added and adjusted at higher volumes overall. This is nit-picking though as the sound from both phones is excellent and my difficulty in criticising here reflects how close they are. One annoyance is how far the Dolby controls are from the user on the Sony. There's no quick-route to it - it takes FOUR screen-taps to get there via Settings. All they need is what the 5ii had - a shortcut in the drop-down status area - but they seem to have taken it away! Bizarre.

The Sony does, however, have Dynamic Vibration to add to the mix if desired. This uses a large vibration motor hooked up to the sound output (via speakers or headphones) to 'pulse' to the music on the beats, intelligently, through the phone's body. It's ahead here because it's a fabulous effect which I use all the time. It may be psychological but it 'feels like' it adds some depth and bass when it's pulsating through the hands in time with the beat or some explosion in a video.

Again, both phones have a 3.5mm audio-out socket which works perfectly well. I shall have to nit-pick here again when it comes to wired, as I do believe that even though there's no official enhanced audio on the Moto as there is with the Sony (24-bit) they both sound fabulous with wired 'phones. Very slightly louder sound from the Sony, I guess, but both as bass-orientated as each other. Net result again is that they're very close. It is possible that Moto have some sort of enhanced audio through the 3.5mm but just haven't documented it - they do that sometimes, like not mentioning waterproofing! Switching to Bluetooth brings very similar results. Turning the volume as high as my ears can stand, there really isn't much between them. Both stunningly good quality. Moto made a largely unspecified fuss about audio when releasing the Edge+ in 2020 and it really is very good. In top quality company here, it holds its head up high even if we don't know about the components exactly.

There are lots of differences between the camera hard/software here and I'm going to do the usual thing here by pointing you to Steve's review of the Sony in The Phones Show 427 where he shares his conclusions on the performance and results. What I would add to that is that the Sony provides the user with the fabulous two-stage shutter button (fabulous for confirming focus) in hardware and also the Photographer Pro and Cinema Pro apps. I have come from a background of using 'proper' cameras and this is as close as you can get with a phone just now. If I owned the Sony I would spend weeks-into-months getting to know the controls, limitations and capabilities which could be had from this fabulous interface - and only rue that I can't (yet) control the aperture. But I guess we just haven't got there yet in phones! Anyway, deep-dive into Steve's video for more.

The thoughts of Steve and myself on the Edge+ for photography can be read towards the end of my Motorola Edge+ Review but Steve's conclusion was "Having looked through Ted's sample photos, there are no major horrors in terms of image processing. Which is good. The optics don't seem flagship level, as in competing with the Samsung and iPhone flagships, but the whole camera package seems well thought out. The Edge+ is flexible, with 3x optical zoom and [other] options, and with AF on the wide angle, [so] fine for everyday photos of a variety of subjects." So yes, in fairness, probably a bit of a different ballpark in terms of cameras/photography and Sony certainly gets the win here.

Ready For is Moto's shot at Samsung's DeX. I've written all about that in the aforementioned review but just to note that HDMI-Out (via cable of course) is something that phone manufacturers don't seem to be bothering to include these days, with everything wireless and cloud-based etc. So it was refreshing to see that Sony, even if they don't have a Ready For/DeX type interface and capability going here on the 1iii, they do retain the HDMI-Out. This means that the phone's screen can be mirrored and sent to any TV or monitor with an HDMI-In socket, armed with a cable. It is certainly useful when watching media on a TV, laying aside any fancy software to use the phone's power as a pocket computer projected and connected. So good for Sony, but I guess Moto get the up-vote here for taking it a step further with Ready For.

The side-mounted capacitive fingerprint scanner gets Sony this vote as it's faultless. Works every single time, no question. It's quick to set up and well, just perfect! The only argument against it could be, by some, that it's on the side and is a thin target, so might be better on the back. But that's again subjective. What it is, however, is much better as a solution than Moto's under-glass optical version. It's not that it doesn't work - it does. And the hit-rate is very good indeed, but it's not perfect. And the Sony solution all-but, is. More about the Moto's version in my review again. Moto wins back a point here for including Face Unlock, which is simply not present as a security option on the Sony.

The battery in the Edge+ is 5,000mAh and the Sony, 4,500mAh. The longevity is better with the Moto. It lasts and lasts and lasts for days with my average use. This is all based on personal variables of course, so YMMV depending on how you use your phones. But yes, a Moto win. There's not much danger of the Sony not getting through a day (with my average use) but it's nowhere near as good as the Edge+ power. Start playing around with all that high-res video and Pro-level camera/photography stuff and it'll get worse of course. But unlike the 5iii, the 1iii continues the 1-series trend of having Qi Charging - so a draw here again, as both have this (reverse as well) and both do this conveniently and (we think - see Steve's video) the same 15W power/speed. So yes, top-up as you go and no fiddle-farting about with cables! If you do want to use a cable, however, the Sony edges ahead again with 30W over 18W on the Moto.

Connectivity with both phones seems to be faultless, be it cellular at 4G (sorry, can't test 5G), WiFi 6, NFC, Bluetooth or GPS. Signals are strong, locked quickly by apps and held onto. I tested phone calls and data with both phones, much longer-term with the Moto of course, and all parties and/or services reported loud and good interactions.

This mainly leaves us with the software experience, UX and UI. Moto keep things very clean and close to Vanilla Android. They add some of their own (hopefully useful) tweaks and gestures, wrapped into a single App pre-installed. There's no bloat, no additionally installed apps, no trials and certainly no huge games! Sorry, Sony, but it's bad form to pre-install Call of Duty and Asphalt 9 and to make matters worse, set to auto-install 5GB of data when the Play Store Updates are invoked. For those who don't know better, this will just go on in the background. There's also a Game Enhancer app, LinkedIn, TIDAL, Facebook and Sony's Music app (I'll let them have that one as it is genuinely useful) and more! I just don't understand why, when paying £1,200 for a phone they need to add these items. If it were a £159 Poco, I get it. No problem. But for shed-loads of cash, I would expect a clean software experience and to add what I want to add! Winning point for Moto here.

Sony call it Side Sense, Moto call it Edge Touch. They both have one and the associated controls to make it customised. It's very much like Samsung's Edge Panel and allows the user to invoke (by various means) a 'panel' of assignable options, apps, quick launches, quick dials, pretty much whatever you like. I've never used these much personally, but yes, I guess it's nice to have an option. Moto's is a bit more useful in that you can assign a button to allow (supported) apps to wrap around the waterfall edge. Sony version is slightly impaired for tapping to invoke by a TPU case for quick access, depending on the case of course. The Edge+ also plays around with Edge Lighting and 'shoulder controls' for gaming, making the best use of those curves. More in my review linked to above on that.

Home screen settings are clean on both, though limited options on both compared to many other phones. But that's good. Again, clean. Moto does add a range of 'styles' for icons, text etc. which Sony used to do but appear to have dropped now. Probably a moot point anyway as it looks like Google might force everyone away from it in Android 12 - we shall see! Google Feed to the left on both, as an option, and Sony offers a Pixel-like Search box option for the homepage via Home settings whereas the Moto does not except via Widgets. Niggles might include a maximum 10 minute screen stay-on time for Sony instead of the 'standard' 30 minutes which the Edge+ allows, stock-Android flavour.

The Always on Display nudges Sony ahead of the Moto again here because as fabulous as the Moto Approach/Peek system is, there is no option to set it for (truly) always-on. You must wave/tap to invoke it. Sony's however does give you that option and it works excellently well, with one caveat. When lifting the phone from the AoD screen, nothing happens. You have to double-tap it. With the Moto (and many others), the nudge/lift gives you the lock-screen with any notifications etc. Laying that aside, I love the way in which the Sony echoes the AlbumArt of last played audio. It really works well and further instils the historic notion of Walkman. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there's a Notification LED on the Sony! Good old-fashioned values indeed.

I'm sure that there are gaps in all the above, but hopefully they are covered by what I have reviewed directly previously and/or covered by Steve in his reviews - all linked to extensively throughout, above.

The question is, which would I use as my main phone, right now, if they both belonged to me. As you can see from the above, it's in many ways a close-call even though technically the Sony's hardware is ahead of Moto's. I do admit to having a large soft-spot for Motorola devices, but those who know me will also tell you the same about Sony! I love Sony gear, always have. It usually feels, looks and behaves in a classy, premium way. There are exceptions of course, like cheap plastic radio units, but generally, there has been a pedestal for Sony gear.

There are pros and cons on both sides. I value very highly the sound produced by speakers which slightly leans me back to the Edge+ but then I'm drawn back to the Sony by the classy way in which the sound arrangements are implemented, especially with Dynamic Vibration. There are little things like the Notification LED, Always on Display and confidence going forward with software updates. Then there's the cleaner version of Android and no clutter from the Edge+ along with that gorgeous, curved screen that I only have to touch and hold to sway me back!

You will have got the message by now that I'm completely torn on the matter. I want both! Price is a factor, of course. The Edge+ can now be found for about £600 if you look around (as it is last year's model and was never officially a UK release) and the Sony is £1,200. That's a lot of money, which is a serious investment. Is the Sony worth twice the cost of the Edge+? No. But maybe it's better to think about that in terms of release-price, being £1,049 back in 2020. So, the verdict - if I had to choose for here and now, I'd go for the Sony. But I'd sure miss the Moto!

Nokia XR20

A while back, I got in a Nokia 800 Tough. A rugged phone from HMD running KaiOS. It's tough (as the name may suggest) and good for banging in nails with, but it wasn't mainstream Android. The XR20 is much the same rugged/tough body but yes, with proper Android - and even AndroidOne, with promises of updates and even replacement screens going forward. Is it worth the spend, I wondered. Let's find out.

One of the big concerns here was the chipset, being a SnapDragon 480. Seriously? A 400-series SoC? My mind went back to the now woefully inadequate Marshall London and various low-end Moto devices over the last few years, pushed out with a small budget in mind. Hold on though - as our good friend Mike Warner who knows about these things has looked into this modern incarnation of the SD4xx series and declares that things are not how they used to be and we can expect a much better performance now from this 5G-enabled version.

We'll come to all that, but first the device itself. It comes in a box with not much else really. Not even a charger! A cable and some papers with a promise of some sort of charitable donation from the firm for each unit sold to ClearRivers who keep plastics out of the oceans and encourage the buyer to get some trees planted post-purchase, on Nokia. It's not a cheap phone, but we'll see if the £449 (128GB/6GB) and £399 (64GB/4GB) is justified as we go forward here.

The phone is huge! It has a 6.67" screen but because of the thick rubber, IP6/8 and MIL-STD-810H armoury it's even bigger than the other hoards of 6.67" screened phones coming out of China with regular monotony! There's an aluminium chassis and Gorilla Glass Victus (the best there is just now, outside Apple's Ceramic Shield, also used on the top-end Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra) adding to the 'drop-to-concrete from 1.8m' coating along with 3-D NanoTextured back! All this adds up to a big and heavy device, weighing in at 248g. It's one of the heaviest phones I ever handled!

So you can drop it from great heights, chuck it in the (plastic-free) ocean, kick it around, use it as a football (as various promo videos have shown) and just generally abuse it as much as you like. The company further claims that in the first year of ownership if you break the front glass they will replace if for free! Wow! And actually, handling the phone you do get the impression that they're not kidding. Hammer nails, like the 800 Tough could! There's even a lanyard hole on the corner for those who wish to add a carry-strap!

The back of the phone is plastic, this 3-D texture thingie. It's supposed to be 'grippy' and whilst it certainly is more 'grippy' than your average glass (or plastic) back, it's not anywhere near as slip-free as a simple TPU case. Now, you wouldn't want to put a TPU case on this - for one thing, it would make it even bigger! But also, why worry! If it slips and you drop it, pick it up, repair the damage to whatever it hit(!), any carry on. A virtual guarantee of no damage. There are limits of course, one of which might be 70mph out the window, dropped on the M1. I'm guessing it wouldn't survive that - but who knows!

There's a big NOKIA in the middle of the back and a square camera island with two lenses and two LED flashes. I'll come back to that. The island is about 80% of the way up the back and central, covering the middle third of the width. At the bottom, there a USB-C socket, one of the two stereo speakers, microphone, 3.5mm audio-out socket and even a lanyard loop-hole! At the top, there's the SIM Card Tray and a red button which I'll come to, on the left is a sizeable, knurled, dedicated Google Assistant button (which can't be assigned to anything else - just on or off) and on the right, a volume rocker and capacitive fingerprint scanner doubled-up as a power button.

The edges are tough rubbery/plastic stuff round the top, bottom and corners, breaking into aluminium down both sides where mostly the buttons are housed. The buttons on the right feel like they are solid, industrial quality, but not so much the Assistant button on the other side, which feels like it has a tiny bit of play when encouragingly wiggled. Laying that aside, the whole phone feels very much what it is - a military-finish, industrial-grade brick!

The red button on the top can be assigned to (pretty much) what you like in terms of functionality for short-press and long-press - apps or functions, there's a big list. I have the short press assigned to music play/pause and long-press to torch. The play/pause works excellently well with all the four music players I've tried it with - even hours later, just picks up from where you paused - and the torch turns on based on the previously-used settings assignable in the drop-down Notification Tray shortcut.

If you long-press the Torch shortcut you get a picture of a torch with three settings of brightness. First button gives you one LED on, second gives you both and third, puts both of them on full-power. And it's blindingly bright! Don't look straight at it! There's also an SOS setting there too which, when tapped starts firing out a dot-dot-dot/dash-dash-dash etc. and appears to keep going while the phone still has power. You get the feeling that if you were stuck somewhere on a raft in the Atlantic, this would be genuinely useful as it's so bright.

The SIM Card Tray has space for two SIM 5G Nano Cards or one and a microSD Memory Card in the usual Hybrid way. Both SIM Cards can be used for 5G and both for data. It has the usual pokey-hole to get it out and it is, of course, rubber-sealed against the elements. The Assistant button does nothing more than any other way of invoking the Google Assistant, so take your pick - or turn it off, as I say. To be fair, in the few days I've been handling the phone I've not once pressed it by mistake, so probably fairly safe to leave on.

The capacitive fingerprint scanner is quick to set up and 100% accurate in use - first time/every time. You can assign the usual total 5 fingers to it but clearly the most useful are right thumb and index finger. Third finger of the left hand is also useful when stretching round the back, but to be honest, by the time you've done any of this, the face unlock has kicked in and works similarly perfectly well - maybe a bit too well as it worked today when I purposely covered my mouth and nose. It's quick to set up though, even with my beard! The power button works like you'd expect, firing up the lock-screen with options in settings to allow payment cards, connected equipment controls and so forth.

Handling is the biggest issue here. I do realise that it's all the trend to have bigger phones, but this really is bigger than pretty much all of them out there just now, certainly new and available. The screen is 6.67", then it has (what we consider to be in 2021) thick bezels - and then there's the rubber housing! There's no way I can get even close to meeting my thumb and index finger around the waist of the phone - this is a two-handed phone, most of the time. There's not even a quick-shrink option from Nokia as a one-handed mode here (outside of the usual gBoard option) that I can find in order to help with that!

As for me, those who follow my musings will know that I much prefer a smaller phone and being able to get everywhere on the screen one-handed - but hold on! Maybe I'm coming round! The few days that I've had this phone so far have shown me that maybe these things are not always about size - but also balance in-hand. The XR20, maybe because it is so thick and heavy, does indeed feel balanced in the hand and I am beginning to find that I'm OK with it. Honeymoon period, for sure, but usually I'd have given up by now on phones this size and be keen to polish off the review!

Another reason why I've not chucked in the towel is because of my love of the AndroidOne programme. HMD promise that this phone, arriving with Android 11, will get updated to 12, 13 and 14! That's the Google OS releases over three years ending with Android 14 for (period of currency) to autumn 2024 - and on top of that, four years of Security Updates, so to summer 2025. Good stuff indeed as these guys (and other Android phone manufacturers) try to get as good as Apple going forward. Who's to say that by then it might not be pushed even further. There is the reality of ageing hardware of course and the Snapdragon 480 SoC might feel very old by then anyway. I'll come to that shortly.

AndroidOne is a very clean implementation of Android which makes it feel very much like a Pixel experience. I was surprised to find three added third-party bloat apps on the phone during setup however, which is very much not like the AndroidOne I have experienced up to now and clearly HMD trying to make a fast buck. Fortunately, all three can be readily uninstalled for those of us who know what we're doing. Spotify, Amazon and ExpressVPN. Shame the party was spoiled a bit with that, but never mind. It's back to clean in a jiffy! The downside of AndroidOne is that you get very limited useful add-ons which others can enjoy such as Motorola's three-finger screenshot or Approach/Peek - or even the bells and whistles of a DeX from Samsung. It all feels a bit like they can do this if they want to, however, as Samsung offer similar levels of ongoing updates and support now - and also have all those extras. Depth of resources is key, to a large degree - HMD Global/Nokia having nothing like that of mighty Samsung, Xiaomi or Apple.

It's clean enough though. And Nokia have indeed slipped in a few of their own pearls, like the aforementioned torch for example - and even an Always on Display! I was surprised to see that even though others have done this with LCD screens (even Nokia have dabbled), it's mostly an OLED thing. The downside of this is that all of the screen is always on. So in a dark room, you can see the whole of the screen in grey around the clock/date and notifications. Which also means that the battery is given a hit it doesn't need. This is why you can turn it off in Settings if you prefer. I'd like to have seen a 'timed' option with this so it could be disabled automatically at night. Maybe Tasker or Action Blocks would sort this.

Double-tap to wake phone is available, lift to check and wake on incoming notifications also, so choices for all. AoD is pretty similar to the Nokia 9 PureView's in that it has digital clock, day, date and month then Notification icons below. Down the bottom of the screen there's a battery remaining percentage readout. If you invoke the options in the Google Assistant it will also show Android 12 style clock, notifications and display when it's charging - with two big numbers for minutes over two more for hour - all feels very Material You! So, unlike the otherwise great Moto Approach/Peek, you can see the time from across the room!

The LCD panel is 1080p and 20:9 ratio which returns 395ppi. It has a fixed 60Hz refresh-rate, which is fine with me - but notable that the likes of Realme and others are now almost standardising on not even 90Hz but 120! So I guess this isn't great for those with young eyes or gamers who can notice the difference. Better news is that it is capable of 550nits of brightness apparently and sure enough, to my eyes, when wound up on the slider, it looks more like an OLED for brightness and saturated bright colours than LCD. Remember the Nokia 8? Very similar. They're clearly getting better. You can also, if you like, adjust the colour temperature for warmth or cooling, but I think I prefer it at the default in the middle. As I said before, it's protected with Gorilla Glass Victus which will certainly help with breakage if not scratching - we shall see!

There's a selfie hole-punch lens at the top-centre of the screen which, yes, gets into eyeline when utilising the whole screen for watching a film, for example, but as usual with these things, the brain removes it after a while. There's an Enhanced Touch Sensitivity option which means that you can use it with gloves or when wet and so forth. I've tested this on/off with various gloves and materials and it does indeed make a difference - turn it off and gloved fingers struggle, on and it's fine. Maybe another reason why this screen couldn't be an OLED. Don't know. Otherwise, the screen is fine. Big, bright and colourful - as long as you're OK with the huge size!

The SnapDragon 480 5G (8nm) chipset which I referred to earlier does indeed seem to work pretty well generally. I have found some slowdown here and there when copying large lumps of data around and accessing some Settings searches, oddly. The 'on the fly' searching in Settings is dog-slow to keep up and refresh, whereas inside Chrome, for example, it's all very fast. So this could be bugs and optimisations which Nokia will fix with updates, rather than a slur on the chipset. Start running CPU Benchmark tests and results indicate that although a better performer than I thought it might be, this is no flagship.

The 128GB version here has 6GB RAM (the 64GB unit only has 4GB RAM) and switching between tasks presents no problems that I can see for normal day-to-day use. The internal storage seems fast enough on read/writes for all normal purposes for most people, the slowdown I refer to above is more about copying data from a computer or supposedly fast SSD, inside apps and so forth. There's also a microSD Card slot (taking up one of the nanoSIM slots) for those who want it and it's playing nicely here with my 512GB microSD Card. Plugging in a 2TB SSD to the USB-C socket (3.0) also presents no problem, except that slower performance in terms of copying data.

The phone's speakers are supposed to be very loud, 96dB is quoted by Nokia. Well, they are indeed loud compared to most phones I've tried, though I'm not sure that they reach 96dB. I suppose they must have tested this in perfect conditions to come up with the figure. My tests here indicate 89dB and the next-best (loudest) phone I have to hand here (Motorola Edge+) under the same conditions reaches 86dB. So, I don't know. It would be interesting to see how they test this! Of more concern though is the quality - as loud as they may (or may not) be, there's no control of the quality of output - so the 'loud' is tinny-loud. It needs more bass and the treble toning down. Of course, this can be done inside music apps (to good effect) but with no system-wide Dolby Atmos (or similar) you've lost that facility in, say, YouTube or any other service/app which doesn't offer equalisation. I think I was hoping for better here.

Update: Steve Litchfield has found the speakers to be 'proper' stereo. There is a bug with the stereo which resulted in the 'Dual' switch to turn itself off randomly during the review period, which no doubt Nokia will fix. The speakers are the usual 'faux' stereo as Steve dubs it, as far as I can tell. If I block the bottom-firing speaker, the top ear-piece one output doesn't sound so rich and vice-versa.

As usual though I find that the overall experience is fairly well balanced and when the phone is 18" in front of the head, the balance of stereo seems fine and stage wide enough. The speakers don't switch round when the phone is turned, so the bottom-firing is always the right and ear-piece left. Which puts the volume controls on the top, so I guess it makes sense.

We do have a 3.5mm audio-out socket at the bottom of the phone and I've been testing here with a couple of pairs of reference and studio headphones. The output via headphones is not particularly loud (100% is fine for me but others would want 150% I reckon!) but there is a decent hike in quality over the speakers' output as we'd expect. Switch that to bluetooth headphones, testing here with the Sony set, and again as we'd expect, the quality and volume is much better, louder and of super quality. It's hard to fault bluetooth these days, here offering v5.1. Sony WH-1000XM4, Sony MDR-7506/1, AKG K701.

The main camera is a 48MP f/1.8 unit supported by a 13MP f/2.4 (wide-angle) and an 8MP f/2 Selfie round the front. As usual, I'll pass you onto our resident pixel-peeper Steve Litchfield in the coming weeks who will get hands-on with this phone sometime in the coming weeks and come up with some thoughts. But as much as I'm not into digital photography from phones, I'm fairly sure that the outcome will be close to a 'yawn fest' as the camera interface is pretty boring and options dull. I sent over a few snaps to Steve who concluded on initial viewing that "they're not terrible". Which probably says a lot! However, for me and the 95% of people not expecting dSLR performance from a camera in a phone, the results are perfectly good enough for what the 95% will (want to) do with them.

One issue with the camera, which I'm assuming is a bug, is that if the camera app is not already in RAM, the first tap on the launcher icon opens up the app then immediately kills it! Tap it a second time, and it stays open. It must be some RAM allocation thing I guess and I would be confident that they will fix it in software.

Video shooting can be switched into 'Cinema' mode, which forces a full-width (1920 x 822) recording at 24fps and gives a bunch of manual controls. We're not talking Sony Photo Pro app here, but it seems to offer a bunch of options, including the OZO 'wind noise reduction' (not that it seems to make much difference) and various movie-centric 'filters'. The ordinary 'video' mode offers the OZO as well but not the manual controls.

There are some funky effects in the Portrait mode, some of which seem actually useful rather than designed to titillate the average young teen and their schoolfriends! Night mode does a reasonable job of processing images in dark corners if you hold still long enough for the capture and accept the noisy outcome and then there's a bunch of other shooting modes under a 'more' button including a Pro mode with those manual controls again. Close-focus is pretty poor compared to most that I've tried in recent times. There's a 'dual' mode to shoot from both cameras at the same time (with sliding partition), SpeedWarp which seems to be a speeded up version of TimeLapse (which is also present), Action to prioritise faster shutter speeds, presumably, panorama and slow-mo. Not very exciting, but maybe Steve will play with some of them - and test the OZO more thoroughly.

The phone has Qi Charging which it can execute at 15W with the appropriate charger, otherwise it's 18W by cable - if you buy one! They figure that people already have them (and haven't sold them on with their last phone)! The Qi Charging works well, after an initial blip where it seemed to 'stall' and I was waking up in the morning to a phone only charged to 90% or so. We did think that this was the phone being 'dumb' and not switching between top-up and charge, once charged to 100% at, say 2am. But on further testing, this seems to have stopped and the last couple of days it has been on 100% so maybe that's a mystery! Charging with 15W or 18W is fast enough for me and will protect the life of the battery, which users will be hoping will see them through the 4 year support/update time (at least) so a good idea to look after it by not charging routinely at/in silly-fast speeds/times.

The battery capacity is 4,630mAh, so certainly big enough for two days of average use (for me) here in my testing. The LCD screen and less-powerful chipset will of course help that and frequent top-ups where you can to assist too. I've run my usual 10% Reading Test and consistently get about 2 hours, from 100% down or starting halfway down the scale. Not terribly clinical, but I do have a level playing field for that test and have done for many years. Two hours is very good for 10% and in keeping with the expectation on size of battery.

Connectivity is good in all respects. Bluetooth range seems decent, WiFi (the phone has WiFi 6, incidentally) connectivity is strong and fast, NFC sees other gear well but I have not been able to test Google Pay at this time (though am assured from others that it works), GPS too - seems to lock on well to location quickly when using various services and apps and cellular (on 4G - sorry, can't test 5G) seems solid as I test with data and voice-calls. Sounding good at this end and that, clear and strong.

This is a great (and I mean BIG) phone, heavy, solid, built like a brick. It feels like it's a little overpriced, though Nokia UK are currently knocking £50 off. The corners have been cut with the chipset and the LCD screen, but the money has been spent on all that ruggedising stuff, certification for IP/MIL etc., ongoing support to gain the confidence of purchasers of OS/Security updates well into the coming years, louder-than-most stereo speakers, additions in keeping with the building site/adventurer/sportsperson like the bright, bright torch and that red assignable button. Glove-use and never being short of a hammer - or fearing a fall. They have insured against the Vectus screen breaking too - yes, this is where the cost has gone and when you drill down into that (not the phone - you couldn't!) perhaps the pricing equation is better than it first seems.

There's a lot of phone here, it has a pleasingly clean version of Android and even still AndroidOne, as close to the beating heart of Google you can get without a Pixel. I like it a lot and even though it may not always have my main SIM Card in it, I intend to keep it now that I have it to see how it ages - and to hold Nokia to their ongoing promise of support and insurance! I would recommend it to the right buyer, but you'd have to value the attributes for what they are - and not expect a flagship, curvy, sleek, jewellery-centric object of fashion and desire!