Best Of CES 2022: Nokia G400

Nokia G400 teases HMD Global’s commitment to bringing more premium affordable Android smartphones into the US market and checks all of the right boxes along the way

Budget smartphones are great because they democratize the latest features at a price that just about anybody can afford. And, at this year’s CES 2022 event, that was made clear nowhere more potently than with the Nokia offerings. Introduced as part of a wave of new affordable handsets, the Nokia G400 was an easy pick for our Best Of CES 2022 Award.

Although some aspects of the Nokia G400 are still being kept tightly under wraps, this smartphone gives some key insight into where HMD Global is taking the brand. Particularly where it’s taking the brand for the US market. With all signs pointing to stiff competition for any other OEM that may want to occupy the region’s budget market.

Nokia styling, blended with top tier modern features, defines Nokia G400

Of course, Nokia G400 is the most affordable 5G smartphone from the brand to date. In fact, at only $239, it skirts the line between phones that may be dismissed as too “cheap” and the “budget” segment of the Android ecosystem. But the numbers there don’t really say much about what the phone actually delivers.

Wrapped in a frame that any Nokia fan will immediately recognize as being associated with the brand, the Nokia G400 comes with a 6.6-inch display panel. The exact resolution of that panel hasn’t been disclosed just yet. But resolutions improvements at above 1080p, on a smartphone at least, begin to become negligible. And that’s likely the very least that can be expected from a Nokia smartphone at this price. This is, after all, the same company that released a 2K-resolution tablet for under $250 last year.

More importantly, HMD Global has opted for a 120Hz refresh rate for this Nokia smartphone. Not only is that typically a high-end device feature, but it’s also a Nokia first. Highlighting the direction HMD Global is taking the brand.

All of that is setting aside the 48-megapixel-led triple camera array at the back.

Things don’t get any less impressive when we peek beneath the hood

Now, the above-mentioned attributes are all a big part of why the Nokia G400 has earned our Best of CES 2022 Award. But, underneath the display, things don’t get any less impressive for the money.

HMD Global opted for a Snapdragon 480 5G SoC. That means, summarily, that it comes with a chipset that sports an Adreno 619 GPU and X51 5G modem. But it also means that it at very least supports Wi-Fi 6 and QuickCharge 4+. While the battery size for this handset hasn’t been revealed yet, that should at least mean a great experience on the charging front. And, of course, on the connectivity front.

The company also opted to back that chipset up with a reasonable 6GB RAM and 128GB of storage. Which should ultimately make this one of the highest-end offerings for the price when it lands in Q2 2022. If not the highest-value offering.

All of which shows that Nokia isn’t looking to enter into the flagship market at all. Or, at the very least, isn’t looking to change it just yet. Instead, it’s bringing some of the biggest features from that segment all the way past the mid-range and into the budget pool.