Nokia G42 5G 6.56” HD+ Smartphone Featuring Triple rear 50MP AI camera, 6GB/128GB Storage, 3-day battery life, Android 13, OZO 3D audio capture, QuickFix repairability and Dual SIM - Grey

A great phone

This phone is really, really good. I managed to copy my old NOKIA X10 6.67 Inch phone content on over no problem with the included USB C to USB C lead. The only thing that has bugged me is it did not bring over my score and progress of Mahjong Titans the Android version. Everything just works out of the bag with this phone. Comes with Android 13, but upgrades to Android 15 no problem. I am not one of these mobile must stare at screen zombies that you see walking up and down the high street. Far from it, just needed a phone for work. The best thing about this phone is the fact, whether or not it is because I copied over settings? The screen setup grid and being able to make the on screen items massive and font size absolutely huge. Battery life is superb, though only got this to replace my X10. I've only had this a day and Mahjong Titans which I play offline with, whilst on night shift, as it helps me to stay awake, plus the fact no stupid popup ads whilst playing. Like I said before, only use this phone for Mahjong and so that work can contact me. Most of the time with this phone, like right now it is in the other room on the charge cradle doing nothing but laying on it's side listening to conversations, so that Google can sell advertising on. The camera has a touch of AI, especially for selfies, brings the eyes and gets rid of frown lines on your face and forehead. Once you get into the settings and get it setup so it isn't badgering you all the time, experience is good. Would I recommend, hell yeah.

A bit chunky. The battery life isn't as stated but I suppose they tested it with very few, if any, apps on the phone. I'm happy with it though, it lasts quite long. Mine didn't arrive with any charging lead but, as always, Amazon came good and sent a lead very quickly.

Replaced my ageing but trusty Nokia 7.1 with this and wanted a similarly simple and affordable low-mid range handset with 5G capability. Couldn't ask for more for the price (around £140 at the time); battery lives up to its promise, good storage, good camera and generally does everything I need (and well). I can't comment on the dual SIM, as only have the one, but worth noting that the second SIM slot is shared with the SD card slot (so you can either have dual SIM, or one SIM and an SD card - but not both (not an issue for me personally)). The main comment I'd make is the pictures are a little misleading in terms of the colour - I opted for the Grey and actually has a blueish hue to it rather than the solid grey suggested online (I like the colour, but worth pointing out.) Recommended budget 5G Android smartphone.

After many years very happy to find a NOKIA phone I like. Many aspects of the design seem to be very well thought out. I would summarize as a phone with a good spec, a balanced spec that gives good performance while conserving battery life. After all a faster device you would hardly notice extra speed but bound to use more power. Everything seems to just work better, and I love the idea that after a few years I will be able to fix things on the phone. After all my old phone is still working fine its just the battery life is too much degraded. I recommend this phone to all those many people who like to have a well designed device that works well and see the value in repairability because they would prefer not to be replacing their phone so often. I do not recomend this phone to people who feell they must have the latest greatest fastest etc etc its just not for you you go off and spend many time more on an iPhone 15 you will be happier.

Good and decently bright screen (for an LCD), decently quick clean interface, 5G, good ergonomics. I wanted to like this phone, but... What is shockingly disappointing is that for a vanilla Android phone, it's bloated with apps such as: VPN, Booking, Linked in etc., of which some are removable, but some are not. Also during the initial setup, it shows about 16 Google and 6 Nokia apps that are going to be installed no matter what, because, reasons and you can only disable most, but not uninstall, hence, waste of valuable space! Another disappointment, was the lack of signal reception. At the same place that my moto g52 has around 70% signal in 4G the Nokia struggles even with 3G! Even switching to 2G and with full signal, voice calls are muffled, tiny sounding and full of interuptions. Bettery life is just OK when out and about, since it's always hunting for signal. Surely not what Nokia is known for and certainly not the "3 day battery life" they claim. Camera(s) are only usable in brightly lit conditions, while most of the special modes are rendered redundant, as the results are below par. Also, why do most manufacturers insist on putting useless cameras, just for the sake of it? What does a depth camera and a 2MP macro, are of any use? Either put a decent zoom camera along with the main one or don't even bother! By the way, the 2 X "zoom" mode is a joke. I'm inevitably comparing it with the moto g52, as they both cost roughly the same (to me at least), moto g52 has better screen, sound, reception, cameras, but falls short on software updates and 5G, however, I prefer a mobile phone which is better overall, than a mobile phone which has 5G and updates promises, but fails to deliver as is. I hope Nokia fixes the reception, speaker quality (if its not hardware related) and camera issues, with future updates as, in general, it's a decently good phone. I had many choices for the price, all of which had better everything than this, but, due to the fact that I like stock Android and despise any kind of "skins", I've ended up with the Nokia G42, but, come on HMD, you definitely have to step up your game big time! Update 17/6/24: After a few updates, signal reception has been improved, so is reception quality, but call quality not so much and without noise cancellation, the other party has difficulty hearing in moderately noisy environments. Camera quality is still subpar, even in daylight, which is very disappointing and night shots are basically unusable. Battery life has been improved, but standby time is realy bad, consuming 12%-15% overnight with battery saver on. I forgot to mention audio or the lack of it, as the single, bottom speaker, sounds tiny, harsh, muffled and not of any use in either listening to multimedia or listening to a conversation. Lastly, the display is not bright enough, making outdoor use virtually impossible. Update 12/1/25: Still on Android 14 and now that HMD decided to discontinu the device, the update "promise" has been reduced from "3 years", to just 2, without any information on the Android 15 date, if ever, because... Well, they should answer for it! So yeah, that's that.

I originally bought this because it said that the screen is reinforced. Now the sales pitch is that it's some kind of quick fix repair phone otherwise it's a good phone it's a good price I probably buy another one again and I've bought two of them so far because the first the first screen broke.

It's like having my old Nokia G11 in my hand, only faster, more responsive, and more satisfying to use. Migrating apps, files and settings was a bit of a nuisance to begin but I got there in the end. I think I was too hasty and it may have been user error that stopped the file transfers. Initially I wasn't bowled over with the quality of the photos and the jury is still out until I get more use out of the camera. It just seems the G11 was giving me better quality images but I could be wrong. I'll need to compare some photos on a big screen. I'm mostly happy to have a faster phone since the G11 began to stall a lot and got really leggy. It may have been a RAM issue, I'm not sure. The G42 doesn't have this problem.