Nokia 7.1 vs Poco F1 vs Honor Play: Who Wins The Price War?

HMD Global recently unveiled its Nokia 7.1 in the country with similar specs its online bestseller, Nokia 6.1 Plus. Priced at Rs 19,999, the Nokia 7.1 will be available in India via its offline channels and Nokia online store.

With that price tag, Nokia 7.1 will directly go against some of the bestselling entry premium flagships.

The smartphone is powered by Snapdragon 636, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, Zeiss branded dual cameras and Android One. Should you go for a stylish Nokia 7.1 or go for a premium smartphone like Honor Play or Poco F1?

Let’s find out!

Nokia 7.1 vs Poco F1 vs Honor Play: In-Depth Comparison

Nokia 7.1 was first launched at a global launch event in London in October. Nokia 7.1 will be available up for sale starting on December 7.

**5,000 Off On Poco F1: Xiaomi is running a special offer on select variants of Poco F1 from December 6 to December 8. You can avail up to additional 5,000 off on Poco F1 during the period. Check out Xiaomi’s official Twitter handle for more updates.

Design & Build

Nokia 7.1 packs in a glass sandwich built with a metal frame surrounding it. Honor Play has a metal unibody build and Xiaomi Poco F1 comes with a plastic build. Poco F1 feels the least premium while Nokia 7.1 with glass sandwich body has the best looks of the three.

The metal build on Honor Play or plastic built on Poco F1 is more durable compared to glass.

Display

All the three smartphones come with notched displays. Nokia 7.1 sports the smallest display of the three, a 5.84-inch PureDisplay Full HD+ 19:9 panel featuring a notch and thick bottom with Nokia logo. Honor Play has the largest 6.3-inch Full HD+ 19:9 notched display. Xiaomi Poco F1 also comes with 6.18-inch Full HD+ 19:9 panel with a big notch.

All the smartphones have a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection on top with a curved 2.5D coating.

Nokia 7.1 with slightly smaller display feels compact in hand. All the smartphones have thin bezels with a broad bottom.

Hardware

Nokia 7.1 is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 636 built on a 14nm process with 4GB of RAM. Honor Play sports HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC with 4GB or 6GB RAM. Xiaomi Poco F1 comes with the best chipset out of the three, Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with 6GB or 8GB of RAM.

The year-old Snapdragon 636 can handle multitasking and extended gaming at a moderate level, but loses out to the top-end SoCs of Honor Play and Poco F1.

Honor Play and Poco F1 both does a commendable job in terms of overall performance, but Snapdragon 845 has an edge here with better peak clocking performance.

Honor Play comes with GPU Turbo to help you with extended gaming and Poco F1 has liquid cooling technology.

Storage

Poco F1 has three storage variants available: 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB with 4GB of RAM of 6GB of RAM. Nokia 7.1 has a single storage version available in the country with 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The memory on Nokia 7.1 can be further expanded up to 400GB.

Honor Play has two variants available in India: the base model comes with 4GB RAM, 64GB storage and a top model with 6GB RAM and 64GB storage.

Software

Nokia 7.1, Honor Play and Xiaomi Poco F1 all run on Android Oreo out of the box with different UIs. The Poco F1 runs on MIUI 10 based on Oreo 8.1, Nokia 7.1 has stock Android and Honor Play runs on Huawei’s own EMUI 8.2 UI.

The Nokia 7.1 comes with an added advantage here with a cleaner interface with Android One for faster version upgrades and updates. Nokia 7.1 already is getting an OTA update for Android 9.0 Pie, while the other two still runs on Oreo.

Rear Camera

All the three smartphones come with a rear dual camera setup. Both Nokia 7.1 and Xiaomi Poco F1 has a 12-megapixel primary autofocus f/1.8 sensor and a 5-megapixel secondary fixed focus f/2.4 aperture sensor. Nokia 7.1 offers a two-phase image detection technology with support for EIS.

Honor Play comes with a primary 16-megapixel sensor coupled with a 2-megapixel depth sensor.

All three smartphones offer quality rear camera performance. The pictures clicked on three smartphones capture ample details with the right amount of colors. But Poco F1 and Nokia 7.1 will stay ahead in terms of overall performance with improved low light photography.

All the three smartphones also offer 4K video recording with Poco F1 especially featuring slow-motion video shooting option at up to 240fps

Front Camera

Nokia 7.1 comes with an 8-megapixel fixed focus sensor. Up front Nokia 7.1 has an f/2.0 aperture with 84-degree field-of-view for wide angle selfies. Xiaomi Poco F1 comes with a 20-megapixel front snapper and Honor Play has a 16-megapixel front camera.

All the three smartphones offer decent selfies backed by additional AI-based features.

Connectivity

Nokia 7.1, Honor Play and Poco F1 come with Dual SIM feature and other standard connectivity features like 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11, Bluetooth, GPS, and a dedicated 3.5mm jack. All the three phones come with USB Type-C connectivity.

Battery

Nokia 7.1 comes with the smallest battery of the three with 3,060mAh. Honor Play has a 3,750mAh battery with Poco F1 with the biggest of the three with 4,000mAh. All the three phones come with 18W fast charging.

You can expect up to 50 percent charge (tentatively) under 30 minutes on all the three smartphones.

Pricing & Availability

The Poco F1 has three storage variants available in India:

• Rs 20,999 (6GB/64GB)
• Rs 23,999 (6GB/128GB)
• Rs 28,999 (8GB/256GB)

Poco F1 is currently available exclusively via Flipkart and Mi online store.

Nokia 7.1 only has a single storage variant available in India at Rs 19,999 with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. It will be available via top retailers across the country and exclusively via its own online store from December 7.

Honor Play has two storage variants available in India:

• Rs 16,999 (4GB/64GB)
• Rs 20,999 (6GB/64GB)

It is currently available exclusively via Amazon India and HiHonor online store.

Nokia 7.1 vs Poco F1 vs Honor Play: CONCLUSION

Honor Play and Poco F1 is a definite winner against Nokia 7.1. At 19,999, Nokia 7.1 is overpriced against the two. The only reasons to pick Nokia 7.1 over the two can be premium looks, Android One and rear cameras. In terms of price, Honor Play offers the best of features starting at just Rs 16,999.

Poco F1 is a better option considering the overall performance. Also the company is running a special offer on Poco F1 during the Flipkart Big Shopping Days.

Honor Play is not a bad option either. Available at just 16,999, Honor Play at 4,000 less than Poco F1 also makes it a killer, given Honor’s performance, cameras, and quality.