Nokia 6.2 review

A popular triple-camera setup

The Nokia 6.2 is equipped with a triple camera system (if we count the depth sensor as a camera). The main module is a 16MP unit placed behind an f/1.8 aperture lens. The second real camera is an ultrawide angle one, where the advertised 118-degree field of view translates to around a 13mm equivalent. This lens has an f/2.2 aperture, and the sensor behind it has an 8MP resolution. And the third snapper is the 5MP depth sensor.

The camera app on the Nokia 6.2 felt like deja vu from previous Nokias with a minor tweaks here or there. Side swipes let you switch between modes, and you can also tap on specific modes to go straight to them. The less important modes are tucked away behind a quad-square icon to reduce the clutter.

Up and down swipes in the viewfinder don't work for switching between front and rear cameras, that's only done with the toggle next to the shutter release.

When using the rear camera you get the familiar tree designation for the main and ultrawide angle modules.

While in the Photo mode, you'll get many toggles on the opposite side of the shutter key - flash, timer, single/dual/P-I-P (for combined front/rear shots) and motion picture, as well as Settings. There's yet another button next to the mode carousel, and that's for the Beauty mode - it has a 0-10 range, but no specific options (like eye enlargement or face thinning or whatnot) like you'd find on some of the Chinese phones.

Pro mode is accessible via the mode selector or a swipe up from the shutter release button. It lets you pick one of five white balance presets (but no light temperature slider), focus manually, choose ISO (100-3200) and shutter speed (1/4000s-20s), or set exposure compensation (-3/3EV in full stop increments).

Photo viewfinder • Ultrawide mode • Extra modes • Pro mode

Image quality

The daylight image quality of the main camera is unimpressive. There is a decent amount of detail, but the noise is often higher than usual, the white balance and the color reproduction are all over the place, and the dynamic range is average at best.

Nokia 6.2 16MP photos

We are mostly happy with the 8MP snaps from the ultrawide camera. The Auto HDR fired most of the time and improved the dynamic range but also gets rid of the grainy noise you will otherwise get without HDR. The level of detail is good for this type of camera, and the colors are more accurate and consistent than what we observed on the photos from the main camera.

Automatic distortion correction is applied where necessary and hence the corner softness.

Nokia 6.2 8MP ultrawide photos

The low-light photos from the main camera are rather poor - they lack detail, and the noise is through the roof. The colors aren't handled well, too - everything is washed out, and all highlights are blown even though the Auto HDR fired every single time.

Nokia 6.2 16MP low-light photos

Night mode brings down highlights in point light sources, while also lifting the shadows slightly. It also improves the color saturation for overall better even if noisy pictures.

Note that it takes about 2-3 second to take a Night Mode photo and then about 5-7 seconds to process and save it.

Nokia 6.2 16MP Night Mode photos

The low-light shots out of the ultrawide camera are unusable at full resolution. They are full of noise, there is little detail, and the colors are washed out, too.

Nokia 6.2 8MP ultrawide low-light photos

Night mode deals with it by smearing the noise away together with any semblance of fine detail, but restores the color saturation.

Nokia 6.2 8MP ultrawide Night Mode photos

And once you're done with the samples, head over to our Photo compare tool to see how the Nokia 6.2 stacks up against the competition.

16MP: Nokia 6.2 against the Samsung Galaxy A30 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

Portraits on the Nokia 6.2 generally come out with competent subject isolation even with fairly complex subjects. You may want to tone down the blur from the default 5/10 strength as it does come off as a bit excessive. And all of the shots turned out excellent in detail and with nice colors.

Nokia 6.2 12MP portraits

Selfies

The Nokia 6.2 packs an 8MP f/2.2 selfie camera, a downgrade from the 20MP selfie shooter we met on the Nokia 7.2. But it's all bad news from here - the focus seems to be fixed at infinity, and instead on the face, the focus is on the background.

Nokia 6.2 8MP selfies

Portrait mode is available on the selfie camera, but we doubt anyone will use it given the horrendous photos it takes.

Nokia 6.2 5MP portraits selfies

Video recording

The Nokia 6.2 records video up to 4K with its main cam and 1080p with the ultrawide. The limitation on the ultrawide is not explicitly stated in the resolution settings, and you can have the ultrawide angle cam running, go to settings, check to see it shows 4K, and the video will still end up 1080p. There are no 60fps modes on either camera in any resolution.

Electronic stabilization is available in 1080p on both cameras, but not in 4K on the main one. There's no toggle to turn it off though.

The Nokia 6.2 is quite generous with the 1080p bit rate, treating FullHD videos to almost 20Mbps. Meanwhile, the 4K bit rate is a more standard 42Mbps. Audio is recorded in stereo at 96kbps in all modes.

4K footage contains a lot of detail, and it's also quite noisy. The colors turned out accurate, and the dynamic range is pretty good, too.

Then the 1080p footage is, well, pretty bad. The dynamic range is tighter, the detail is mostly gone, and colors are oversaturated. We can only imagine this drop in quality is because of the forced image stabilization.

Then there's the ultrawide-angle cam's 1080p video which comes has a color cast of its own, magenta in this case. Even in the not so demanding realm of ultrawide video, the Nokia 6.2's is behind, sadly.

The stabilization may be ruining the 1080p video quality, but at least it's good and helps for nicely smooth and stable footage, with no wobble and trouble-free pans.

Here's a glimpse of how the Nokia 6.2 compares to other smartphones in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.

2160p: Nokia 6.2 against the Nokia 7.2 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro in our Video compare tool