Nokia XL Dual SIM review: Start to Finnish

Performance

The Nokia XL has a dual-core processor but that suggests a higher caliber chipset than it has in reality. The Qualcom MSM8225 Snapdragon S4 Play is an old generation Snapdragon with two Cortex-A5 cores at 1GHz and Adreno 203 GPU.

The XL has 768MB RAM, more than the Nokia X and some recent entry-level Androids (like the Sony Xperia XL), but that still doesn't count for much.

We start off with the usual - processor benchmarks. Here the Nokia XL isn't last, but only because there's the Nokai X below it. Cortex-A7 devices like the Xperia E1 and Galaxy Grand Neo (dual and quad-core respectively) pull clearly ahead.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Nokia Lumia 625
  277
• Alcatel OT Hero
  308
• Huawei Ascend Mate
  347
• Sony Xperia C
  374
• Motorola Moto G
  392
• Sony Xperia E1
  420
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo
  525
• Nokia XL
  650
• Nokia X
  676

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Alcatel OT Hero
  1321
• Motorola Moto G
  1120
• Sony Xperia C
  1079
• Oppo R819
  1047
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo
  1041
• Sony Xperia E1
  607
• Nokia XL
  440
• Nokia X
  421

AnTuTu 4 has a Windows Phone version so we can compare the Nokia XL with the Lumia 625. The dual-core Krait and Adreno 305 in the Lumia surprisingly don't get a much better score. That said, Cortex-A7s on Android do quite well.

Quadrant, another full system benchmark, puts the Nokia XL at the bottom (even below the Nokia X).

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G
  17214
• Huawei Ascend Mate
  15714
• Alcatel OT Hero
  15667
• Sony Xperia C
  13948
• Sony Xperia E1
  12951
• Nokia Lumia 625
  8654
• Nokia XL
  7913
• Nokia X
  7514

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G
  8508
• Alcatel OT Hero
  5746
• Sony Xperia E1
  5520
• Huawei Ascend Mate
  5509
• Sony Xperia C
  4941
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo
  3935
• Nokia X
  2880
• Nokia XL
  2219

We tried GFX Bench 2.7, but that only served to show the Nokia XL will never run high-quality graphics even at its native resolution of 800 x 480. The Moto G is powered by Adreno 305, an entry-level GPU but of the next generation, and it outperformed the Adreno 203 in the Nokia XL nearly four times.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G
  5.6
• Alcatel OT Hero
  3.4
• Sony Xperia C
  2.8
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo
  1.8
• Nokia XL
  1.5

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia C
  7.3
• Nokia XL
  3.6
• Alcatel OT Hero
  3.4

Slow CPU cores don't bode well for web performance either. While raw JavaScript performance was nothing to write home about, the Nokia XL managed to match the Lumia 625 (running Internet Explorer on Krait cores). The XL comes with a custom Nokia browser (based on Chromium) and as you'll find out later, we weren't terribly impressed with it.

SunSpider 1.0.2

Lower is better

• Alcatel OT Hero
  1181
• Motorola Moto G
  1308
• Sony Xperia C
  1322.3
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo
  1691
• Sony Xperia E1
  1799
• Nokia X
  2363.3
• Nokia XL
  2794

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G
  2562
• Sony Xperia E1
  2408
• Alcatel OT Hero
  2096
• Sony Xperia C
  1984
• Nokia X
  1729
• Nokia XL
  1613
• Nokia Lumia 625
  1610
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo
  1174

Still, the Nokia XL has just enough performance to run Android. And don't forget this is Android 4.1, which benefits from Project Butter, but 4.2-4.4 brought additional performance enhancements. Project Svelte which landed with 4.4 KitKat reduces RAM usage (so Android works well on 512MB devices), so there's room for improvement with a software update. When one might arrive is another question.

Anyway, the Nokia XL works well even for web browsing (as long as you manage your expectations), though gaming will be restricted to casual games.