The design of the Nokia 5.4 is rather familiar to users since most of them resemble the high-end Nokia 8.3 almost much. The phone’s back side curved for good gripping, and glass imitation plastic with darker textures attract more accents to its appearance.
Design And Build Quality
Nokia has always been kind of seen as one of the best for making rugged and solidly built devices , and it has not exactly faded in that respect with the Nokia 5.4. The phone comes with a glossy polycarbonate back, it does look like a glassy finish in day light, modern and quite sleek in its general vibe. There are three color options for the rear panel, with contrasting monotones, Polar Night, Dusk and Fjord, and each one brings its own understated appeal. The circular plate around the camera is also a very noticeable design move, sort of a small signature that makes the Nokia identity easy to spot.
1. Ergonomics and Handling: The Nokia 5.4 feels like it was ergonomically tuned, with rounded edges, so it sits pretty well in the hand. The weight comes out to about 181 grams and the thickness clocks in at 8.7mm, which is kind of a decent compromise between sturdy and portable, you know. The polycarbonate may not feel as luxurious as glass or metal though , but it does have a stubborn toughness to it, helping it resist shattering or breaking when it’s dropped.
**2. Build Quality: The Nokia 5.4 is plastic, yes, but it feels solid and well-built. Hardly any flex exists, and the buttons feel tactile and respond. It’s a phone with a much-classical Nokia-written durability; in addition, the back cover proves to be mostly resistant to scratches and fingerprints.
**3. Button and Port Layout: The power button and volumen rocker sit on the right side, where the power button acts as a fingerprint scanner. On the left side is a dedicated Google Assistant button-an increasing standard on Nokia devices. The phone has a USB Type-C port along the bottom edge for charging and transferring data, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and one downward-firing speaker.
**4. Overall Design Appeal:** While the Nokia 5.4 design probably wont trigger any gasps like a flagship would, it still feels like a well considered, practical setup that balances form and function. The more pared down look, plus the solid build quality Nokia is kind of famous for, makes it interesting for people who care a lot more about real utility than about looks.
Display
The display is one of those big main parts on basically any smartphone, so for clarity the Nokia 5.4 includes a 6.39-inch IPS LCD panel, with a resolution of HD+ , which is 720 x 1560 pixels. Because of that , the pixel density ends up around 269 PPI, and honestly it feels a bit on the lower side compared to a few of its rivals.
1. Display quality: The IPS LCD technology on the Nokia 5.4 delivers fair color reproduction and broad viewing angles. Even so, it can’t really go head-to-head with AMOLED panels in terms of punchiness and contrast, but it is more than good enough for normal day things like browsing, social media and video viewing. The color calibration tends to lean toward more neutral tones , which some people might actually like, especially if they prefer less-saturated colors.
2. Brightness and external vision: With a peak brightness around 400 nits, the screen should be perfectly adequate for indoor use. That said, outdoor readability is often tricky, mainly when there’s direct sunlight. In practice this can push users to keep the brightness near maximum while outside, and yeah that usually means higher battery drain.
**3. Resolution and Sharpness: It’s a mix of HD+ resolution with a 6.39 inches display, making it feel not very appreciable for some users who may expect more in terms of sharpness. Texts and icons appear simply pixelated in comparison to Full HD and above-resolution displays. Nevertheless, for the segment that the Nokia 5.4 aims for, display quality is acceptable.
**4. Overall Perspective: Display is more or less satisfying even for its price range, giving some viewing ability to most users. The depth of color would not be satisfactory on this screen as on the more expensive ones, but for the general tasks of smartphone use, it does deliver.
The camera cluster is rather balanced with four lenses arranged at the back, including a 48MP main camera, a 5MP super-wide-angle lens, a 2MP macro lens, and a 2MP depth-sensing lens. The design of Nokia 5.4 isn’t too prominent since it’s very familiar, but this is a very beautiful and harmonious design. The manufacturer has undoubtedly made a few upgrades to the screen’s design; this quality upgrade produces a follow-up on an already impressive smartphone.
A word must first go about the screen of the machine; thanks to working perforated designs for the camera and the upper lift corner spot, the machine’s screen gets an even balance and harmony of being in an aesthetic curve. It is a 6.39-inch display with an HD + standard of 19.5: 9 ratio. With this balancing act, the entertainment experience is greatly improved on the Nokia 5.4 too! The screen is very well responsive to touch; an outdoor view is comfortable for your eyes in the reading environment. However, the lower edge of the device still supports the Nokia logo and seems thicker than the other edges.
As concern the configuration of the device, Nokia 5.4 is powered by a Snapdragon 662 processor with 4 GB RAM and 128 GB ROM. This configuration of components provides excellent performance rating in this segment. You cannot go wrong with the configuration; it is powerful, complemented by great memory read and write speed enhancing performance greatly.
In real testing Arena of Valor Mobile and Wild Rift would run at max graphics 60 fps from Nokia 5.4. The Nokia 5.4 can only put high graphics on two games, cannot set the highest since it currently does not support but at high configuration the graphics are still really beautiful and smooth.
For PUBG Mobile, the device can still take it up fairly well at medium configurations at about 50-60fps; it was just a bit jerky during parachuting because the map loads. As for the Genshin Impact, only playing at low graphics could give the device any life, with frame rates fluctuating between 30-45fps, depending somewhat on the region.
Besides, the specifications are nothing terrible but capable of putting to the ball; the battery of the machine will come as an invaluable ally. With a battery capacity of 4,000mAh, the device will give a decent run time and an even better one if you consider that Nokia 5.4 runs on stock Android 10 without any extra battery-eating apps. Furthermore, the device has been receiving operating system updates from Google for two consecutive years and will be assured with monthly security updates for three more years, but as far as the readiness to Android 11 goes, it is good to go now.
The camera of the phone is the second most important pro after HMD Global has upgraded the hardware of the phone with the 48MP main camera. The camera yields decent details and vivid colors with a fairly high contrast range for beautiful imagery. The main lens has an F1.8 aperture that enables low-light situations.
Now the live view is not all that fiery regarding image output in the camera interface, but the actual captured and processed picture turns out to be quite breathtaking. AI image processing from the powerful Snapdragon 662 gives the photos taken from the Nokia 5.4 camera a whole lot of pizzazz. The ultra-wide-angle camera also obviates any further complaints since the very good ultra-wide-angle images are rendered even with only a 5MP resolution.
Low-light abilities are good for the Nokia 5.4, though nothing outstanding; image processing is very much a strong suit of the device, with nothing to complain about.
Especially at this price range, splendid portrait shots. Fast subject recognition and accurate background elimination make this device deserve the title for best portrait picture in this price range-Biareview.
Selfies on the Nokia 5.4 16MP lens are great quality, decent details, and fast recognition of a person in the front.
Battery Life
The 4,000mAh battery of the Nokia 5.4 can be described as fairly standard, for a smartphone in this kind of class. It therefore, still counts as one of it’s strong spots, right next to the power saving Snapdragon 662 processor and the HD+ screen.
**1. Daily use: The Nokia 5.4 will most definitely last for a whole day under typical usage pattern-like web surfing, streaming videos, social media interactiveness, and some gaming. Light to moderately heavy use may allow the phone to stretch into day two without recharging, and that is really sweet for someone who wouldn’t want to carry a charger all day long.
**2. Battery Efficiency: The Snapdragon 662 is mostly an efficient chip, and we can see that in the battery performance of the Nokia 5.4, which excels at power management and all but kills any unnecessary battery drain. Another wonderful point is that standby time retains an impressive low power consumption level while no active use is being conducted on the phone.
**3. Charging Speed: Compared to several competitors that offer 18W or, in some cases, 30W charging within this pricing range, the 10W charging supported by the Nokia 5.4 is considerably slow in modern times. It takes about two hours to charge the battery from zero, a huge disappointment for users who have been getting used to fast charging.
**4. Battery Life Under Heavy Usage: Intensive use gaming sessions, GPS navigation, or streaming heavy video content will definitely reduce the battery life, although it certainly holds its own in this usage scenario. For most heavy users, the Nokia 5.4 will take them through at least one full day before they need to charge it again.
**5. Modes Supporting Battery Saving: A couple of such power-saving modes are available in Nokia software that can come in handy in times when one has to extend battery life. By cutting background activity and limiting some functionalities, these modes conserve energy: quite useful when charging is not possible in an immediate future time.
Software Experience
The Nokia 5.4 launched with Android 10, though you can still upgrade it to Android 11. In general, Nokia phones arrive with some certain guarantees, and one standout piece is the Android One program, it promises a bloatware free kind of experience, with a pretty tidy interface and somehow the updates arrive on time too.
1. Stock Android Experience: The Nokia 5.4 offers a almost near-stock Android setup, really one of the main reasons people buy it if they prefer a clean and not overcrowded user interface. There is no bloatware, which gives the users more of storage space and makes the running of the phone more efficient without any background processes working unnecessarily.
**Updates and Security Patches: The Nokia 5.4 gets two years of Android major updates and three years of monthly security updates as per the Android One program. This is a plus for software support compared to many budget and mid-range devices that lag on this front.
The user interface feels pretty straightforward, like, simple and intuitive with Google’s suite of apps already there. There aren’t those heavy skins or extra custom changes that can slowly drag the whole system down; instead this is exactly why the Nokia 5.4 feels like a solid choice for people wanting a no frills Android vibe. Also there’s a Google Assistant button, well, basically as the name implies, it gives you quick access to voice commands and those smart assistant things which is kind of a nice extra.
For customization and flexibility, stock Android is good right out of the box, sort of clean and calm, but it also means you end up with fewer options to tweak things compared with other Android skins, like MIUI and One UI. If you genuinely enjoy making the home screen yours, from icons to even small visual vibes, then you might feel a little boxed in. Still, if you have a soft spot for simple, easy operations and you prefer fewer settings to manage, then the Nokia 5.4’s stock Android experience will probably feel very satisfying.
**Overall Software Experience: Software experience many of the strong points of the Nokia 5.4; it provides a fast and efficient but uncluttered user experience unlike most devices in its price range. Further complementing the attributes of this phone is the assurance of timely updates and security patches.
Connectivity and Network Performance
The Nokia 5.4 has a solid range of connectivity options that should cover the needs of most people. But yeah, it doesnt take 5G , and at this point that is kinda becoming a norm even on many budget devices, so it may feel a bit behind.
For 4G LTE and overall network performance, the Nokia 5.4 is 4G LTE enabled, yet the strength of the connection is pretty average. Calls sound clear enough, though they can get a bit muffled if you are stuck in spots with poor coverage. Data speeds on 4G are also decent, so streaming , browsing, and app downloads should be fine in normal everyday use.
Then there is Wi‑Fi, and also Bluetooth. The device has dual band Wi‑Fi so you can use both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, which helps with stability , plus usually gives better throughput if your router allows it. For Bluetooth it runs Bluetooth 4.2, it’s a bit more dated compared to Bluetooth 5.0 that you see on newer phones, but it is still compatible with most wireless earbuds, headphones, and everyday accessories.
When it comes to GPS and navigation, the Nokia 5.4 does pretty well. With an accurate GPS and decent software , it becomes a reliable option for directions and location services. It tends to lock onto satellites fairly fast, giving position fixes that work smoothly whether you are using Google Maps, Waze, or basically any similar navigation app.
Nokia 5.4 comes with a feature called NFC that allows users to make payments using contactless services such as Google Pay. It is an added advantage for a budget range device where most of the close-to-nill options are fulfilling this criterion.
It has a hybrid SIM slot, which permits a user to use 2 SIMs or one SIM and a microSD card to boost the storage. This flexibility is very much appreciated by the users who do not want to sacrifice dual-SIM functionality for the added capacity.
Audio and Multimedia Experience
Mediocre is quite the topic of discussion regarding audio and multimedia performance on the Nokia 5.4. The speaker quality is where the cutbacks come in, particularly.
**1. Speaker quality: there’s one, single downward firing speaker sitting right at the bottom of the device. It is loud enough for personal use but the inside audio feels kinda average, with most of the bass gone and quite a bit of distortion once you push volume higher. The “downward” placement also means that when you are holding the phone in landscape, like when watching videos or playing games, it can get muffled really easily.
**2. Jack and audio output: A very good point in its favor is that it has a 3.5mm headphone jack, which most new smartphones don’t have anymore. It gives a pretty decent sound output with wired headphones, and the sound profile feels well balanced for a lot of different music genres or so. There aren’t any high-end audio codecs supported, but honestly its still fine for casual listening and everyday use.
**3. Streaming and video playback : the HD+ display on the Nokia 5.4 is pretty good , like you can comfortably watch streaming videos on YouTube Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video too. Even if a lower resolution does not give the sharpest look, the whole experience stays enjoyable, mostly because you also have to consider the screen size, and how it feels day to day. Plus the device supports Widevine L1, so it enables HD streaming on compatible platforms, and that part matters a lot.
**4. Gaming Experience: As stated before, the device is very efficient in handling casual games, and for more intense games, lower graphics settings would definitely be required. In general, the performance is smooth for less intensive games, although it will not be the best immersive gaming experience due to having only one speaker and HD+ display. Hardcore mobile gamers will likely find limitations in performance and multimedia abilities.
Security Features
The smartphone offers basic security features for securing sensitive information, but not the advanced features that high-end devices provide.
**1. Fingerprint Scanner: The rear-mounted fingerprint scanner is quick and responsive, making it easy to unlock the device. Most users find the position convenient, although the few who prefer it organized behind the display might be disappointed; unfortunately, that’s not an option for this device.
**2. Face Unlock: Face unlock is an additional option that allows the phone to scan the user’s face using the front camera. While not as secure as truly hardware-based ones, this method allows for easy access to the phone. However, it may not perform in some situations- in the dark, when wearing certain accessories, etc.
**3. Software security, the Nokia 5.4 gets these regular security updates as part of the Android One program, so the phone stays safer from the newest threats. It also keeps that stock Android kind of vibe, and honestly that tends to cut down the odds of vulnerabilities that can crawl out when there’s heavy customization or when devices come with lots of extra bloatware. So overall it kinda feels more secure than phones loaded with extra layers, and it’s not just about the surface stuff.
**4 App Permission and Privacy: Android enhanced privacy controls in 10 and 11, so now you can really manage your app permissions. The Nokia 5.4 is getting all this, and it greatly enhances your control over what data the apps can access and how they can use it.
Summing up, although the Nokia 5.4 is only a very slight upgrade from the previous generation, these changes and upgrades put in a breath of fresh air on the screen front for better experience and some nice camera functionality. The device is set to receive two years of software updates. Nokia 5.4 will be a good value-for-money smartphone to invest in.
Nokia 5.4 | Android 10 | Unlocked Smartphone | 2-Day Battery | Dual SIM | US Version | 4/128GB | 6.39-Inch Screen | 48MP Quad Camera | Polar Night: Buy it now
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Tech Reviewer & Product Analyst
Định Bia has spent over 10 years testing consumer electronics with a focus on smart technology. He work as a product advisor at Biareview where he helped customers find the right devices for their needs. He personally tests every product featured on this site using a consistent evaluation framework covering quality, durability, and value. All reviews are based on experience, not influenced by the manufacturer.