Of the three cheap phone repair Nokia launched earlier this year (The Nokia 3, 5 and 6), the Nokia 6is the star. But at only £220 (or $180 in the US, with Amazon's ads appearing on the lockscreen), it's still affordable.
It uses premium metals to look slick and premium but keeps the price down with a low-end processor and a display with a ho-hum resolution. As such, performance can be laggy, but it's not a huge problem for everyday use.
Don't buy this phone if you're looking for the best example of what a smartphone can be. Instead, consider it if you want a great-looking Android phone that'll handle your life's essentials and won't drain your wallet.
The all-metal design is where this phone really stands out. It has an aesthetic that you wouldn't feel embarrassed to whip out in a posh cocktail bar. It's an incredibly smart-looking handset with machine-milled edges that give it a polished metal accent which looks great on the deep blue hue of my review model. It feels extremely premium to hold too, thanks to that solid body that has none of the flimsy feeling flex you find in many lower-end phones.
My major annoyance about the design is that the edges are quite sharp, which can make the phone uncomfortable to hold. It's something that my colleague Rick Broida also found when he used the Nokia 6 for a week in place of his much more expensive iPhone 6S Plus.
I'm also disappointed it lacks USB-C charging, with the 6 opting for the older micro-USB standard. It's not a deal-breaker, particularly given the low price, but with most phones launching now sporting USB-C, it would have been good to see that here. There's no waterproofing, either -- though again, I can't really hold that against it at this cheap price. Just be careful around the pool or when your clumsy friend is reaching for their drink.
The 5.5-inch display is large enough to do justice to vibrant mobile games and YouTube clips. Its full HD resolution (1,920x1,080-pixels) is lower than you'll find on premium phones like the Galaxy S8 ($669.88 at Amazon Marketplace), but it's more than adequate for your everyday Twitter and Instagram needs and totally acceptable given the phone's much lower price. Sure, if you hold both phones side-by-side you might notice a touch less clarity on high-res photos on the Nokia, but this isn't a very likely scenario.
The octa-core processor is where the cracked screen repair starts to fall down. Simply swiping around the Android interface is reasonably nippy, but opening the camera takes longer than I'd like and HDR photos take several seconds to save. Apps can be a bit sluggish to open, too, although I didn't find any performance problems when using the apps. I could quickly tweak photos in Snapseed, for example, and games like Sonic and NOVA: Legacy played perfectly well enough to keep you entertained on your commute.