Budget mobile phone space is a crowded marketplace, with manufacturers pimping up the features that handsets would struggle to perform. This segment is the playground for Aussie boys Aspera Mobile. With thanks to them we have the Aspera Mobile Nitro 2 in our hands.
First Impressions
Let’s preface with this. Budget phones exists because there is a market for it. Us Aussies are privileged to be living in a country where by and large the population can afford some of the finer things in life. Once in a while we could drop good coin on a new iOS device, or a flagship Android phone, cost of living crisis be damned. There are some demographics that can’t afford a flagship phone and also does not need to have one. And there are whole countries where owning a flagship phone is just a pipe dream. But does that mean they need to compromise to the point of having something that is barely more than an old Nokia?
Looking back about six months ago I reviewed the AS5 and AS8. Both are budget phones with plenty of flaws, but they do the job they are designed for. As a seasoned tech reviewer this is always something I keep in mind. My daughter is still using the AS8 to play her music and dance videos. It is undeniably low end and feels it in hand, but it is absolutely the right device for her “needs”.
The Nitro 2 is the first Aspera Mobile device that I have review that I feel have a wow factor. Unlike the two models I reviewed last year, the Nitro 2 is a different beast.
The design is reminiscent of an iPhone 4 but bigger (and no home button). The design cues are most certainly inspired by the fruit behemoth, with the camera module in a square block on the top left of the back of the phone.
Likely to be a cost saving design decision, the fingerprint reader is next to the lower camera lens which positions it a little higher than what is conventional. This is the same setup as with the AS8 although they one need a work around for the removable back cover.
The Nitro 2 is a slab and there is no removable battery this time round. My review unit is a pearl white edition and looks and feels far more luxurious than it has any right to be at it’s price tag.
Aspera has included in the box, a screen protector which is pre-applied so no need to fiddle around with it yourself and making a hash of it. There is also a clear polycarbonate case which looked a bit delicate when you pull it out of the protective bag it came in, but feels a lot better when installed onto the phone. It is raised enough to protect the camera lens from touching the surface when you put it down.
In Use
The Nitro 2 runs Android 13 Go Edition. Out of the box it has the 5 October 2023 security update. The updater says there are no updates available which may or may not be true. It’s difficult to find and differentiate Android Go security updates from the mainstream Android updates as the delivery mechanism is quite different.
Also yes whilst Android 14 has been out for quite a while now, generally Android Go Edition devices take a bit longer to come to market. That said, I’ll say right now that in my experience, Aspera Mobile is not great at providing updates.
Setting up the Nitro 2 is like any other Android device. I was able to transfer from my ancient but still solid Pixel 2XL across to the Nitro 2 wirelessly and more importantly, painlessly. I did not encounter any of the issues I had with the AS5 and AS8 where the phone could not complete the process. The initial installation of apps took a little longer which is to be expected. I just plugged the phone in for charge whilst everything sorted itself out. I do appreciate that Aspera has not tried to bundle a whole bunch of unnecessary apps with the phone.
At first blush, the performance is quite decent. It did really want to crash out of WeChat during the data transfer process and I had to keep telling it to wait. A little patience and tapping on wait got us over the line here, and the issue didn’t reoccur afterwards. In the initial few days of use, I also did not experience the random launcher crashes that had plague the AS models, likely due to resource constraints.
Looking at the specs, the Nitro 2 has a 6.6″ 18:9 HD+ IPS display, with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The heart of the Nitro 2 is a Unisoc SC9863A LTE enabled chip, which is an older chip but still is an Octa-core running at 1.6Ghz. An additional 3GB of virtual RAM can be made available if there some storage available, and it will support a microSD card up to 256Gb in size.
My overwhelming first impression is that the Nitro 2 is a few steps above the previous models I have reviewed. It has a snappiness to the UI, and that is before I do my usual and change the animation settings in Developer mode. Interesting enough the phone came with the Developer mode enabled already.
Screen performance is adequate. It is the not the brightest screen around and I am not expecting it to be. Sitting here at a park on a cloudy autumn Saturday morning, the screen set to 70% brightness and I find it acceptable to my aging eyes. I need to push the brightness slider further to the right to not have to strain though. Under direct sunlight though, the screen is not going to cut it.
Aspera did opt for an IPS screen which priorities colours and viewing angles over speed and black level details. It is a smart play for a budget phone because screen response isn’t going to be the issue or the focus. Black levels is a take what you can deal. But optimising for colours and viewing angles makes the phone much more friendly to use.
Aspera has packed in some features with the Nitro 2. Like most of their devices, it comes with a 5000 mAh battery. I am using it as my second phone which does not see anywhere as much use as my daily driver. The battery life is estimated to be about two and a half days which is what I need – the ability to forget to charge it every night and still be good to go.
Charging speed is not blistering, taking up to 4 hours to charge from empty with the USB-C port. If you are trickling it along the way when you remember to plug in the charger, you should find that it will go the distance for the day. A 10W charger is included in the box.
At this price point there is no wireless charging available. I am happy with this design decision given that to keep prices down it will be a slow wireless charging coil and with the larger battery capacity, it would be as good as useless.
To underscore the battery performance, after a day and 8 hours of usage with 1 hours and 51 minutes of screen on time, the battery is down to 63% with a projected 2 days left.
Letting 2 hours 23 hours and 22 minutes, it reported that I still have 1 day and 7 hours left at 32% with 2 hours and 19 minutes of screen on time. In reality the battery conked out some time overnight and I woke up to a dead phone. But still it lasted over three days at light usage which suits my needs for this phone just fine.
Other Features
It can handle dual physical sims, it sits in the same tray as the microSD card which can expand to 256GB cards.
The fingerprint reader is fairly quick and accurate. I haven’t really run into any issues with the reader failing to unlock the phone. The only occasional hiccup seems to be I need to wake the phone up by the power button first before it would accept the reader input. It may just be the phone catching up from sleep mode.
On the bottom of the phone sports a 3.5mm port for a wired audio connection.
The Nitro 2 also has NFC hidden up it’s sleeve for contactless payments, a feature particularly handy for school age kids here in Victoria with the accursed Myki system. Having it all on their phone means it is one less thing they have to remember to account for.
Network Bands
The Nitro 2 handles 2G, 3G and 4G bands.
In Australia the gradual shut down of the 3G network has already commenced, with Vodaphone leading the charge in December 2023. Telstra is commencing their switch off commencing 30 June 2024 and Optus commencing from September 2024. 2G is already long dead so this leaves the Nitro 2 in place with just the 4G bands active.
Cameras
On paper the cameras are definitely nothing to write home about by just looking at the numbers. The rear camera is a 13MP shooter and the selfie camera is a 8MP. It’s school holidays so I got to play around with the camera whilst I was out and about.
Under daylight conditions, the performance is pretty decent with fairly fast and accurate focus. Colours tend to be a bit washed out and when viewed at full resolution there is a clear over sharpening at play. The same over sharpening is quite apparent when you lean on the zoom.
The colours in my photos are not as dynamic as the real gumtree carcass in person. That is a magnificent gumtree that has fallen years ago with beautiful striation of colours. You can see in the photos an attempt to replicate it but in person it is much more defined and vibrant.
With the indoor photos of the pomegranates, the red is far too vivid and oversaturated. This is not unusual in cameras where vibrant reds are difficult to reproduce accurately. Looking at the dragonfruits in the photo there is a bit of waxy fakeness in the scene, which isn’t entire the fault of the camera but it seems to have brought it to the fore.
Under LED lights the paint rack at the local hobby shop posed a bit of a challenge across the colour range with much of the bottle caps overexposed.
In the photo of the gorgeous moth on my door, the camera struggled a bit to capture the image. Granted that with the camouflage it was a tricky shot and it took a few goes to nail it.
Night performance requires a steady hand and some patience, and never ever just take the one photo and assume it’s good. I had varying success as you can see in the images below.
Lastly the front facing camera is adequate. Here’s a photo of my little princess and me in a restaurant and it came out pretty ok.
Despite a bit of negative commentary here, I would still conclude that the camera is performing at a level that is to be expected and not unreasonably poorly.
Conclusions
The Aspera Nitro 2 was surprisingly good. Having used the AS8 a fair bit in recent times, the performance here is substantially improved. Where the AS8 lags and delays with app launches and switching, the Nitro 2 didn’t suffer as much. Yes app installation took much longer than I am used to, afterall my daily driver is a Pixel 8 Pro, but again it is not unreasonable here.
At AUD$179, it is cheaper than the AS8, better looking and better performing. It is a premium looking but affordable upgrade for people who need to change their phones due to the 3G network shutdown.
DRN would like to thank Aspera Mobile for providing the review unit.
–
