Nokia 6.1 Plus Gets New Android Pie Build with New Pro Camera Mode, Hide Notch Option, December Patch

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It was in August 2018 that Nokia launched its budget handset, the Nokia 6.1 Plus here in India. Back then, the phone ran a stock version of Android 8.1 Oreo. This wasn’t surprising because the Nokia 6.1 Plus was part of the Google’s Android One Program. Like other Android One devices, the 6.1 Plus would receive priority software updates directly from Google. And this has been the case as well with the handset receiving several software updates in the four months it has been around. The reason why you are reading this article now, however, is because the phone has reportedly started receiving the most significant software update since its launch. According to folks over at NokiaPowerUser, it seems Nokia has started to quietly roll out an official update to Android 9 Pie for the 6.1 Plus.

Nokia 6.1 Plus gets Android 9 Pie

According to the blog post by NokiaPowerUser, the latest Android Pie build for the Nokia 6.1 Plus includes several User Interface (UI) and stability improvements. What the official changelog for this update fails to talk about, however, is that this update also includes several feature additions. One of the more significant feature additions is in the camera department where once you update to this new version, you shall be able to access the Pro Camera mode that was hitherto absent from this handset. This mode was unavailable for handsets from Nokia that did not feature Zeiss optics until now. It remains to be seen how useful this new feature actually is.

The second software feature that the Nokia 6.1 Plus gets with this update is the option to hide the notch appearing in the display settings menu. Note that you had this option earlier as well – but had to go into the developer settings menu to access it. Simply put, it is now simpler to turn off/on the notch. Let us now quickly take a look at the specifications of the Nokia 6.1 Plus.

Nokia 6.1 Plus Specifications

The Nokia 6.1 Plus is a budget smartphone that features a 5.8-inch FHD+ IPS LCD display with a layer of Gorilla Glass 3 for durability. The handset is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC and is offered in a single variant with 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM. You get different color options that include: Gloss Midnight Blue and Gloss White. As far as the storage capacity is concerned, the phone gets 64GB of internal memory and adds a microSD card slot as well in case you need more storage. Note that the microSD card slot is hybrid in nature and doubles up as the secondary SIM slot if you wish to use the handset in dual SIM mode. You will, of course, lose the ability to use expandable memory in this case.

The Nokia 6.1 Plus offers a wide variety of connectivity features including support for LTE Cat. 4, 150Mbps DL/50Mbps UL, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0 and GPS/AGPS+GLONASS. The handset also boasts of a USB Type-C port that is typically not found on handsets in its price range. The camera setup includes a 16-megapixel, f/2.0 primary camera mated to a 5-megapixel f/2.4 depth sensor at the rear, and a 16-megapixel f/2.0 fixed focus camera at the front. The phone also gets a dual tone LED flash at the rear. The Nokia 6.1 Plus gets a 3050mAh battery that is certainly not the largest in its category but still offers decent battery life. You can read more about the Nokia 6.1 Plus in our detailed review.