Radoslav Minkov of PhoneArena rated it at 7.8 out of 10 and praised the device's 'smooth performance, impressive screen brightness and contrast, good portrait mode photos, and solid battery life' while criticizing the 'low display resolution, unreliable fingerprint sensor and tinny speaker'. The Nokia 5.3 mostly received positive reviews. The phone is sold in 3 colours - Cyan, Sand, and Charcoal.

The Nokia 5.3, like the second series of Nokia Android phones, has a dedicated Google Assistant button on the left of the phone which can be pressed to quickly activate the Google Assistant or held and released for the Google Assistant to start and stop listening. It has a dewdrop notch and bezels with a chin at the bottom with the Nokia logo. The phone weighs 185 g and is 8.5 mm thick. Depending on the variant, there is space for either a single NanoSIM or a Nano-SIM and another SIM in standby. It has 64 GB of internal storage, which can be expanded with a MicroSD card. The Nokia 5.3 is powered by the Qualcomm 665 System-on-Chip paired with 3, 4 or 6 GB of RAM depending on the variant.

It was announced on March 19, 2020, alongside the Nokia 8.3 5G, Nokia 1.3 and Nokia 5310 (2020). The Nokia 5.3 is a Nokia-branded mid-range smartphone by HMD Global, running Android One. Octa-core (4x2.0 GHz Kryo 260 Gold ( ARM Cortex-A73 based) & 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 260 Silver ( ARM Cortex-A53 based))

Nokia 2.4 vs 5.3