The time has come. Nokia have returned the to flagship party!
At least, this is what we are being told. We’ve got details from all the material released during the press event, held yesterday.
The more obvious question is, why should we care that Nokia are back in the mix?
Well for me this is a really easy one to answer. Nokia (under HMD Global), are the only phone company that are able to use ZEISS optical technology in their camera.
They have made a rather big deal about this and have actually got three of the blighters in the Nokia 8! The three cameras are all the same sensors and are all rated at 13 megapixelswith f/2.0 apertures. The front camera features phase detection auto focus and wide angle to make your selfies look amazing. Nokia tell us that the smartphone should .. “Be less Selfie. Be more #Bothie.”
On the back there’s two sensors – a full RGB unit and the other is monochrome. This setup has been seen before on the Huawei and Honor devices, and I really liked it there, so I have no reason to think it will be any different here.
The Nokia 8 also features a some very cool camera software that you would of course expect from a flagship-grade phone.
The “Bothie” mode is referred to as “Dual sight mode” and it is the real reason for them using the same camera tech front and rear. It will allow you to share both what you see and a picture of your own mug in the same image. I can see this being used by the Instagram generation and and those who liveblog. In fact, HMD is so confident in this feature that a lot of their marketing will focus on these two customer segments.
Another nod to the social media focus is the inclusion of OZO Audio from the Nokia OZO camera. Essentially this tech will allow you to capture the full 360 degrees audio experience when you are filming content. This in turn will allow the recipient of the video to experience the video in all its audible glory. The phone will use all three of the mics located on the body to allow it to capture this experience.
Onto the guts of the phone and, as you can imagine, all of these features will require a powerful core. So, it is a good thing that HMD have gone and stuck the Snapdragon 835 processor into this along with 4GB of RAM. This all cooled by a full-length copper cooling pipe which has a graphite shield to dissipate system heat across the full body of the phone. Sounds fancy doesn’t it!
Last, but by no means least, the phone is running Android Nougat 7.1.1 out of the box. As such it will remain clean and uncluttered. The only real exception to this is the camera UI, as this is necessitated by the inclusion of the “Bothie” functionality.
HMD Global have even gone so far as saying that this will receive Android 8 quickly too – as fast as the Nexus and Pixel lines. We will need to see if they can hold true to that claim in the long run though.
We can expect to see the Nokia 8 arriving on our shores very soon with a release said to be happening in September. This is a bit vague. As for the pricing, we have been told that it will be €599. This would equate to £549 with the current exchange rates.
The phone will come in a variety of colours and finishes including both matte and glossy versions. The colours are Polished Blue, Tempered Blue, Steel, Polished Copper.
In the meantime here are all the specs of the phone and we hope to be able to bring you a full hands on report of the phone very soon.
Specifications
Design:-Size 151.5mm x 73.7mm x 7.9mm
Colors:- Polished Blue, Tempered Blue, Steel, Polished Copper
Network and connectivity:- Network speed LTE Cat. 9, 3CA, 450Mbps DL/50Mbps UL
802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (MIMO), BT 5.0, GPS/AGPS+GLONASS+BDS, NFC (sharing) ANT+
Operating system:- Android™ 7.1.1 Nougat
RAM:- 4 GB LPPDDR4X
CPU:- Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 835 Mobile Platform, Octa core, (4 2.5GHz Qualcomm® Kryo™ CPU + 4 1.8GHz Kryo)
Storage:- Internal memory 64 GB1 UFS2.1, MicroSD card slot Up to 256 GB
Audio:- Connector 3.5mm ADJ headphone jack, 3-mics
Display:- Size and type 5.3” IPS QHD, Resolution 2560 x 1440, Material Corning® Gorilla® Glass 5, 2.5D Glass
Camera and flash:- Primary camera 13 MP (Colour + OIS) + 13 MP (Mono), 1.12um, f/2.0, 76.9˚, PDAF, IR range finder, dual tone flash,Front-facing camera 13 MP PDAF, 1.12um, f/2.0, 78.4˚, display flash
Connectivity and sensors:- Connectivity Type C, USB3.1 Gen 1 (5Gbps)
Sensors:- Ambient light sensor, Proximity sensor, Accelerometer, E-compass, Gyroscope, Fingerprint Sensor, Hall sensor, Barometer
SIM slot 1 nano-SIM slot + 1 nano-SIM or 1 MicroSD card slot
Battery and charging:- Battery type 3090mAh2, non-removable
Others:- Splashproof (IP54)
More details are available on the Nokia website.