After a series of many leaks and revelations, the HMD Global-backed Nokia on Wednesday officially announced the launch of its most awaited and talked flagship smartphone, christened as the “Nokia 8” at an event in London. If you don’t remember, HMD Global is a Finnish start-up company, which has the official permit to manufacture, distribute and sell Nokia-branded smartphones worldwide. Nokia 8 is the company’s first high-end Android-powered smartphone after its Windows Phone era and also the first Nokia device to come with dual rear-camera setup, which was developed in collaboration with lens company ZEISS. The main highlights of the smartphone are its revamped design, latest and fastest Snapdragon 835 processor, latest Android 7.1 Nougat OS, gorgeous QuadHD display, Nokia Ozo Audio algorithms, Carl ZEISS powered dual-rear camera setup, Dual-Sight technology and a denser 3090mAh battery.
Pricing and Availability:
The Nokia 8 has been launched in the UK with a price tag of EUR 599 (roughly Rs. 45,200 or US$ 705) and will be made available for purchase starting early September in four attractive body shades including Polished Blue (glossy finish), Polished Copper (glossy finish), Tempered Blue (matte finish), and Steel (matte finish). At the moment, the Nokia 8 is the most powerful smartphone (in its range) from HMD Global and will compete against other flagship-class smartphones in India, although the availability and pricing of the device in India are still unknown. Don’t worry, it is expected to launch in the Indian tech market in early October and India pricing and availability will be disclosed then.
Nokia 8 Design:
In terms of design, the Nokia 8 sports a full aluminium unibody design, built from a single block of 6000 series aluminium with a stunning ultra-reflective mirror finish, giving it an overall premium and gorgeous outlook. The smartphone’s super glossy Polished Copper and Polished Blue back reflects like a piece of mirror and offers a different feel from the other matte Tempered Blue and Steel finished variants. The new Nokia 8 is not entirely water and dust resistant, though it is an IP54 certified smartphone, which means it is splash-proof. Another interesting fact on the smartphone is its heat management solution. The smartphone also comes with an evolved antenna design borrowed from the Nokia 5 and for heat management the phone has a full-length graphite shielded copper cooling pipe inside. The new Nokia 8 also features capacitive navigation buttons and a front-mounted fingerprint scanner, that is housed underneath the physical Home Button of the device. The volume up-down keys and the power/lock button are placed on the right-hand edge of the smartphone and a USB 3.1 Type-C charging port is located on the very bottom edge of the device. A 3.5mm audio socket is placed on the very top edge of the smartphone, while the speaker grilles, mic are all housed at the very bottom edge of the device. The rear panel of the handset houses a vertically aligned dual rear camera (13MP+13MP) setup with an LED flash module, while the top front panel features a 13MP selfie camera and an earpiece.
Nokia 8 Specifications and Features:
In terms of specifications, the Nokia 8 comes equipped with a 5.3-inch Quad HD LCD display with a screen resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels and offers a pixel density of 554ppi. The screen is protected by a scratch resistance 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The display has a maximum brightness of 700 nits. Under the hood, the smartphone is powered by a blazing-fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 octa-core processor clubbed with Adreno 540 image processing unit to handle the graphics. In terms of memory, the Nokia 8 is backed up by a 4GB of DDR4X RAM and 64GB of native storage, which can be further expanded up to 256GB via a microSD card. Talking about its software fronts, the Nokia 8 runs on Google’s latest Android 7.1.1 Nougat operating system out of the box. Here is also an interesting part, Juho Sarvikas, HMD chief product officer has revealed a confirmation highlighting that this phone will be one of the first devices to get the Android O (yet to be announced). “We are in a very advanced stage in Android O development. Of course, we are still waiting for some completion from the chipset vendor side, which in our case is Qualcomm. But we’ll be one of the fastest to get Android O,” Sarvikas said.
Talking about its multimedia department, HMD Global’s new offering also comes loaded with Nokia’s proprietary Ozo Audio and has three high-dynamic range microphones, which enables it to capture 360-degree sound. Ozo is the name of Nokia’s expensive 360-degree virtual reality camera that basically used by Hollywood film studios. HMD Global claims that the phone is recording surround in detail with the help of three high-dynamic range microphones, which is then encoded using Nokia Ozo audio algorithms.
For photography, the Nokia 8 houses a dual rear camera setup that comes combined with one 13-megapixel RGB sensor with OIS and a 12-megapixel Monochrome sensor. The secondary sensor allows to capture the depth of field information and to enhance low-light photography. The rear camera features include Carl ZEISS optics, an f/2.0 aperture, 1.25 µm pixel size, Phase Detection AutoFocus (PDAF), 76.9-degree wide-angle lens, dual-tone LED flash and 4K video recording (30fps) support. On the front, the device features a 13-megapixel front-facing shooter with Carl ZEISS optics for capturing selfies and making video calls. Front camera features on the smartphone also include an f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, 78.4-degree wide-angle lens and 4K video recording. The Nokia 8 is the first smartphone in the world to support a feature called “Dual-Sight streaming”. The feature provides a split-screen view in the viewfinder and allows you to use the front and rear camera at the same time for capturing both photos and videos. Further, the Camera app on the Nokia 8 lets you stream these “Bothies” as full-HD videos directly to Facebook and YouTube live in the Dual-Sight mode so you can share both sides of the story.
In terms of Connectivity, the Nokia 8 supports dual-SIM dual standby (depending on the markets) using the Hybrid Dual SIM configuration. That means you can either use this as a dual-SIM phone without memory card option or single-SIM phone with memory card option. Apart from this, the smartphone also offers various connectivity options including 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS/A-GPS/GLONASS, NFC, a 3.5mm audio jack and a USB 3.1 Type-C port for superfast charging and data transfer. On the battery front, the Nokia 8 comes packed with a 3,090mAh non-removable battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology support for fast charging. Sensors on the smartphone include an Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Gyroscope, Proximity, E-Compass, and Fingerprint (front-mounted) sensor. Dimensionally, the handset measures 151.5 x 73.7 x 7.9 mm and weighs just 160 grams.
