After much anticipation and a number of very detailed leaks, the Nokia 8 is finally official. Yes, it is indeed Nokia’s long-awaited Android flagship smartphone, and it boasts hardware befitting of its status too – with a price to match.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Nokia 8 is its camera capability. Featuring Zeiss optics on both the two rear cameras and front-facing shooter, all three cameras are 13MP sensors. The dual-camera system is made up of a monochrome sensor and an RGB sensor – much like Huawei’s implementation – complete with optical image stabilisation, while the front-facing snapper features phase detection autofocus; a pretty unique setup for a selfie camera.
Interestingly, the Nokia 8 also features a “Bothie” Mode: both the rear and front cameras are activated at the same time, and users can record videos or take pictures in this mode. While this is something several phone makers have experimented with in the past, the Nokia 8 takes it up a notch: it can livestream to YouTube or Facebook natively through the camera app. We imagine some consumers will find the Bothie Mode useful (despite the rather gimmicky naming).
Beyond its camera capabilities, the Nokia 8…doesn’t look quite as sleek as other noteworthy flagship smartphones this year. Of course, it has a sleek, 7.3mm aluminium unibody, but its sizeable bezels aren’t particularly attractive. Nonetheless, the Nokia 8’s software experience should appeal to most consumers.
Not only does the Nokia 8 ship with a stock version of Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box, HMD Global also implemented an Always-on Display. It can show calls, text messages, emails, and in the future, HMD is planning to add social network notifications as well. Oh, this phone comes with Nokia’s Ozo Audio too: it can record 360-degree spatial audio.
Other specifications of the Nokia 8 are what you’d expect from a flagship smartphone. These include a 5.3-inch 2560 x 1440 IPS display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset paired with 4GB of RAM, 64GB of fast UFS 2.1 storage – further expandable with a microSD card – a 3,090mAh battery, and fortunately enough, a 3.5mm audio jack.
The Nokia 8 will be available for sale in Europe sometime in September 2017: it retails at 599 euro, which comes up to about RM3,030. As usual, it still remains to be seen if the Nokia 8 will be officially available in Malaysia, but we’re optimistic: HMD did bring its whole range of Nokia-branded Android phones here.
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