When we hear Nokia, we are often reminded
of those golden days when there were no spec wars and slimming down wasn't
exactly a priority. Nokia has had a long and illustrious history of making some
kickass devices long before they faced market pressure. Unlike today’s
smartphones, back then phones would come out in all shapes and sizes, spawning
some of the most beautiful and funky devices that we've seen till date. But the
problem was that Apple changed the smartphone industry for the good with the
launch of the iPhone and the concept of having one device that operated a
desktop grade OS and boasted of an intuitive UI far outpaced the Nokia’s of
then that were still stuck on Symbian.
Soon after, Nokia saw its demise in the
market when it was owned by Microsoft. Unlike other manufacturers, Nokia didn't
have a secondary line of Android devices until much later and was stuck on
Windows Phone OS, which wasn't going to take over Android and iOS anytime soon.
And eventually when Nokia did launch their line of Android smartphones, they
were limited in functionality and hence didn't quite crater to the crowds too
much. One thing lead to another and it was bye, bye Nokia.
Now though, Nokia is once again trying to
rise up from the ashes under new management. They have already launched a slew
of mid-range devices in the market and now Nokia is aims at the flagship market
with the launch of the Nokia 8. So, let's see what’s in the device.
Design and display:
The Nokia 8 has an all-aluminium metal
body construction and an impressive slim profile. It has a really minimalistic
design and is probably one of the most comfortable phones to hold in recent
times. It has a nice matt finish at the back and the aluminium work is a thing
of beauty. Unlike other smartphones, it doesn't shout out and you'd be hard
pressed to tell that it was a Nokia if you don't see the logo. The back of the
phone has a prominent bulge at the back that houses its two cameras and the
flash.
Display wise, it comes with a 5.3 inch QHD
display. 5.3 inches is just the perfect screen size in my opinion because it
manages to retain the perfect balance between compactness and screen real
estate. The display has an IPS panel rather than an AMOLED but it isn't as big
of an issue as the panel renders nice, natural colours as compared to AMOLED’s
over saturated colours. The Nokia 8
doesn't have an edge to edge, bezel less display unlike a majority of the
competition but it does compensate in the area with its price and an iP54
splash resistant screen and body and Gorilla Glass 5.
Performance:
This is one area where the Nokia 8 holds
its own. The phone is packed with the fastest snapdragon processor available
today, the Snapdragon 835 which makes minced meat of resource heavy
applications. The phone performs beautifully because of this and to top it off,
it has 4GB of LPDDR4 memory which is plenty. The SD 835 is an OCTA-CORE CPU
running Snapdragon’s in-house KRYO core architecture. It has four cores clocked
at a mammoth 2.45 GHZ and four of them running at a slightly lower 1.8GHZ. This
processor is extremely energy efficient for its performance and hence should
aid battery life. Graphics are handled by the equally powerful Adreno 540GPU
which too is Snapdragon’s fastest mobile GPU at the moment.
Software:
The Nokia 8 runs a stock version of
Android 7.1.1 which is delightful. The stock Android layout is by no means
flashy or gimmicky but its fast and fluid and aids the phone’s performance
vastly. The Nokia doesn't have any tweaks like Moto’s which is a bit of a
downer but stock android is very customisable and doesn't drain resources.
The phone also has a confirmed update to
Android Oreo and unlike many other devices; it is bound to receive them soon as
there isn't much to fiddle with. The phone also has no bloatware of any sort
which is just excellent in my opinion.
Camera and storage:
The Nokia 8 has a dual primary camera
setup like many phones of today. It has a 13MP+13MP Camera with a CMOS sensor
with an f2.0 aperture. What makes the Nokia unique is that it is one of the
first devices to implement Carl Zeiss lenses in its cameras and it makes a hell
of a difference in the image quality. The lenses allow the sensor to capture
very minute details and focus well. What isn't great however is that despite
the good hardware, the camera itself is slow as compared to the competition and
if anything I suspect it is because of the stock android camera app which isn't
optimised enough to take full advantage of the available hardware. The focusing
is also a bit slow and it tends to lose details in fast paced scenarios. With
that said, the camera itself isn't bad and captures some decent images provided
that the conditions are optimal and it also has OIS and 4K recording. So, all
it will probably need is a software update to address these issues.
Coming to the storage, the Nokia 8 comes
with a plentiful 64GB of storage with additional expansion of up to 256GB via
an SD card. It doesn't have higher storage variants at the time of launch which
is a bummer considering most flagship manufacturers are pushing the storage to
128GB.
Battery and Connectivity:
The Nokia 8 comes with a relatively small
3090mAh battery. While this isn't the biggest that there is, but it does come
with Quick Charge option. So if you do run out of battery, it should get
charged up quickly.
Connectivity wise, the Nokia 8 supports all
major 4G, 3G and 2G network bands that are present in India. It also supports
dual sim cards in a hybrid slot with 4G available in both slots. It also comes
with Wi-Fi 802.11, a/ac/b/g/n/n 5GHz with MIMO support, Bluetooth V5.0 and GPS
with A-GPS and GLONASS. It also uses the brand new USB Type-C port for cable
connectivity which aids to the future proofing of the device and it has
graciously retained the 3.5mm headphone jack.
Final Thoughts:
The Nokia 8 is a hell of a phone in many
aspects. It has a very timeless design, is well built like the Nokia’s of old
and doesn't break a sweat when it comes to number crunching. The Nokia 8 price in India is touted to be
around Rs.36999 which makes it a fantastic value proposition since it competes
in thehigher mid-tier of the market, long since dominated by iPhones and One Plus devices. The Nokia 8 makes for a fantastic
alternative to those devices and is priced perfectly.
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