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HMD Global launches Nokia 8: Here's what to expect from the company's flagship Android phone

HMD Global’s Nokia 8 flagship smartphone will be available globally in early September.

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The much-rumoured Nokia 8 was made official last night in London. HMD Global’s smartphone comes with premium design, top-of-the-line specifications, and it will be competing against other flagship devices in the high-end segment. The Nokia 8 is priced at €599 (approximately Rs 45,000), and is set to go on sale globally early September. Some of the publications got hands-on time with the new Nokia 8, and here’s a look at their first impressions.

Since the launch of the first Nokia-branded Android smartphones, HMD Global hasn’t stopped highlighting the design. With the Nokia 8 it is no different either. As Pocket-lint puts it, “The Nokia 8 starts life as a block of aluminium, hewn into smartphone form, with a soft curve across the back and rounded edges to make it sit comfortably in the hand.”

The Nokia 8 will be available in four colors – Polished Blue, Polished Copper, Tempered Blue, and Steel. Two of the colors come with a glossy finish, while the other two come with a less glamorous matt finish, albeit with more grip. “It’s particularly smart of Nokia to let customers choose between matt and polished finishes – we like that a lot – because while the polished finish looks more striking, the matt finishes offer more grip. It’s a tough choice, but good to let consumers make that decision,” T3 says.

Under the hood is Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 835 SoC paired with 4GB of RAM. On paper at least the smartphone seems more than capable of handling any and every task thrown at it, and early impressions across publications are in line with that. What also aids in good performance is the fact that the Nokia 8 runs on stock Android 7.1.1 out-of-the-box. The company has promised Android O update as soon as Google rolls it out.

What’s caught everyone’s eye is however the cooling system underneath. HMD Global says that Nokia 8 comes with graphite shielded copper cooling pipes that dissipate heat across the length and breadth of the handset. As GSMArena notes, “…we want to commend HMD on how cool the Nokia 8 runs. The heat pipe and graphite shield must be doing some work as we re-ran multiple benchmarks in quick succession and the phone didn’t even feel warm. Seriously, we can’t tell where the chipset is by feel (usually, it’s obvious on phones with poor heat management).”

Among the highlights of the Nokia 8 is the dual-camera setup at the back, and the smartphone is being touted as one that is aimed at content creators. The setup includes a pair of 13-megapixel snappers – one shoots in RGB, and one in monochrome. The camera has been developed in partnership with Carl ZEISS. But the company is focusing on a feature it calls ‘Bothie’. In essence, the Nokia 8 camera lets users shoot photos or videos using both the front and back cameras simultaneously. There is also a feature to livestream on social media directly from the camera app.

The dual-camera setup, and the Bothie feature is clearly designed with the over-sharing millennials in mind. “The focus on livestreaming underscores where the new Nokia is headed as it targets a younger crowd more likely to use the feature on Snapchat or Instagram,” Cnet says. “It marks the latest comeback attempt from the brand, which was once the largest phone maker in the world by far but was ultimately crushed by newer players like Apple, Google and Samsung.” 

So far, early impressions about the Nokia 8 have been quite positive. But we will get a closer look at how good the smartphone is, once the first reviews are out. Until then, stay tuned.

This article first appeared in BGR India

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