HMD Global today launched the company’s latest flagship Nokia 8 in India at an event held in New Delhi. The Finland-based company announced that the Nokia 8 would sell at a price of Rs. 36,999. Featuring a dual camera setup and high-end specs like the Snapdragon 835 chipset, the Nokia 8 is the first Android flagship to be launched by HMD Global.
To recall, the Nokia 8 was launched by HMD Global in August, with a price of 599 euros in the European market. Unlike 2017 flagships from other companies like LG, Samsung etc, the Nokia 8 features a regular design with bezels on the top and the bottom. A unibody metal design wraps the phone, with curves on the back to help with gripping the phone.
The Nokia 8 also marks the return of the Nokia brand in the high-end market in India. However, with the likes of OnePlus, LG etc offering flagship devices at decent prices, it’s going to be interesting to see how the Nokia 8 fares at what seems to be a slightly high price.
Nokia 8 Specifications
The Nokia 8 features the classic Nokia metal unibody design that is made to last. On the front, the Nokia branding is visible on the top right. Towards the bottom, you’ll find the home button that has the fingerprint sensor embedded in it. Additionally, Nokia has gone for capacitive navigation buttons to make use of the bottom bezel.
Coming to the display, the Nokia 8 comes with a 5.3-inch Quad HD IPS LCD display, with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for protection. Even though the phone uses an IPS LCD display, Nokia has included support for the ‘always-on display’ feature, allowing you to quickly glance at the screen to view the time and notifications.
Like many devices launching recently, the Nokia 8 comes with stock Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box. However, HMD has promised that the phone will be amongst the first few phones to receive the Android 8.0 Oreo update. The company has already started testing the Oreo update for the phone, with its developers working to fix bugs and other issues before rolling it out to users.
Powering the phone is an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset with Adreno 540 GPU. It is paired with 4GB of RAM with 64GB of UFS2.1 storage, which can be expanded up to 256GB using a microSD card.
In terms of the optics, the Nokia 8 is the first flagship Nokia smartphone to feature a dual camera setup. It comes with two cameras featuring Carl Zeiss optics – a 13MP RGB sensor and a 13MP monochrome sensor with an f/2.0 aperture, Phase and Laser detection autofocus, Optical Image Stabilisation, dual tone dual LED flash, 1.12µm pixel size and 4K video recording support.
On the front, the phone features a 13MP f/2.0 camera with PDAF, 1.12µm pixel size and 4K recording support. Nokia has included a new ‘bothie’ mode that lets you capture photos with both the front as well as the rear cameras simultaneously.
Other features of the Nokia 8 include dual SIM, 4G VoLTE, dual band Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, NFC and USB 3.1 with a Type C connector. The phone also comes with Nokia OZO audio support for enhanced audio recording and support for high resolution audio. The phone is powered by a 3090mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 support.
Pricing and Availability
HMD Global has priced the Nokia 8 at Rs. 36,999 in India and it will be available across the country from October 14. Additionally, it will be sold online via Amazon India. It comes in Blue, Steel and Polished Copper colour options.
