Eight is enough
Is Nokia 8 worth the hype and the wait? Izwan Ismail finds out
THE Nokia 8 is the first Nokia flagship from HMD Global Oy and the first in the stable to run on Android. It signals the company’s attempt to bring back the glory days it once enjoyed.
The much-awaited phone was launched in Malaysia last month.
HANDLING
The 6mm slim phone is designed with a curved unibody back. The whole body is milled from a single block of 6000 series aluminium, hence the sturdy look.
It features a 5.3-inch IPS LCD QHD display (2,560 x 1,440 resolution) with Corning Gorilla Glass 5, 2.5D Glass, which is one of toughest in the industry to date.
The phone is comfortable to hold. You can even operate the on-screen keyboard with your thumb. And it’s light too, weighing only 160g.
Under the hood is a powerful SnapdragonTM 835 mobile processor, the same one that powers the Samsung Note 8. The Nokia 8 runs the latest pure, secure and uncluttered Android with monthly security updates.
It also offers Qualcomm Quick ChargeTM 3.0, meaning that when your battery is running low, you can get back to recording your important moments sooner.
Other features include Type C, USB3.1 Gen 1 (5Gbps), 3.5mm headphone jack, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, accelerometer, e-compass, gyroscope, fingerprint sensor, hall sensor and barometer.
However, the phone is not waterproof so you have to be extra careful when outdoors.
The Nokia 8 comes in four colours — polished blue, polished copper, tempered blue and steel.
BOTHIE TIME
An interesting feature of the Nokia 8 is “Bothie”, which is the phone’s ability to use its cameras, both front and back, at the same time.
Under a collaboration with Facebook and YouTube, Nokia 8 offers real-time dual-screen social feeds on these social media platforms.
Essentially, with “Bothie”, you can capture what’s in front of you, as well as what’s behind you including yourself at the same time. I tried this out on Facebook Live and it worked well.
If you do a lot of live video reporting and don’t want to keep on flipping your phone to show what you see and also the footage of you reporting on location, this feature is very helpful.
PICTURE QUALITY
Having good phone cameras has always been a good strategy, and HMD has collaborated with Zeiss, the world’s reputable maker of lenses, to deliver quality images.
The Nokia 8 comes with a dual-lens 13MP back camera and a 13MP front camera. The dual lens consist of a colour and a mono lens with a large aperture of f/2.0 with dual tone flash. The front camera sports a display flash.
The dual camera allows you to shoot with one lens or use both lens together, but the difference is really not that much.
The Zeiss optics does deliver some good quality results, with crisp and vibrant colours under natural light, such as during the day. However, the camera didn’t quite nail it in low-light situations, where noise can be seen in the photos taken. I wish the lowlight photos could have been a bit cleaner, which would have put this phone at the top of the mobile shooters rank.
As for video, HMD has incorporated an audio feature, the Nokia OZO Audio, placing exclusive Hollywood technology in the palm of your hand.
The OZO spatial 360-degree audio brings a fully immersive audio experience to the 4K video. With this, you’ll get surround sound for your video, making the audio quality great.
The phone can also deliver 11 hours of 4K video playback on a single charge, which is impressive.
At RM2,299, and with all the premium features available, the Nokia 8 is a worthy buy.
Ratings: 4/5