Nokia 8 Sirocco Review

Nokia had been famous for rolling out phones with unconventional designs and form factor in the past. Since its take-over by another Finnish company, HMD Global, their strategy has been changed as they're trying to revamp the Nokia brand and prevent it from dying. As an effort for that, the company has released their first premium flagship for the year 2018, the Nokia 8 Sirocco. With this device, HMD aims to reinstall Nokia in the premium smartphone segment. The phone has a new design and some impressive specs on paper, but is it enough to bring back Nokia in the market dominated by giants such as Apple and Samsung? Let's find out.

The brand-new flagship from Nokia is all about its design. There were some rumors and leaks about the next Nokia flagship having a curved glass body, and while at that time those rumors seemed too good to be true, Nokia has surprised its fans by releasing the device with a curved glass body. The Nokia 8 Sirocco, much like the original Nokia 8800 Sirocco edition, is an elegant looking phone wrapped in premium glass and stainless steel curved body. The stainless-steel frame is made from one single block of steel and adds better strength to core of the device as compared to aluminum. It's one of the few phones to choose stainless-steel over aluminum after the Apple iPhone X and HMD claims that this is the most robust Nokia smartphone they have ever made. The front and back of the device are made of Gorilla Glass 5 which mold effortlessly into the metal frame creating a slight curve at the edges.

While it looks eye-catching, the sides taper down to leave just a 2mm stainless steel edge which is very sharp. This makes holding the device a rather uncomfortable experience, something HMD should've thought about. The phone has small bezels on top and bottom with a curved edge display and has a glossy black finish, making it look like a fusion between the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Blackberry Priv. The power button and volume keys are located on the right, at the thinnest tip which makes the buttons feel too recessed into the body and make them hard to locate with your finger.

At the back of the device, you'll find the dual camera setup at the top with the fingerprint scanner located just below. Although it is the preferred location for a finger print scanner, the sensor is flushed inside the glass back which makes it hard to locate, much like the power and volume keys. The camera module isn't flushed inside the glass back though as it creates a slight bump. Much like most glass back phones, it is easy to leave fingerprints on the back so you might want to get a case for the phone.

Being such a thin device, only 7.5 mm at the thickest point, the Nokia 8 Sirocco doesn't feature a 3.5 mm headphone jack. It's hard to hold in the hand and takes some time getting used to the sharp edged of the phone. The phone overall has a pretty unconventional form factor, being wider than the bigger screened Samsung Galaxy S9 but smaller than the Apple iPhone 8 Plus with the same display size. However, due to its curved edged design, it's easy to rest on the palm of your hands and the glass back makes it feel like a premium smartphone in 2018. The Nokia 8 Sirocco is also IP67 dust and water resistant which means it can survive a drop into water for 30 minutes up to 1.5 meters deep.

Saying all that, the Nokia 8 Sirocco is still a good-looking phone. I've seen many black colored phones but this one looks both different and attractive. The glass back and the black glossy finish makes it look premium while the edged display and minimal bezels enhances the modern feel to the device.

The display on the Nokia's flagship for 2018 is impressively modern with the curved edges, much like the Samsung Galaxy S9's curved display. The display is manufactured by LG which means it's not as 'infinite' as Samsung's Infinity Display as it still leaves part of the border around the edges, but you do get the modern bezel-less feel as you use the phone. It is a 5.5-inch curved pOLED Quad-HD display with a resolution of 2650x1440p and a pixel density of 543 ppi.

Using the phone, the display felt quite modern and fun to use. Swiping around the device, your fingers don't hit a hard edge as they do on many flat screened phones and I couldn't help feeling that it brings a sense of quality to the user experience. The panel is pOLED which means that it's made out of plastic and not glass so it can be flexibly formed into different shapes. The blacks on the display look deep and there's quite a bit of detail to be seen. The screen renders satisfactory illumination that allow sunlight legibility and by default, the display is set to throw punchy colors full of contrast and saturation. The screen gets a slight blue tint at the edges, like the Google Pixel 2, however you won't notice it until you intentionally view the device from the sides. The colors do tend to flicker at the curved edges, but it shouldn't affect most user's experience. Viewing angles aren't great if you set the display to minimum brightness as you can see reflections on the display, but with pOLED, a little software tweak in the future can really enhance the display experience on the Nokia 8 Sirocco.

The phone also features an Always On display which means that you can display a small piece of graphic on the screen while the phone is on standby and as it is a pOLED display, it'll only light up those pixels which make up the area of the graphic, making it energy efficient and it won't strain the battery. The display is also protected by Gorilla Glass 5 so you won't have to worry about minor drops and scratches.

Overall, it's an impressive curved display and has the ability to rival the displays of the top smartphones in the market at the moment. I'm glad Nokia went for a Quad-HD resolution as that can really help it prove that the Nokia 8 Sirocco is nothing but a serious competitor in the smartphone flagship market of 2018.

The brand-new smartphone from Nokia comes with an impressive set of hardware components. Nokia 8 Sirocco is powered by the Snapdragon 835 processor with the Adreno 540 GPU coupled with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of on-board storage. It also features expandable storage through microSD for those who want to have more storage on their phone. What this means is that the phone is more than ready to provide a stellar performance. There's just one downside to this phone, though, its selection of the processor. Nokia has gone for the older Snapdragon 835 in 2018, while most other flagship phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Sony Xperia XZ2 ship with the latest Snapdragon 845. This makes the new Nokia 8 Sirocco, lose around 30 percent of the processing power other smartphones in 2018 might have. However, both Snapdragon 835 and 845 are based on the same 10nm architecture so you won't feel a big difference in performance, especially when this phone comes with massive 6 GB of RAM.

The Nokia 8 Sirocco should be able to run and play any application you throw at it with ease and multi-tasking should be a walk in the park for the phone with its large RAM. The fact that the phone comes with an Android One experience, there won't be any bloatware stopping this device to perform at its best and overall performance should be smooth and pleasurable.

Sadly, there's no 3.5 mm headphone jack to be found on the device, however, being a glass back phone, the Nokia 8 Sirocco features Qi wireless charging which can wirelessly charge the phone using any Qi certified wireless charging pad. The phone features Nokia's OZO audio which uses 3 mics to give a clear and seamless audio experience, together with active noise cancellation. The phone doesn't have a dual stereo speaker setup, however, the bottom firing speaker on the phone is loud enough to be heard even outdoors. The phone also comes with a USB type-C connector which gives you the ability to fast charge your phone with Quick Charge 4.0.

I would say that the Nokia 8 Sirocco has one of the best hardware available in a smartphone in 2018, with a slight downside of having an older processor. However, this phone will prove to be a candidate for the best smartphone hardware in the year 2018 with added features such as wireless charging.

The Nokia 8 Sirocco comes with a 3260 mAh battery which is decent for its capacity, given the phone has a smaller 5.5-inch display as compared to other flagship phones in the market having way over 5.9-inch for display size. The phone features quick charge 4.0 so that means you can charge your phone very quickly so that's a plus point. There's wireless charging support as well which adds in to the ease of charging the device, plus Nokia claims that the phone is more than capable to give you a full day of use on a single charge.

As the Nokia hasn't launched a consumer version of the Nokia 8 Sirocco yet, we'll have to wait to see how long does it actually take to charge and its screen-on time. With a smaller display and 3260 mAh battery, the phone shouldn't be a problem for anyone who's major concern is battery life.

Nokia tried its best to make its fan feel nostalgic with it's very popular Carl Zeiss optics. The Nokia 8 Sirocco comes with a dual Zeiss optics camera setup with a resolution of 12 MP for the main lens and 13 MP for the telephoto lens, with an aperture of f/1.75 and f/2.6 respectively. It adapts the dual-camera unit of the Nokia 7 Plus as the new camera setup gives you twin Zeiss lenses. There's a normal lens and a zoom lens, much like the camera setups on the Apple iPhone 8 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S9+.

The camera makes you feel that Nokia has rethought about its camera experience, with the main rear camera offering larger 1.4µm pixels, and with an aperture of f/1.7, this camera is all ready for low light photography. The sensors allow more-light to enter and the shots taken under low lighting conditions are pretty decent. The second camera enables you to have the 2x zoom, very much like the Samsung Galaxy Note8, which lets you get a little closer to the action without a downgrade in quality.

The older Nokia 8 used its dual camera setup for quality, having a monochrome and RGB sensor, but with the new Nokia 8 Sirocco, you're getting more immediate practical functionalities from the camera such as 2x zoom and the Live Bokeh mode which is a good move by Nokia. Talking about Live Bokeh, it's Nokia's take on Apple's portrait mode and to be honest, Nokia has got the mode right on the Nokia 8 Sirocco. Using the two lenses, the phone's camera gives you a depth map and the option to choose how much of that background blur you want.

The photos taken with the Live Bokeh look great, with the subject standing out of the background prominently. There's an interesting camera mode which Nokia has created, called the Bothie. What it does is take a snap from both rear and front camera and putting both the images together. Many users might think that this is nothing but a gimmick, however, it gives you the ability to shoot the reactions of the person who's taking a picture and would be great in catching light moments with friends and family.

There's also a full pro mode for those who want to have total control of the different aspect of the camera settings. This mode compliments the Nokia 8 Sirocco's camera app which is a reminiscence of the Nokia Lumia phone's camera app. It's easy to use, intuitive and would really put a smile on the faces of Nokia fans.

The front facing camera on the Nokia 8 Sirocco is a 5 MP shooter with an f/2.0 aperture. The camera takes decent selfies and videos up to 1080p. The videos shot from the new Nokia flagship are decent, with good exposure and contrast. The camera has the ability to shoot videos up to 4K at 30 fps. The videos are also stable, thanks to the OIS found on the main rear camera, however when hitting the 2x zoom, they tend to get shaky as the telephoto lens doesn't have OIS. Videos in low light are decent yet again, as the HDR really helps to brighten up the dark scenes, however nowhere near to the quality of low light videos shot with the Google Pixel 2.

With that said, when I compare the photos and videos taken from the Nokia 8 Sirocco against those taken from Apple iPhone X, Google Pixel 2 or the Samsung Galaxy S9+, Nokia's inferiority in the camera department was clearly to be seen, especially in low lighting conditions. It's not that Nokia 8 Sirocco doesn't have a good camera but the fact that other major smartphones in 2018 have really stepped up their game in the camera department and are too good for Nokia to even compete with them. If Nokia really wants to go head to head with the big boys of the smartphone world, it really needs to improve the photography experience in its future devices.

Nokia is committed to the Android One program by Google which means that its phones come with a pure Android experience having no added apps, additional services and zero bloatware. What it means is that the Nokia 8 Sirocco comes with Android 8.0 straight out of the box with a promise of timely software and OS updates for 2 years and security updates up till 3 years at the very least. This also means that the software experience on the Nokia 8 Sirocco is very much like the one on the Google Pixel phones, with just one modified camera app by Nokia.

For some people, the software experience might feel a bit too clean, as there aren't any additional features which smartphone manufacturers such as Samsung and LG provide in their smartphones. For pure Android lovers, this phone will be nothing less than a treat as they are also guaranteed update to the Android P and Android Q in the next couple of years.

Overall, the software experience is smooth, with zero lag or buggy interface. The pure Android experience also helps with battery life efficiency and makes the Nokia 8 Sirocco, a really good phone for user experience.

Nokia 8 Sirocco will be available in major world markets in April for around 750 Euros. That makes this phone rather expensive, almost around the price of the Samsung Galaxy S9. If you were looking for something striking from Nokia, then the Nokia 8 Sirocco is definitely the phone which you would like to show off. The phone has a new elegant and modern design which makes it stand out in the crowd, together with a modern, beautiful display. It packs some of the very powerful hardware combinations available right now and comes with features such as wireless charging and Quad HD display.

However, there are many other phones in the market which offer similar functionalities and features at a lower price, such as the OnePlus 5T. When tested against the OnePlus 5T, the Nokia 8 Sirocco couldn't match with the performance and RAM management delivered by the OnePlus 5T, even when the Nokia 8 Sirocco runs on pure Android. However, the phone looks better than the OnePlus 5T and has a Quad HD display as compared to the OnePlus 5T's Full HD panel.

Some might argue that you could add in a few extra bucks and get the Samsung Galaxy S9, which has a newer processor, a much better camera and all the features that the Nokia 8 Sirocco offers, plus a 3.5 mm headphone jack. To be honest, they wouldn't be wrong but what the Nokia 8 Sirocco offers, which no other phone does, is that nostalgic feel of using a Nokia device which felt both premium and modern, and also performed like a top flagship phone. It's a Nokia flagship and that's a brand that still has huge smartphone value, and for those reasons, a lot of Nokia fans will be excited about it.