Rebooting the venerable Nokia smartphone brand[1] has not been a rush job for HMD Global[2], the Foxconn-backed company set up for the purpose of licensing the Nokia name to try to revive the brand’s fortunes on smartphones.
But after starting with basic[3] and mid-tier smartphones[4], it’s finally outted a flagship Android handset, called the Nokia 8[5], which it will be hoping can puts some dents in Samsung’s high end. And/or pull consumers away from Huawei’s flagships handsets — or indeed the swathe of Chinese OEMs surging up the smartphone market share ranks[6].
With the Nokia 8, HMD is putting its flagship focus on content creators wanting to livestream video for their social feeds.
Competition in the Android OEM space has been fierce for years and there’s no signs of any slack appearing so HDM faces a steep challenge to make any kind of dent here. But at least it now has an iron in the fire. As analyst CCS Insight[7] notes, the handset will be “hugely important in getting Nokia-branded smartphones back on the mobile phone map”.
Specs wise, the Nokia 8 runs the latest version of Android (Nougat 7.1.1) — which HMD is touting as a “pure Android experience”, akin to Google’s Pixel handsets. (There’s a not-so-gentle irony there, given Nokia’s history in smartphones[8]. But clearly HMD is going full in on Android.)
On the hardware front, there’s a top end Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, plus 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal memory (expandable thanks to a MicroSD card slot). While the 5.3 inch ultra HD resolution display puts it on the verge of phablet territory...