Nokia 8 SIM-Free Smartphone - Steel

Purchased this directly from Amazion in the middle of October. It was on the August security patch out of the box and since then has been updated twice to the October patch. No other android phone I have owned has received updates this quickly. The Android Oreo (8.0) update is rumoured to be imminent too. If Nokia (HMD Global) keep this up they are going to win a lot of fans - most OEM's are not even close to rolling out Oreo updates yet. What about the hardware itself? The phone has an all aluminium frame on the back and sides with Gorilla glass 5 on the front which curves gently into the frame. The shape of the back tapers towards the edges making the device feel even thinner than it actually is (and it is thin). The twin 13MP back cameras sit in an elongated glass plate (along with a flash and Zeiss branding) that only slightly protrudes from the rear. Build quality is fantastic - the phone feels premium and solid with a pleasant heft (160g). You could argue that the design is slightly behind the curve with todays near totally bezeless marvels but i will settle for solid build and no accidental screen presses. Inside, the Nokia 8 is packing this years android top end chipset of choice, the Octo-core Snapdragon 835 with Adreno 540 and 4GB of RAM. This means performance is awesome aided by what is essentially stock android this phone can handle anything you can throw at it without stutter. There is a generous 64GB of storage with an SD card slot should you need more. The dual rear and single front camera (also 13MP) produce good to excellent results - not quite as good as the very best but not far off at all. 99% of all users will be more than happy with the results. Call quality and audio is great, the single bottom firing produces clear tones (if lacking in bass somewhat). Connectivity is great with the antenna array on this latching onto and keeping signal in areas when some of my other handsets have struggled. The 5.3" 1440x2560 lcd screen (554ppi density) cranks up to more than 700 nits peak brightness which is well above average and means you should be able to see the screen on the sunniest day. Colours are well balanced and natural. Despite the screen size and high density couple with the powerful chip the Nokia 8 manages some very respectable battery times. In balanced use i am getting 2 days out of a charge (i hit the plug at 15%) with over 6 hours total screen on time. Summing up, this is a great phone for the money - remember it is £100-150 cheaper than equivalent flagships. I would not hesitate to recommend this. Excellent work Nokia and welcome back!

Bought two of these phones and this is the second of the two reviews. You will see my experience with the two phones differ dramatically. For a phone that was released back in October 2017, this is highly spec'd with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal memory. Although not necessarily comparing like-for-like this phone (at the price I paid) was a saving of approximately £500 versus the brand new iPhone XR (4GB/64GB). Based on this, this phone is superb value. One of the big pluses for me is that the Nokia 8 comes with stock Android which was quickly updated after powering on to Android Oreo. Keeping my fingers crossed that soon it will be upgraded to Android Pie. This phone replaces my old LG G4 which got amazingly hot, something that this Nokia 8 has not done - keeping cool throughout the day. Also the battery on the Nokia lasts pretty much the whole day, the LG G4 only a few short hours. The phone runs fast and smooth with apps and screens opening and switching seamlessly. Many new phone manufacturers have removed the 3.5mm jack for conventional headphones, but not Nokia and this was one of the reasons I bought this phone. Thankfully this phone has not suffered the same problem of a dreadful speaker as the other phone, though not convinced it is the best on the market. Again the charging plug supplied did not fit, not a big deal for me as I have plenty. The phone received is the TA1012. I've noticed the price of this phone is slowly increasing, possibly as it is proving so popular. Still very good value for money. Disappointed that I had to return my first Nokia 8 but I am very pleased with this one and the price I paid for it. No complaints. Edit: 24/01/2019. Now had the phone for a couple of months and just noticed that Nokia have upgraded the stock Android from version 8 (Oreo) to version 9 (Pie). Full marks to Nokia for this so this means although purchased with Version 7 (Nougat) I now have the most up to date Android version. Very happy, so far this phone still deserves the 5 star rating, in my opinion Also noticed that phone is about £60 more expensive now than when I bought it . . .

Thorough underated smartphone. I've been using this for a few weeks now as a replacement for my nexus 5x. It seems like a natural replacement for nexus devices, having pure android and mid-high end specs. I was reluctant to buy another Google or LG device due to widely reported reliability issues. The design is fantastic, looking quite utilitarian and slim, with an aluminium back. I prefer this to the gimmicky curved screen / glass back style favoured by many manufacturers, as it feels much more solid. The screen quality is superb and extremely bright. Battery life is a world away from my old nexus and it typically lasts around 2 days of heavy use. This is helped by an internal Nokia heatsink, which eliminates any overheating - something that was an issue with my old nexus. The camera received a bit of criticism in reviews. In low light it struggles a little, but is entirely usable for everyday snaps. The photos aren't oversaturated, which I like. Performance is indistinguishable from any top end device I've seen. The real selling point to me is the bloat free, pure looking android experience. Nokia are making a huge effort keeping their devices up to date and I'm not prepared to buy from manufacturers that can't do this. I've already received a number of security patches and am now running android 8 Oreo, one of the few devices that has received the update. Overall it's a great phone - the reviews on here are combined with lower end Nokia models, so don't let the average put you off!