Nokia 8 Sirocco Review

When Nokia 8 came out, we all noticed that dated design on the phone. I mean, there were still those annoying bezels, the screen was standard 16:9, and the overall look was just… well, dated. However, Nokia worked on their new flagship phone called Nokia 8 Sirocco, which promises a lot to the new buyers. I’m quite surprised that Nokia decided to put the classic 16:9 screen on this one, making it a bit different than most smartphones on the market. But, what else does it have to offer? Let’s find out in our Nokia 8 Sirocco Review.

Design and Build Quality

Design-wise, Nokia upped their game with this one. Despite having a 16:9 display, this phone doesn’t have any bezels on the side which greatly reminds of Galaxy S8 and S9 phones. If you’ve read my reviews, you know that I like wider displays, but since we have fewer bezels here, I simply can’t complain. The bezel on the upper side of the phone is dedicated to the front camera and the loudspeaker, while the lower bezel is empty.

On the back of the phone, we have a dual-camera setup with an LED flash, located on the top of the phone. Moving down, we can see a rounded fingerprint sensor and Nokia logo in the middle. The great thing about this design is the build quality. Nokia made sure that this phone looks and feels modern, thanks to its metal body with a touch of glass over the top. On top of that, Nokia isn’t thick at all! With just 7.5mm, this phone fits nicely in hands and isn’t slippery at all. I’m glad that Nokia rectified their issues with the design, making Nokia 8 Sirocco feel like a true flagship.

Display

Another great thing about Nokia 8 Sirocco is its display. Oh yeah, we have a P-OLED display that packs some vibrant and punchy colors all over the place. the display comes with 5.5 inches in size, and since it’s not an 18:9 display, this is still pretty big. Also, the display covers a majority of phone’s front side, making it look even bigger on the first glance. However, the highlight of this display is definitely the razor-sharp 1440×2560 pixels resolution. Due to high resolution, Nokia 8 Sirocco packs astonishing 534 ppi of pixel density. I can’t express how happy I am with this display!

Since this is an OLED display, you can expect the colors to be a bit more saturated. If that’s something you are against, you can always go to Settings and choose your color profile. For me, this is the best thing that ever happened to Nokia, especially when talking about the viewing angles and color accuracy. I think it’s a pretty smart move to exchange the IPS display for an OLED. If you remember, Nokia 8 had an IPS display and it definitely fades in comparison with this one. Overall, the display is really good, bright, and vibrant.

Camera

As we mentioned earlier, Nokia 8 Sirocco comes with the dual-camera setup. But, is this camera really worth a dime? Let’s first see what’s on the paper. On the paper, we have two 12 MP cameras, coupled with 2x optical zoom and Zeiss optics. When it comes to taking pictures, Nokia 8 Sirocco will probably put a big smile on your face. The good news is that there are some major improvements over the past phones, in this department. On the daylight, the camera is very snappy and takes some breath-taking photos. While it struggles a bit in the low-light conditions, I would still say it’s acceptable.

Moving on to the video recording, we have 4K video recording at 30fps. The 4K video looks decent, albeit a bit strange at times. The sound quality isn’t that good but we have an optical stabilization, so it seems. The videos aren’t shaky as we recorded some footage while running and riding a bicycle. On the front, Nokia 8 sirocco comes with the 5 MP camera which is enough for some selfies and social media websites.

Performance

Nokia 8 Sirocco comes with Android 8.0 OS and offers a stock experience out of the box. While this Android version is great, Nokia always manages to cut things down and make it as generic as it can be. To put it simply, I don’t like it sometimes. Moving on to hardware, this is where Nokia fails to impress me. With the Snapdragon 835 chipset and Adreno 540 GPU, Nokia 8 Sirocco performs like a last-year phone. Oh, wait… this IS the last-year chipset! What were you thinking, Nokia?!

Nonetheless, we can’t say it’s a phone with the bad performance. It still manages to beat a lot of high-end phones and with its 6GB of RAM, you can do some multitasking with ease. Speaking of memory, Sirocco comes with 128GB of internal storage, as well as a microSD slot. Some good news, finally!

Battery and Speaker

Nokia 8 Sirocco comes with a solid Li-Ion battery with 3260 mAh. While it doesn’t sound that great on the paper, it’s sure as hell going to impress you in the real life. You can pretty much use this phone heavily and you’ll still make it to the end of the day. On top of that, we have the fast, as well as the wireless charging available. It’s nice to see this kind of features, especially on a flagship device.

Moving on to the speaker, Nokia 8 Sirocco comes with a solid one. We can’t say it’s on the level of Xperia XZ2, but it’s great overall. However, the downside is that there isn’t a 3.5mm port, much to my surprise.

Verdict

Nokia 8 Sirocco is a great flagship device for the money. With its price of around $750, Nokia manages to pack some cool features in this phone. While it looks fantastic and has an amazing build quality, there are some downsides, like an outdated hardware and the lack of 3.5mm port. Overall, I would say this is a good bang for your buck, although it could be a bit cheaper. Still, Nokia did a great job of bouncing back to the high-end market with this phone.