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Nokia's first flagship phone is here

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins, ITWeb digital and innovation contributor.
Johannesburg, 07 Sept 2017
The Nokia 8 by HMD Global.
The Nokia 8 by HMD Global.

HMD Global, the Finnish company that owns the rights to use Nokia's brand on mobile phones, has launched its first flagship premium device in SA, the Nokia 8.

The company grabbed headlines earlier this year when it played on nostalgia and re-released the Nokia 3310 from the early 2000s.

The company's first endeavour into the flagship space delivers a 5.3-inch handset with a 3090mAh battery, aluminium unibody and runs Android Nougat.

No Nokia bloatware has been added to the smartphone. Patrick Henchie. HMD Global head of product for Sub-Saharan Africa, says it is: "Clean, pure, vanilla Android." The company says this will help the phone to perform faster.

Both the front and back cameras on the Nokia 8 feature 13MP. The device takes advantage of this with a new feature called Dual-Sight, which splits the screen and puts pictures or video from both cameras onto one screen. It has also licensed lens technology from camera maker Zeiss.

There are two camera sensors on the back; one is monochromatic, which means it can take photographs in black and white.

Users are also able to live-stream directly form the device to Facebook or YouTube.

The Nokia 8 is the first smartphone to feature Nokia OZO Audio.

The device is powered by the Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform. The company says the device was designed to run cooler during demanding situations, due to a full-length graphite shielded copper cooling pipe that dissipates the heat generated across the full length and breadth of the handset.

At Vodacom, the device will sell for a prepaid price of R449 per month for 24 months and will cost R9 499 postpaid.

Specifications:

Display: 5.3-inch 2K IPS LCD touch-screen
OS: Android Nougat
CPU: Octa Core processor
Memory: 64GB with an SD memory card slot
RAM: 4GB
Cameras: Both 13MP
Video: 4K 30fps
Battery: 3 090mAh
Other: Nano SIM, IP54 certified

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