Nokia 8

Nokia's range of 2017 phones has impressed,  so can it continue with the flagship Nokia 8 that offers top end specs for lower price. In a similar vein to oneplus, one of the big advantage with these new Nokia phones (made by HMD) is that they are a decent chunk cheaper than rival phones in the same category.

    For Nokia 8, you can get one outright for just £499 which was the price of a flagship phone phone a few years ago. You can also Amazon and Carphone warehousefor £399 making a bit of a bargain. Its got similar specs to handsets like the Sony Xperia XZ1 and HTC U11 which cost £599 and £649 respectively. Other phones like the Galaxy S8 are even more expensive.

     Its also reasonably light for its size 160 grams but its just a bit on the boring side of things - a sort of nothing to see here kind of deal. Four colors are available Tempered Blue, Polished Blue, Steel and Polished copper. The front of the phone is distinctly plain aside from a Nokia logo in the corner. Capacitive navigation buttons straddle a fingerprint scanner that's too small and not quite sunken enough. A lower price point than many rivals means you don't quite get all the flagship features you might hope for. The main thing here is that the Nokia 8  is not waterproof - its IP54 rating means it's dust and water resistant. In other words it can get a bit wet butyou can't submerge it. It's also a shame that we've found the phone scratches all too easily on the frintfront and back. We've got multiple fine marks over just a couple of weeks of usage.

   It has 5.3 inch screen has a rather unusual screen size. It's not the most ideal situation with so many similarly sized phones having a larger display,  typically around 5.5 inch. The screen-to-body ratio here doesn't even reach 70% so it's a similar problem to the Xperia XZ1. Like so many others,  the Nokia 8 has a Qualcomm snapdragon 835 processor with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. You get 6GB of RAM in the cheaper oneplus 5 but for some the inclusion of a microSD card slot will be more - you can add up to 256GB more.

   Like core specs, connectivity options are becoming pretty standard too. To that end, the Nokia 8 has dual-band 11ac Wi-Fi,  GPS, NFC and Bluetooth 5.0.  Although it's only got cat 9 LTE, that won't make a noticeable different compared to devices with a theoretical faster peak download speed.

    As ever cameras are important and it's perhaps a slight surprise to find dual-lenses at the back at this price. Nokia has opted for two 13MP cameras with one offering a color sensor and other monochrome - rather than a telephoto or wide angle option.

    Inside the Nokia 8 is a 3090 mAh battery, which is about average for a flagship phone this size. The phone doesn't feature wireless charging but does support Quick Charge 3.0 and a fast charger is included in the box. You can get 49% with a 30 minute charge which is impressive.