Prolific would be one description I give to HMD’s Nokia device strategy, with the company keeping a steady pace of Android One powered goodness flowing onto the market at various price points. Today’s announcement of the Nokia 8.1 see’s their newest near flagship device become official.
The Nokia 8.1 is different from last generation Nokia 8 Sirocco as it feels positioned just a little bit lower, utilising a snapdragon 710 SOC, with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage (and microSD Card support). Now, they’re some great starting specs, but without a Snapdragon 8 series processor it’s never going to be considered a flagship by the wider tech community, regardless of how well it may perform.
Rounding out the specs package is a 6.18″, FHD+ 18.7:9 notched display with HDR 10 support, dual rear cameras with a 12MP f/1.8 and 13MP combo with OIS and ZEISS lenses as well as dual tone flash. Around the front there’s a 20MP ‘selfie’ camera with Nokia driving their bothie shooting mode once more.
The Nokia 8.1 does indeed contain a 3.5mm headphone jack. Charging is via USB C with a 18W fast charger coming in the box to charge the 3500 mAh battery lightning fast. NFC for Google Pay and a rear fingerprint sensor round out the package.
Check out the specs below:
- 6.18’’ Full HD+ edge-to-edge PureDisplay< /li>
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 mobile platform
- 4GB RAM
- 64GB storage with MicroSD card slot Support for up to 400 GB
- Primary camera Dual Main: 12 MP 1/2.55’’, 1.4um pixels, OIS 2PD
Dual second: 13 MP FF – Dual Hi-Cri flash - Front-facing camera Adaptive 20 MP FF/0.9um
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS/AGPS+GLONASS+Beidou
- Android 9 Pie
- 154.8 x 75.76 x 7.97 mm @ 180 grams
- Ambient light sensor, Proximity sensor, Accelerometer (G-sensor), E-compass, Gyroscope, Fingerprint sensor (rear), NFC
- 3500 mAh Battery
Being a Nokia device the 8.1 ships with Android One launching on Android 9.0 Pie. For me Android One is one of the killer features of the HMD product strategy. The guaranteed security updates for 3 years and OS updates for 2 make the Nokia line of devices truly unique among the Android OEM line up.
Australian availability of the Nokia 8.1 is unclear at the moment, Nokia has brought most but not all of their recent devices onto the Australian Market. If they did based on the European pricing we would expect it to retail somewhere around the $700 mark. The Nokia 8.1 feels like the spiritual successor to the Nokia 7 Plus, which has been a solid device, and packing the next generation up Snapdragon I’d expect the 8.1 to be one of the best value for money Android devices around.
