Nokia 8 Sirocco Review – The Nokia 8 Sirocco had made an excellent impression at MWC 2018, when it was presented after long months of rumor and expectations.
A beautiful smartphone with a completely innovative design compared to other products launched so far by the revived Nokia, with an excellent technical data sheet and by far the most powerful Android One smartphone in circulation.

Unfortunately, his great enemy turned out to be the time, inexorably several months went by and several interesting, high-end and more up-to-date smartphones arrived on the market.
The star of Nokia 8 Sirocco has therefore a little ‘eclipsed and certainly does not play in its favor the high price list.

Unboxing of Nokia 8 Sirocco

The Nokia 8 Sirocco package includes a hard plastic cover, essential for good grip, a wall charger for quick charging, a Type-C adapter / 3.5 mm audio jack and a pair of good earphones.

Hardware & Connectivity

The hardware sector is not the most interesting feature of Nokia 8 Sirocco , however it is a complete and good smartphone, although it is aligned with the 2017 flagships more than with the latest top of the range, it must in fact bear in mind that it was designed on the basis of the Nokia 8 , when the Snapdragon 835 was still the reference processor.

The hardware platform is completed by the Adreno 540 GPU, 6 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 128 GB of internal UFS 2.1 memory, not expandable.

The sensors are equipped with an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, light sensor, proximity sensor and barometer.
At the center of the back cover there is a quick and precise fingerprint reader, instead a notification LED is missing, replaced (partially) by the always on display system.

Nokia 8 Sirocco

Connectivity can count on the LTE data exchange of Cat. 12, WiFi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, GPS, the FM radio is missing.
The Type-C charging and data exchange port complies with the 3.1 standard.

Telephone part and antennas

No negative surprise under this point of view, it is a single SIM smartphone that takes well and has not highlighted any problem of WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS connectivity.

Performance

The simplicity of Android One combined with powerful hardware, gives rise to an extremely pleasant and high-performance smartphone in every situation, from gaming to navigation, through multitasking.

Only in some cases we have witnessed the small lag of the interface, as well as for the Nokia 7 Plus (review) it is likely that Android One should still receive some refinement by HMD Global.

Ergonomics, Design & Materials

The design of Nokia 8 Sirocco is synonymous with elegance, refinement and originality: exactly in the opposite direction to the fashion of the moment, HMD opted for a display in 16: 9 curved and with almost non-existent side edges, which gives the device an almost retro, professional and extremely eye-catching.

Another point in favor of the first winking that manages to give you Nokia 8 Sirocco , is given by the compact size (140.9 x 73 x 7.5 mm), even if these do not translate exactly into excellent ergonomics, precisely because of the curved edges that they get very thin at the ends.

It makes a little ‘soap effect because of the back glass and the curved front surface, but the less comfortable aspect is the edges, of an incredibly reduced thickness and almost sharp at the volume and power keys, so that act on them is problematic without the use of a protective cover.

A note of merit goes to the IP67 certification against water and dust.

Display, Audio & Multimedia

The display of Nokia 8 Sirocco is a 5.5-inch P-OLED, with a QHD resolution and a good 534 ppi of density.It is a good unit, bright and well visible in all conditions but slightly too cold in the calibration of the white, unfortunately it is not possible to act via software on the calibration.

A small defect concerns the tightness of colors at high angles of the point of view, with shades tending to blue as soon as you are not exactly on the perpendicular of the screen.

The multimedia part is entrusted to the only mono speaker positioned on the bottom, of good quality, despite the power and depth is not comparable to devices with dual output.

Camera

Nokia 8 Sirocco has two cameras, one of which is 12 MP F / 1.8 with no OIS and a secondary with 2x optical zoom and a 13 MP F / 2.6 aperture.
On the front there is a camera with only 5 MP F / 2.0.

The quality of the shots is generally good, the detail is there but the software does not work at its best in HDR situations, ie with strongly illuminated areas, in contrast to shaded areas. Because of this we will lose some elements, details and colors if the lighting conditions are not favorable.

It is once again the calculation of the exposure to create some problems in full sun, it happens that clear elements are correctly exposed with all the rest of the underexposed image.

At night the problem reoccurs and spoils the images that would otherwise be of good quality, the noise is already present at low ISO, but the wrong calculation of the exposure on the most enlightened elements, which in a timely manner appears “burned”.

The double cam can be used for zooming (but avoid photos at night) or for shots with simulated bokeh effect, in both cases the quality is discreet.
The videos are pretty good, the capture of the audio is excellent, even if you make the lack of optical stabilization when recording in 4K, oddly lacking the option to record at 60 fps even in FullHD.

Battery & Autonomy

The 3600 mAh battery is one of the strengths of Nokia 8 Sirocco , allows you to cover about 5 hours of display on in an average day of about 16 hours.
Stand-by consumption is almost nil and even under stress we never see overheating, really convincing in this respect.

Software

The Nokia 8 Sirocco software has been a source of discussion among fans because it is unique in the Android panorama.

It is the first time, in fact, that for a flagship is adopted the Android One system, or pure Android, with a code base directly edited by Google and constantly updated.

Nokia 8 Sirocco is therefore a classic Android, without special changes made by Nokia, except for the photo application. A simple firmware therefore, immediate and well-functioning, but at the same time perhaps not ideal for those who are willing to spend over 700 euros for the purchase of a high-end product.

In conclusion

We end the review of Nokia 8 Sirocco , proposed at 799 Euro list.

This is a phone that we generally liked, beautiful and always reliable in everyday use, however we consider the placement inadequate to what it has to offer.

The relatively dated hardware and a photographic sector not up to par, together with the price drop of the 2018 flagships make life difficult for Nokia 8 Sirocco , but we trust in a rapid drop in price, to keep an eye on.