Last month, HMD Global unveiled the Nokia 8, its top of the line Android smartphone that aims to attract users with more than just an affordable price tag.
While the company has not yet made the phone officially available in Kenya, there are a number of local retailers that have already stocked the Nokia 8. As at the time of this writing, you can grab the phone at Phones Arena Kenya at a price of Ksh 50,999 – a great price for a phone that promises a lot.
In Europe, the Nokia 8 is priced at €599, a figure that translates to about Ksh 75,000. However, in Dubai, the same phone is priced at Dh 1,699, which comes to about Ksh 48,000, a figure that is close to what Phones Arena Kenya is currently selling the same phone at. Given that this availability is unofficial, it’s possible that the phone could command a slightly cheaper price tag if and when it makes an official debut in Kenya, but don’t expect the difference to be significant.
We don’t know what plans HMD Global has for Kenya, but since the Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia 3 were made official here, we expect the same to happen with the Nokia 8. It’s only a matter of time.
Just to remind you, the Nokia 8 ships with a decent premium build and a 5.3-inch QHD display screen with Gorilla Glass 5 protection, a Snapdragon 835 processor paired with 4GB RAM and 64GB of expandable storage, same as the Galaxy S8 and S8+, which cost Ksh 85,000 and Ksh 95,000, respectively. The back of the phone has a Carl ZEISS-made dual camera with 13MP lenses, PDAF and dual-tone LED flash while the front gets an 8MP shooter.
One interesting feature of the camera is that you can capture what HMD calls bothies, that is, the main camera and front camera can capture images that are combined into one, appearing side by side on the screen. Like the Google Pixel phones, you also get unlimited cloud storage on Google Photos.
The battery keeping the Nokia 8 alive is a 3090mAh unit that supports fast charging technology via a USB-C port. And yes, there’s a 3.5mm audio jack as well as a front-mounted fingerprint scanner. Like other Nokia Android phones, the Nokia 8 has a clean Android 7.1.1 Nougat installed out of the box, with a promise of Android Oreo in the coming months, possibly before the end of this year.
Update: The Nokia 8 is now selling at Ksh 49,500.
