In January, HMD Global unveiled the first Nokia phone in the shape of Nokia 6.
After receiving unimaginable demand in China, the first market to receive an Android-powered Nokia phone, the Finnish company decided to make the phone available to the rest of the world courtesy of the MWC 2017 event in Barcelona.
In July, the Nokia 6, alongside the Nokia 5, Nokia 3 and the iconic Nokia 3310, made its debut in Kenya, much to the delight of many locals. After months of rumors about the Nokia 7 and Nokia 8, the latter was finally made official in the country a while back, but it’s only now that the missing gap has been filled.
Looking at the company’s Android lineup, you’ll be quick to tell that the Nokia 7 will be slotting in-between the high-end Nokia 8 and budget Nokia 6. The phone has a glass front and back joined by an aluminum frame, a 5.2-inch IPS LCD display screen with a 1080p resolution and Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Under the hood, you come across an upgraded midrange processor in the shape of Qualcomm Snapdragon 630, a decent 3000mAh battery unit that supports fast charging via a USB Type-C port and support for expandable storage. The Nokia 7 will be sold in two variants of 4GB RAM and 6GB RAM, but the storage is the same at 64GB, although it can be expanded.
The Nokia 8 made headlines when it debuted with Carl Zeiss-branded rear and front cameras, but it’s the phone’s ”bothie” feature that caught our attention. To put it in simple terms, this is a camera mode that lets users of the Nokia 8 – and now the Nokia 7 too – capture photos using the front and rear cameras at the same time, which are then combined into a single shot. It might look gimmicky, but don’t be surprised if it’s the next “big” thing we see on smartphone cameras, especially in this age of Snapchat and Instagram.
Specifically, the Nokia 7 ships with a Carl Zeiss-powered 16MP lens on the back that packs an f/1.8 aperture, PDAF, dual-tone LED flash and support for 4K video recording. As for the front shooter, you get a 5MP unit with a smaller f/2.0 aperture and autofocus. Other specs of the phone include IP54 dust and water resistance, Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box (upgradable to Oreo), Bluetooth 5.0, 3.5mm audio jack, NFC and a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, something that is contrary to other Android-powered Nokia phones.
Price and availability
The Nokia 7 has only been unveiled in China, but selling begins on October 24th. Even though not yet confirmed, it should be heading to other markets, including Kenya, sooner or later. In China, the phone has a price tag of CNY 2,499 for the base model and CNY 2,699 for the high-end variant. These figures translate to about Ksh 39,050 and Ksh 42,200, respectively.
The Nokia 7 will be available in Matt White and Gloss Black color variants.
