Nokia 8 review

Anything else I need to know?

• Packs the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset with 4GB of RAM
• Standard storage size of 64GB is an added bonus
• Running Android 7 software, can now upgrade to Android Oreo

The Nokia 8 comes packing the top-of-the-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset, which we’ve seen be a major success in the Samsung Galaxy S8, HTC U11 and many other phones this year.

It’s a particularly powerful option, and means the battery is well optimized and it won’t be using tons of power at all times. Our benchmarking scores showed exactly that, with the phone returning an average Geekbench 4 score of 6478.

The Nokia 8 also packs 4GB of RAM – and some markets will have access to a 6GB variant as well. We don’t think that extra 2GB is necessary though, as we found the phone capable of completing all tasks with ease with just the 4GB on board.

Graphically the phone performs well when you’re playing games too. We played a lot of high-end titles and they all loaded fast, and we never had a problem with gameplay.

When it comes to storage there’s only a 64GB option for the Nokia 8. The software on the Nokia 8 will take up at least 14GB of that, so you’ll have 50GB to play with. If you need more storage you can add a microSD card up to 256GB.

Originally when the Nokia 8 launched it was running Android 7.1.1 Nougat software in a stock configuration, but now Android Oreo is ready to go on the phone.

It looks very similar to how Google intended it to, with no Nokia-specific overlay sat on top.

That’s a big benefit if you like the look of Google’s software, although it does mean the phone lacks  the extra features some manufacturers like to add.

We've yet to test out the Nokia 8 running the Android Oreo update, but we've heard it works well and even improves the speed of the phone. 

Everything written here refers to the phone running Android 7.1.1 Nougat, but it's largely the same as it was then.

Nokia claims this allows the company to keep it more secure too. Software updates should be easy to push to the phone, and quickly, as there’s not much extra that needs to be done to the software on top of what Google provides.

The software on the Nokia 8 runs well, despite some initial bugs that made the way it works a stressful experience. Before the phone was released, HMD Global pushed an update to the phone though and we've found all of the problems we found before have been solved. 

It's now a much more stable experience and we found all apps runs well with the new software.

Audio quality on the Nokia 8 is good, but when listening through the bottom-firing mono speaker the sound won’t blow you away as the speakers on the HTC U11 can. 

You can use Bluetooth headsets for private listening, or there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top of the device for wired headsets.