Hang on, what happened to the Nokia 8.2?
Poor Nokia. It’s been a turbulent couple of months for the entire mobile industry, but Nokia was forced to delay its usual flurry of smartphone announcements last month due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. Worst of all, just as things were starting to look up, my scheduled sneak peek of the new phones earlier this week was instead switched to a simple video call at the last minute.
During the call, Chief Product Officer, Juho Sarvikas, told me that he’s actually self-isolating in Finland at the moment, although there are less idyllic places to ride out the storm – my compact studio flat in the East End of London being one of them.
I admire Nokia’s tenacity, however, and the four new smartphones have finally been unveiled to the world. The most interesting of which is Nokia’s first 5G-enabled flagship smartphone, the Nokia 8.3 5G. Yes, its specifications aren’t hugely impressive compared to what we’ve seen recently, but the fact that it’s going to be one of the cheapest 5G smartphones on the market is most interesting indeed.
Nokia 8.3 5G: Everything you need to know
Nokia 8.3 5G release date: When will it launch?
During the Nokia 8.3 5G’s online unveiling event on 19 March, Nokia announced a “summer 2020” release window for its first-ever 5G flagship. This ambiguous release window means that the Nokia 8.3 5G will likely launch sometime between June and September.
Of course, with the coronavirus threat looming large across the industry, I wouldn’t expect the Nokia 8.3 5G to show up in shops at the beginning of summer. With manufacturing facilities closing down in China, we’re anticipating delays not just with Nokia phones, but for the majority of tech products in general.
Nokia 8.3 5G price: How much will it cost?
This is where the Nokia 8.3 5G really sets itself apart from the majority of 5G-equipped smartphones. Starting at just €599 – converting to £549 at today’s going rate – the Nokia 8.3 5G vastly undercuts recent 5G releases such as the Samsung Galaxy S20, Oppo Find X2 Pro and Sony Xperia 1 II.
That’s not quite as cheap as the now cute-rate Samsung Galaxy A90 5G – which currently costs £399 – but that’s an absolute steal if you’re hoping to access the 5G network for less. Of course, you still have to pay quite a bit for a decent 5G SIM-only contract on top of that, where prices start at around £25 a month.
Nokia 8.3 5G specifications and features: What’s inside?
Most 5G-enabled smartphones don’t really have a lot of choice when it comes to base specifications, so you can probably guess what makes the Nokia 8.3 5G tick.
Inside the Nokia 8.3 5G is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chipset, which is a special, gaming-centric version of the mid-range Snapdragon 765 SoC, unveiled in December last year. This particular chipset is clocked at 2.3GHz and is geared towards more high-end graphics processing, using a higher-end Adreno 650 – the same GPU as the Snapdragon 865 – rather than the Adreno 620 on the regular 765.
It also supports 5G, of course, which is handy if you happen to live in an area that’s getting an upgrade in the coming months. Nokia says that this is the world’s first “global future-proofed 5G smartphone” too, supporting more 5G frequency bands than any other smartphone to date. It’s also running stock Android 10 with the promise of at least two year’s worth of major upgrades and three years of monthly security updates.
The Snapdragon 765G is backed by a choice of either 6GB or 8GB of RAM, with 64GB or 128GB of expandable storage. It also has a pretty hefty 4,500mAh battery, which I presume is to help offset the negative battery-zapping side effects of the 5G modem.
As for the display, the Nokia 8.3 5G is fitted with an IPS panel which measures 6.8in across the diagonal, with a resolution of 2,400 x 1,080 and a 20:9 aspect ratio. During my video briefing, I was told that the screen upscales SDR content to a near-HDR format, using the same upscaling tech that was first introduced in the Nokia 8.1.
I was also told that the Nokia 8.3 5G continues the firm’s “Nordic design” heritage. Like Nokia’s previous phone launches, the Nokia 8.3 5G is precision milled from a single block of aluminium, with a polymer composite applied over the top. There’s a fancy-looking light reflection pattern on the back of the handset – which is supposed to resemble the Northern Lights – while a protective layer of Gorilla Glass is also applied to the back and front of the phone. There’s no official IP-rated dust- or waterproofing, though.
Lastly, let’s talk about the Nokia 8.3 5G’s camera setup. There are four Zeiss-branded cameras on the rear of the phone this year: there’s a 64MP (f/1.89) primary snapper, which works with a 12MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide camera with a 120-degree field of view, 2MP depth sensor for more effective blurred-background portrait shots, and a 2MP macros lens for close-up photos.
Nokia says that the 8.3 5G will be able to shoot 4K HDR video, and there’s also a special ‘Action Cam’ mode with super-steady stabilisation at 60fps. The wind noise reduction is supposed to be more effective this year, and you can also apply anamorphic video effects such as lens flare – JJ Abrams will be pleased.