Nokia 8 flagship Android phone: Release date, rumours and specs

"Nokia announced three Android handsets at Mobile World Congress 2017, marking the company's return to smartphones. It also announced the new Nokia 3310, a retro play that appears to be more of a marketing stunt than anything else.

Missing from this lineup of devices is anything that breaks out of the affordable end of the market. The Nokia 6 offers a premium design, but in many cases, the specs don't climb out of the end of the market that's entry- or mid-range.

Prior to the launch of the Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia 3, there were plenty of rumors of a high-end device. With that device not seeing launch at MWC 2017, we've been keeping track of where all the rumors now sit for Nokia's future flagship."

Nokia 8, Nokia 9 or Nokia P1: The name

• Formerly Nokia P1
• Now known as Nokia 8
• Might be Nokia 9

Nokia has done a good job on keeping its device names quiet. Rumors originally focused on the D1C and the P1, with the thinking that the D1C become the Nokia 6. The Nokia 5 and Nokia 3 didn't feature in rumors, but that could be because lower tier phones are often ignored, while flagship phones are often over inflated by expectation.

The name Nokia 8 first came from a leak claiming to be the forthcoming handset, but it was firmly rebuked by Qualcomm, who said this was just a Snapdragon prototype. But the Nokia 8 name stuck. Nokia Power User then obtained information from an unnamed source, which referred to the new flagship as the Nokia 9, while another Nokia Power User post said the Nokia 8 will in-fact be a premium, mid-range device instead. 

Both names have stuck, but more recently we've seen the leak of what's reported to be marketing material for the Nokia 8.

Nokia 8 design

• IP68 protection suggested
• Metal build rumored
• Small bezel design

In terms of design, it's said that the Nokia flagship phone will offer a premium metal design. In terms of details, apart from metal, there's been the talk of IP68 water and dust protection in the Nokia 8 flagship device.

All the Nokia Android phones so far have started life as a block of 6000 series aluminum, so we'd expect a flagship to be exactly the same to maintain the same story about quality that HMD Global - the company making the new Nokia phones - has been telling. Some of the early rumors about Nokia 8 were based on Nokia 5 and Nokia 6 shell leaks, so there's currently very little to go on when it comes to design. 

There's also a continuing rumor that the Nokia flagship will come in two sizes with similar specs, taking a similar approach to Apple, Huawei and Samsung, which have to lead to the Nokia 8 and Nokia 9 naming confusion. We've also seen sketches reportedly showing the design of these two devices - broadly similar, but with some differences.

NOKIA POWER USER

These could be complete pie in the sky because there's very little to qualify the legitimacy of these sketches, but the suggestion is a 16:9 Nokia 8 and an 18:9 Nokia 9 variant. Both also show dual cameras on the rear - but we can't help thinking that these look like a Nokia fan's wishful thinking, rather than anything we'll actually see.

Indeed, the surfacing of what's said to be "marketing material" displaying a phone that's being assigned the number "8" shows a different design. Again, it's of questionable legitimacy and doesn't look like consumer facing marking, but more like draft plans.

Nokia 8 hardware specs

• 2560 x 1440 pixel display
• 5.5-inch display could be two sizes, perhaps a 5.3-inch
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
• 4 or 6GB RAM

There's a possibility that the Nokia will come in different sizes, although a rumored 5.5-inch 2560 x 1440 resolution display will put this device in flagship contention perhaps joined by a 5.3-incher. The existence of two different sizes has been suggested a number of times, although there may be been confusion caused by the Nokia 6 and Nokia 5.

The Nokia 8 will likely opt for something powerful under the hood like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, a new chipset for 2017, and that's a rumor that's already appeared, backed by 6GB of RAM. This rumor continues, and Snapdragon 835 is now par for the course.

There's talk of different RAM quantities too and there's some logic there perhaps: when launching the Nokia 5, the company said it didn't need 3GB of RAM because of the size (unlike the Nokia 6). The Nokia 6 has 3GB RAM, but the Nokia 6 Arte Edition has 4GB of RAM, so we can already see a trend of fluctuating the RAM around devices.

Nokia's current Android devices all feature Micro-USB, but most other recent launches have moved to USB Type-C.

The existing Nokia Android phones also all offer microSD card slots, so we'd imagine that convenience feature will be on the Nokia 8 too, perhaps with dual SIM as standard too. 

However, the unnamed source that leaked the supposed full specs of the new flagship, didn't mention a microSD card slot at all and also claimed the battery would be non-removable.

POCKET-LINT

Nokia 8 camera

• 23 or 24-megapixel camera
• Zeiss optics pretty certain

There's a passing mention of a 22.6-megapixel camera early on in Nokia rumors, although the rest of the specs are wildly out of touch. However, this rumor has since been repeated in the form of a 23-megapixel camera, likely to be the Sony hardware launched in the Xperia Z5. That has since been replaced by a 19-megapixel sensor in the Xperia XZ Premium, which would appear to be more advanced.

Nokia's Symbian swansong before the whole Microsoft thing was the 808 PureView. In some ways this was demonstrative of everything that was going wrong at Nokia, presenting a slightly under-specced phone that was too expensive, sitting on an operating system that lacked the consumer ease of the iPhone and the maturing Android (we're talking 2012, remember the burning platform?).

But it gave us the 41-megapixel PureView camera and that trumped everything else around at the time. PureView, with Zeiss lenses, continued into the Lumia line and the next big hit was the Lumia 1020 (pictured above) again punching hard with the camera in 2013. PureView is a Microsoft trademark, however, and still appears to be registered to Microsoft.

However, HMD Global and Zeiss have confirmed their partnership to bring Zeiss camera technology to future smartphones from Nokia and we suspect the confirmation of this on 6 July 2017 is timed to bring talk of a future Nokia flagship back into focus. You can read more about the new partnership with Zeiss here.

There's been talks of a dual camera setup, as well as some design sketches with dual cameras, but it's not clear if that's something that's actually going to happen.

POCKET-LINT

Nokia 8 software

• Pure Android Nougat
• Camera improvements

One of the underlying themes of the new Nokia phones is that they all run pure Android Nougat, with Google Assistant. Nokia was keen to point this out and Google was keen to say how happy the were that Nokia was doing this. They even made a special pin badge to celebrate.

On the Nokia 6, 5 and 3, the only change from stock Android is the tweaked camera. There's no bloatware, no pre-installed apps or anything else. We'd expect the Nokia 8 to be exactly the same and the new deal with Zeiss has said that software is part of the camera experience that will be offered, so we'd expect quite a few changes there.

Nokia 8 release date and price

• Q3 2017 suggested

With Nokia launching three handsets already in 2017, all due for launch in July and August, there are few rumors around about when to expect a flagship device launch.

Original rumors fell into line with the rest of the Snapdragon 835 rumors, suggesting June, although that's obviously not happened. There's also a price of 4000 yuan for the smaller handset and 4500 yuan against the larger, suggesting that this phone might be launched in China first.

An unnamed source has told Nokia Power User that the Nokia 8 will be released in Q3 of 2017, perhaps July or August, with an asking price of €749/$699. There's a potential clash with the availability of the Nokia 3, 5 and 6, so we suspect it will be later - perhaps September.

A device from HMD Global has passed through the FCC. There's very little detail, but this could be the Nokia 8 getting certification, but currently, the release date is very uncertain.