Bought the phone because of its good value for money, Snapdragon 835, 4GB RAM and 64GB storage for < €400.
The first impressions are very good, it looks like a worthy successor to my Nexus 5X, which became a bit slower and with a view to a possible bootloop.. It was time for something new again.
The almost stock Android experience is a big plus, I don't need a separate UI over it, like LG and Samsung have, so the choice was already fairly limited towards a Motorola or Nokia device.
A number of updates were installed during the quick setup, such as Android 8.0 (Oreo) and the device was provided with the latest monthly security patches.
After the quick setup, my apps and data were quickly restored, important in this are the apps, SMS messages via the Messages app, Google Photos in combination with Photos backup and all Gmai contacts, WiFi data, etc..
During the first impressions of the device I got more and more criticism on 1 certain part, that is that the device is very smooth and a bit chunky, despite the fact that I have large hands. A case is therefore wise and quickly ordered.
Then working in Android, as reported there is a fairly stock Android version running on the Nokia 8, in addition to the limited changes in the software and Google apps, Nokia has only added a support app and its own camera app.
Talking about the camera app, it is simple and offers all the necessary features, HDR, color, monochrome and flash.
But from a few test photos, and what is discussed here and there on various internet forums, the result with the standard camera app is fairly below par, not nearly good enough for a high-end phone. Especially in the dark, photos become dark too quickly and therefore underexposed.
An alternative camera app is then recommended to install, it will more often take slightly better photos.
In daylight, photos are generally fine and not inferior to the competition.
The advantage of the monochrome camera escapes me, I see no differences in the photos taken with or without the 2nd camera. A wide-angle lens would have been a better choice, as LG has released with the LG G6.
Another thing I'm very happy with is the battery life, it's excellent and a huge improvement over my Nexus 5X, here I got from the start, 2 years ago, with difficulty 1 day. With the Nokia 8, that's easy. Active screen times of 5 hours and more are easy to achieve.
On average I do 2 days on 1 charge, sometimes half an hour of charging is needed, but this is definitely a relief!
Another important plus is the screen, it is perfectly fine, it is not an OLED but an LCD screen, so the black levels are not 'infinitely' deep, but the contrast is very high, higher than any other LCD in a smartphone. The colors are not as good as on a Samsung Galaxy S8 or a OnePlus 5T, but acceptable. The maximum brightness is gigantic, in the sunlight this is the phone to use in my opinion, the Nexus 5X comes to 400 nits where the Nokia 8 comes to 700 nits, so excellent.
Despite the maximum brightness of 700 nits, the Nokia 8 can fortunately also handle a very low brightness, so you don't have a box of light in your face in bed in the evening.
The fingerprint scanner is on the Nokia 8 on the front, and also serves as a capacitive home button. Due to the size of the device, this is not really a convenient location, the rear would have been more practical. Also, the fingerprint scanner is a bit less accurate than the Nexus 5X, and is terribly slow compared to the Huwei P9 and the Huawei P10, or these Huawei phones are ridiculously fast, that's also possible.
I also miss the onscreen buttons, such as the Nexus 5X and the Samsung Galaxy S8, because of the placement and the size of the device, you regularly have to move your hand around the device to easily reach the keys, but this I knew beforehand and was not a deal breaker.
I'm glad that the Nokia 8 'just' has a headphone jack, this universal connection is omitted on more and more high-end devices, but Nokia has fortunately left it on the Nokia 8.
The Nokia 8 also has a USB-C connection, which should of course be common for all new devices, this was an advantage for me, since I have completely switched to this since the Nexus 5X and see micro-USB as a decline.
Next to the USB-C connection is a single speaker, which can be fairly loud without being really shrill, in any case this is a better speaker than the one in the Nexus 5X.
After using the Nokia 8 for a few weeks, the conclusion is that this phone is a more than worthy successor to my Nexus 5X, and in many ways it is not really inferior to a Samsung Galaxy S8, Huawei P10 or an LG G6.
Missing, for example, water resistance, stereo speakers or the slightly inferior camera compared to the competition is for each individual to determine how much this is worth to you. Do you necessarily want one or more of the above features, you are probably better off with another device, otherwise the Nokia 8 is the device to purchase.
