Gadgetory

the Nokia eight Scirocco is going to be a rather difficult device for me to review that's because on the one hand it's a device that I personally really like using but on the other hand it's a device that I can't wholeheartedly recommend to everyone without some big caveats I might unction it ski stick around for the full review and I'll dig into why that is so one thing's for sure this is definitely one of the most beautiful Nokia devices that H&B global has made so far it's really unique it's really different and it's definitely eye-catching and head-turning we've seen just what they can do with a mid Ranger in the seven plus and this is their stab at a flagship and it really shows so the device is made out of stainless steel and it's covered almost entirely in Gorilla Glass v that glass is on the front and the back and it curves to a nice point on the edges giving it kind of tapered effect and it's incredibly slim just 7.5 millimeters that grasssnap metal gives it a really weighty and premium feel in the hand and it just looks and shouts quality the screen is also absolutely stunning it's a to KP AMOLED display that curves at the edges giving it that cascading waterfall effect like the s8 or the s9 the blacks are absolutely black it's incredibly sharp and crisp unlike some other flagship devices this isn't an 18 by 9 aspect ratio it's a typical 16 by 9 which is interesting because they opted to go with 18 by 9 for the 7 plus but a lot of people actually prefer the 16 by 9 and in a sea of devices that were all getting taller it helps to stand out even more it feels quite square in the hand and that helps with one-handed use actually one downside to all of these sturdy materials and the incredibly slim form factor though is that some people have complained that it feels a little bit sharp and uncomfortable to hold in one hand personally I don't find this to be a problem it's not so sharp that's gonna draw blood or anything it's just a little bit narrower at the edges and a little bit harsher than you might be used to I would say this would hurt a lot if you threw it at someone but then I don't think that Nokia is actively encouraging you to do that doesn't mean that this doubles up as a nice self-defense device though to me I just absolutely love this design I think it feels and looks really nice and I don't mind holding it in my hand either in fact the reason that I'm willing to overlook some of the shortcomings I'm going to talk about in a moment it's just because I like the experience of using it so much to me it has that x-factor one of the big compromises have to be made in order to make this device so slim though is the emission of a headphone jack and I know that a lot of you are going to find that to be a bit of a downside likewise another downside of having such a nice slim device is that there's rather a camera bulge on here in fact it's one of the biggest counter bulges that I've seen in a long time on a modern device again that's not a big issue for me personally I don't mind the look of the camera bulge but when it starts getting in the way of practical use then it's a bit more of an issue you sit this on a table and it's it's very much at an angle and then it wobbles on that camera bulge so if you want to use it in that position it's going to rock around there's also a fingerprint sensor on the back which works really well it's very quick but at the same time it's very difficult to find it's completely flush with the device which I don't know why it needs to be seeing as that bulge is already there with the camera but it is it's flush with the device and it's quite hard to find with one finger which isn't so much of a problem once again with the 7 plus and once like Mile on that beautiful screen unfortunately is that where it curves you do see quite a big color shift it's very tinted and I didn't notice this so much on other curved displays and in fact actually the color temperature veers a little bit blue in general but don't let that put you off because I think the screen in general is wonderful one more plus about the design though it is ip67 certified against water and dust so you can submerge this about 1.5 meters underwater if you wish nice to have that peace of mind means you can take it in the shower means you can use it in the rain and not worry too much another thing about the design that's gonna be divisive is the buttons so when you've got an edge here that's so slim that means you're going to have buttons that are really slim and they're kind of sharp too and a little bit tricky to find likewise again I don't mind this in fact I kind of like them again they're different and I like different but not everyone will like them and I really recommend actually going to a shop and picking up this device feeling it giving it a go yourself before you make a decision on it so yeah it feels great to use it looks great to use it's really different it turns heads I like all of those things a lot but it feels as though maybe a little bit style a for substance or at least form over function to the point where there are some impracticality x' of the way it's been designed that you're going to need to keep in mind when you buy this this is a six hundred and ninety nine pound device here in the UK which means you're going to expect a certain level of premium build which it's definitely got we also expect premium performance you expect this be able to compete with other flagships on the market for a similar sort of price range can this do that well in terms of the specs this is running a snapdragon 835 chipset and it's backed up by six gigabytes of RAM that is not a next-gen processor it's the same one found in the Galaxy s8 not the s9 meaning you're not getting very top-of-the-range performance out of this device is that gonna be an issue well in reality no it's not an issue in terms of performances can do everything you're gonna want it to do run everything from the Play Store really nicely the performance is really smooth on here everything is buttery smooth everything's quick I even got the GameCube emulator the dolphin emulator up and running meaning that I could play Metroid Prime and Zelda Wind Waker with relatively good framerate it's not great but acceptable and that's quite a nice benchmark it shows just how powerful this thing is fortunately one thing that it has going in its favor in terms of performance is the operating system this is running Android Oreo and it's part of the Android 1 program just like the rest of HM these new devices that means that it's you know basic stock Android it doesn't have any bloat where it's going to be the first to receive security patches and updates it doesn't have any ugly UI on top of it that's going to be divisive and people are gonna like you can customize it however you like so that helps with the performance it's really smooth it's really quick it's already upgraded to Android 8.1 and it's going to be one of the first to get Android P when that comes out so or that's great and we know that hmd has got a good track record of updating their devices of pushing out those software updates so you can rest assured that you will get that latest experience when you combine that with a really damn good chipset even if it's not the latest you do get really good performance and so I don't think performance is going to be an issue it's just a shame it's not the very best out there considering that it's competing with the very best out there actually gaming on this device in general is really good that Adreno 540 GPU is more than up to the task of playing any of the games from the Play Store without a stutter like I said the screens really beautiful so consuming media is also really great on this device and the speak is also nice and loud of course it's just a single speaker down the bottom no dual front-facing speakers here but it gets the job done and actually it's quite good at filling a room one mark against the performance and the experience there unfortunately is that once again as the seven-plus I did encounter a few strange glitches not as bad this time around but still worth noting so the YouTube app for instance would often stutter with the audio I'd have to close it and open it again and carry on watching a video from wherever I was likewise I had the Google app continuously closing on me for no reason I just had to keep dismissing that notification and a couple of other things like that obviously those are Google apps but for some reason that seems it's not playing all that nicely with the 8 Sirocco firmware and hopefully that be fixed with an update but for me that's what I experienced and there were some issues as well with the camera app which I'll talk about in a moment in terms of storage you get 128 gigabytes so plenty generous it's not expandable unfortunately once again I think that's down to the slim profile of the device but with 128 gigabytes it shouldn't be too much of a problem the battery is a very ample 3260 milliamp hours which is plenty for getting through a day and especially when you combine it with that Android one experience it's not as good as the nokia 7 plus the standby time is significantly lower but like I say I'll easily get you through a day even with moderate to heavy use you probably just not gonna be pushing multiple days on this device fortunately it also comes with fast charging and wireless charging so it's very easy and quick to top that back up when you do finally run out of juice and that brings us to the camera which these days of course is one of the most important deciding factors when it comes to choosing a device and remember once again this is a 699 pound device we're competing with the big flagships on the market so can this compete with the likes of the pixel to the galaxy s 9 etc that while a p20 pro the short answer to that is no unfortunately the primary shooter on this is a 12 megapixel lens with an F 1.75 aperture and the same sensor found on the pixel 2 with 1.4 micron pixels this is then backed up by a 13 megapixel telephoto lens capable of 2 times lossless optical zoom and that one has an F 2.6 aperture because it's got two lenses there it's capable of doing the bokeh effect the portrait mode and the app gives you a promo so you've got control over things like aperture shutter speed white balance etc so in theory on paper it all sounds very good it's got a high megapixel count it's got a great sensor in there jool lenses and great controls but for some reason to me the results just aren't up there with the very best in class it just seems to me that when you take a photo with the s9 or with the pixel it looks that little bit crisper that little bit more vibrant as compared with what you get from this and whether that's down to image processing or the hardware these are Zeiss branded by the way the lenses meaning that they should be fine-tuned by someone who knows what they're doing but there's just something missing just that extra X Factor that was talking about earlier you can get some great performance from it if you're patient and if you have the right conditions actually the F 1.75 aperture is a big plus for me because I love doing those shallow depth of field effect photos and we combine it with the saturation which is actually really good as well you get some quite artistic looking photos just only in the right circumstances or if you're willing to put in the work with that Pro Mode unfortunate as I mentioned earlier though there are some problems I encountered with the camera app and in particular I struggled with the Baka mode getting that to work in fact it probably didn't work more often than it did work so I'd open up the camera I'd select bakka mode and I'd point it up the subject it would say depth success so you'd assume from that that everything's working hunky-dory but then I did not see any blurring around the background in the live preview when I took a photo I also wouldn't see any blurring that's if I could even open the photo cuz very often they'd been open the photo it would crash or something just nothing would happen I'd tap the photo it wouldn't open and then it was closed out of the afterwards weirdly switch into video mode then I'd go into the gallery and the photo would be nowhere to be found also I could only take one photo like this so that's that's a big problem really and hopefully again it'll be fixed with soft rap dates and that's why I don't let these things bring the score down when I'm reviewing something too much because hopefully they'll be fixed and especially because hmd does have a good track record in that regard but it's a bit concerning it's a shame that out of the box it's not working the way it should and especially when it's such an expensive device and it leads me to think that HMV grayble needs to do some work on the software side of things because the hardware is all really good and they're just not getting the most out of it that seems to be what's going on with the camera in general in fact and I don't think that this is just a glitch with my unit because I have the seven plus and I reviewed that and I discussed many very similar issues with that one so when you combine these factors it seems likely to me that the software is somehow letting the side down a little bit and hopefully that will improve especially considering it on Android one you'd expect the software to be really good when it comes to the front facing camera unfortunate it's a bit more bad news it's only a five megapixel sensor which is a considerable downgrade from not only the Nokia eight the predecessor to the nokia rate Sirocco but also the Nokia seven plus which has a 16 megapixel front facing camera it's got a nice wide angle seems to get a lot of people in images do look really crisp actually and the Baka feature works a lot better on the front-facing camera than it does on the rear camera at the moment so it's not you know it's not terrible it's just not perfect the rear camera is capable of a video up to 4k at 30fps the front-facing camera is capable of 1080p these are perfectly serviceable they're what you'd expect but of course there's no optical image stabilization it seems so that's one downside on that what the video does have going for it is the three microphones built into the device which is supposed to give you 3d spatial audio and that's a really nice feature it does seem to work well for my tests and it's something I'd like to see in more devices actually the both II feature also makes a comeback this is hm these much-touted the ability to film or take photos from the front and rear cameras at the same time not quite the groundbreaking feature that they have you believe it's very easy to mimic and I did say that I don't think it's really got all that much practical benefit however to be fair I've actually found myself using it a little bit and in fact when making videos on Instagram for you guys I have been using that both me mode in order to film the device I'm talking about and myself at the same time so credit where credit's due it does have its uses and actually I'll miss it when it's gone on the 7 plus I didn't like the both feature because I did a long vlog and the audio got out of sync on the 8 Sirocco no such issued so far touchwood so I guess again that comes down to the better hardware I guess you can think of the camera a lot like that Snapdragon 835 chipset there's nothing wrong with it it's a great performer in fact it's very superior to an awful lot of what's on the market it's just that it's not the very best and when you consider the price point and you consider the way that this device is positioning itself you'd be reasonable in expecting this to compete with the very best out there and it just doesn't quite it's perfectly good it's just lacking that X Factor but that's the camera that's the performance and the design work are safe from me has that X Factor it's actually not practical really and that's why for a lot of people I don't think that that beautiful design is gonna outweigh the drawbacks the downsides that I've just discussed however if like me you pick it up and you just fall in love with it which could happen then you might find that this is the device for you so I'm gonna say it's a good device I do recommend it it's really well made it is different which I like it's got a lot of great features it performs really well Android one is a huge bonus however it's not for everyone and it's not the most powerful of best performer for the price and it does have some practical drawbacks it's not a home run but it is a very good phone and hopefully you're not get your 8 Sirocco 2 or whatever the heck HMV is gonna call the next one of these will be that amazing return to form that this so almost was so I found this video useful interesting guys if you did then please leave a like please share it around that helps us out immensely comment down below and let me know what you think of the Nokia 8 Sirocco do you have any questions did I miss anything check out the full review over at the website Angela for accom where we go into a lot more depth subscribe to the channel if you want more like this hit the bell button for notifications of course checkout and authority calm for where your source for all things Android