07 December 2018, India:
HMD Global launched the global variant of Nokia X7 on December 5 in Dubai. Many people were excited about this launch. Now this smartphone will makes it’s way to India. HMD Global is hosting a launch event on December 10th in India, where it is expected to launch Nokia 8.1.
Nokia 8.1 will be the successor of Nokia 7 Plus (strange naming technique). Nokia 7 Plus is one of the most popular smartphone produced by HMD Global.
Nokia 8.1 is expected to launch in the ₹20k-₹26k price bracket. It will be interesting to watch the strategy of HMD Global with this smartphone, whether the company will make the smartphone online exclusive (like Nokia 5.1 Plus and Nokia 6.1 Plus) to price it aggressively, or whether they will launch it in offline market.
The Nokia 8.1 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 710. This will be the first smartphone with Snapdragon 710 to be launched in India.
The Snapdragon 710 is based on the 10nm architecture. It is the first non-flagship chip from Qualcomm to be built on 10nm architecture (Snapdragon 835 and 845 are built on 10nm architecture).
The smartphone will also have the Pureview display (the tag HMD Global uses for it’s premium display).
Let’s take a look on the Nokia 8.1
Display
The Nokia 8.1 has 6.18 inch Full HD+ Display. The display has a Notch at top. The resolution of display is 2246x1080p. The display supports HDR video playback (Pureview Display). The display is a rich colour display.
The smartphone has screen aspect ratio of 18.7:9. It has 1500:1 contrast ratio. The display has 500 nits of brightness.
Camera
The smartphone has dual rear camera combination at back. The primary rear camera is a 12 MP camera. It has a f/1.8 aperture. The pixel size in primary rear camera is of 1.4μm. HMD Global has used Sony IMX 363 sensor.
The secondary rear camera is a 13 MP camera for depth sensing. The camera supports AI scene recognition. It can automatically identify 18 different scenes like food, portrait, night scene etc.
EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) and OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) are present on the smartphone.
The smartphone has a 20 MP front camera. The front camera has a f/2.0 aperture. The pixel size is 1.8μm (pixel binning technology).
The cameras supports OZO Audio capture (during video capture) using the 3 mics present on smartphone.
The smartphone supports the Dual view mode. You can capture photo or video from both front and back camera simultaneously.
Software
The smartphone will be launched with Android Pie out of the box. The smartphone will have the Android One branding which means it will receive regular Android version updates for 2 years and monthly security patches for 3 years.
HMD Global has a good track record in updates.
Connectivity
The smartphone has a USB Type – C port for charging and data transfer. It has a 3.5 mm Headphone Jack, which is a good thing.
The smartphone has Bluetooth 5.0. It also has NFC.
It will be also interesting to see how many storage and colour variants of Nokian 8.1, HMD Global will bring to India. The Nokia X7 has four colour variants and three storage variants (4GB RAM + 64GB Internal Storage, 6GB RAM + 64GB Internal Storage, 6GB + 128GB Internal Storage) . Watch this space for future updates and Indian pricing.
Update : HMD Global has launched only one storage variant in India. The Indian variant has 4 GB RAM and 64 GB Internal Storage, it is priced at ₹26,999.
(Image – Nokia, HMD Global)
