
Hands-On with the Nokia 8 Sirocco: Reviving Nokia's 'Dream Phone' Concept - rbanffy
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12480/hands-on-nokia-8-sirocco?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
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Nokinside
Not even HMD people believe that Sirocco is going to sell. They are just
putting it into the market to show that they are coming. It's for the presence
and testing the market for input. Walk before run. Their next high end phone
will be the real thing (and it's going to be 5G phone)

There is a good reason to expect that HMD/Nokia phones will be very
competitive in just few years. UMD has Foxconn money and manufacturing muscle
behind it plus everything that comes from Nokia Research/Bell labs.

46% of Hon Hai's (Foxconn) revenue comes from Apple. Foxconn wants to reduce
its dependence from Apple. Nokia wants to maintain the value of its brand in
consumer space.

~~~
Nokinside
s/UMD/HMD

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foobarbazetc
I have a Nokia 8 for development and it’s a nicer phone than the Pixel 2 for
the price.

Imagine a world where Nokia doesn’t hire a MS exec as CEO to tank the company
so they can sell it to MS and instead adopted Android.

They’d be worth more than Samsung.

~~~
jitix
> They’d be worth more than Samsung

Samsung is not just about phones. They are a major computer hardware
manufacturer (memory, SSDs, etc.), major appliance manufacturer and also a
major producer of mobile chips, among other things.

But yeah if Nokia had adopted android long back Samsung's phone's probably
wouldn't have become that popular. Or Nokia might have eaten market share from
Apple.

~~~
pjmlp
They could have started for not having internal wars between Symbian and Maemo
units.

Already when the first Maemo tablet was shown to us on internal demos, we saw
the future, but it was unthinkable to have GSM support.

Followed by not having a bonus clause for the CEO to tank the company.

Thankfully they managed to survive, even if on a different shape.

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mtgex
A few thoughts on this:

The title of the article made me think it's a concept phone, as in not real
and unlikely to be produced. I almost didn't click on the article because if
that's the case I don't really care.

It looks just like the Galaxy S8, which is a great phone with a great camera
that's much more affordable.

It's crazy how many words I see in life (Sirocco) that I know the meaning of
specifically because of a lifetime of playing Magic: the Gathering.

~~~
rando444
I've broken more Samsung phones than I can count. I broke my S8 within 3 weeks
of getting it, even with a case on it.

They have a reputation of having the most breakable phones for a reason. [0]

By anecdotal comparison, the last Nokia I owned was a windows phone, did not
require a case, and lasted me 3.5 years without a scratch.

For me, if Nokia can create an S8 looking phone with the handset quality they
are known for, for me it would be worth the investment.

[0] [https://www.techradar.com/news/hold-the-phone-samsung-
galaxy...](https://www.techradar.com/news/hold-the-phone-samsung-
galaxy-s8-dubbed-most-fragile-handset-ever)

~~~
bb88
To me, it seems about 1 out of 4 people that pull out a Samsung phone has a
cracked screen. I don't have hard data, but I've seen it happen enough in my
friends phones that I decided it would be best to avoid it entirely.

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SloopJon
Although AnandTech claims that it has a headphone jack, other reviews state
that it does not.

It's interesting that it's an Android One phone. With support for GSM and
CDMA, I wonder whether it will be supported with Project Fi.

~~~
sexydefinesher
Its so infuriating that they never show the top and bottoms of phones so you
cant tell. On another note, does anyone know how modding friendly Nokia phone
are, i.e do they have open bootloaders?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
From what I have read on reddit, Nokia locks their bootloaders and won't
unlock them.

~~~
FridgeSeal
They've said they will unlock their bootloaders, but they've not got around to
doing it yet from what I understand.

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peterwwillis
They say it's IP67 certified, then say it's waterproof. These aren't the same
things. IP67 isn't even very good water resistance; IP68 is _slightly_ better,
and several popular phones support it.

> Its diamond-cut edges provide a rather comfortable grip, which is much
> appreciated on a 7.5-mm thick handset. Obviously, this grip is a
> differentiator, so when you hold the N8S, you can easily recognize it.

Diamond cutting is not polishing; you can round and polish metal without a
diamond cutter. Maybe these reviewers are confused again and the diamond
cutting is for smoothing the glass? And by the way, who are these people that
spend almost a grand on a highly fragile glass-covered phone and don't keep
them in a rubbery case? (I probably just answered my own question: rich
people)

~~~
epanchin
The real question is who spends a grand on a glass phone then covers it in a
cheap rubber case.

They are the modern day sofa protectors.

~~~
Casseres
Someone who didn't want glass on their phone in the first place – someone who
treats their phone like a tool, not a trophy.

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snorremd
Releasing Android One phones is at least a good move if you want to target the
purist segment of the Android market. I have previously bought the Nexus
phones and around christmas bought a Nokia 8 because HMD put a more or less
stock version of Android on it. I much prefer stock Android to the touchwiz
business Samsung is doing, at least as it was on my Samsung Galaxy S2 and S3.

It will be interesting to follow Nokia and HMD and I hope they succeed. There
are too many phones with subpar custom UIs and menus + crapware that lags one
or two major Android versions behind the latest release.

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alphadevx
I'd be happier if they fixed the damn microphone issues with the existing
Nokia 8 first, or at least acknowledged the issue for those Nokia 8 users
(myself included) who can't even make a call on this device:
[https://community.phones.nokia.com/support/discussions/topic...](https://community.phones.nokia.com/support/discussions/topics/7000011912)

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spiderfarmer
I am confused. What exactly did Microsoft buy if Nokia can come back with
everything they had previously?

~~~
Nokinside
They bought only Nokia's mobile phone division and license for the Nokia brand
for a few years. Nokia Research, Nokia Networks, the brand and the patents are
still owned by Nokia.

After MS sold what remains of the Nokia phone manufacturing (including feature
phone capacity that sells 70 million phones a year) to Foxconn, Foxconn and
Nokia made HMD Global happen. Nokia provides brand for 10 years, patents and
research, Foxconn finances the operation and builds the phones.

~~~
pjmlp
Also to note, HMD has lots of former Nokia employees, and uses the former
Nokia Mobile building in Espoo.

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FiveSquared
Why not just make a cheap, high quality phone for developing markets àla
Xiamoi?

~~~
RaleyField
That's the new 3310. And also, why go to the moon when you can climb Mount
Everest?

