Review | Nokia 8 Sirocco phone review: almost feels like a winner, but let down by average camera and battery life
Nokia’s latest smartphone has great build quality and dramatic curves, but it isn’t quite comfortable to hold, with buttons that are flush but hard to find; a fast focusing camera takes crisp photos, but doesn’t match top-tier models
The “Sirocco” is an update of last autumn’s Nokia 8, the Finnish brand’s first flagship smartphone in more than a decade. And for the first time since the iPhone changed the mobile landscape, Nokia has a handset that mostly looks and feels like a top-tier, modern product.
I say “mostly” because, while the Sirocco – launched by Nokia licensee HMD Global – features an eye-catching dual-curved OLED screen design just like Samsung’s popular Galaxy handsets, the resemblance is closer to the older Galaxy S6 Edge and S7 Edge than the S8 and S9.
That means the curvature of the Sirocco’s display is dramatic and pronounced, and not soft and subtle like the S8 and S9. Samsung made the refinement after realising that the hard curves of the S6 and S7 Edge resulted in erroneous palm touches and a slightly uncomfortable sharp feel when gripping the phone over long periods.,
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The edges of the Sirocco’s display look cool – images appear to spill off the screen like water from an infinity pool – but it is a 2015 Samsung design that’s less ergonomic than the 2017 Samsung refinement.