You know their name, they have been the one-to-beat a few decades back, but now the Finnish phone brand that thought us to connect is back, and they’re quite aggressive.
After a hard push on Windows Phone, Nokia has been back and has been fighting an uphill battle of relevance in this tumultuous industry. After outing some decent mid-range offerings, and catching our attention with nostalgia once again, it seems Nokia is ready to fully get into the ring once more with a slew of offerings coming this 2020.
FIRST TRULY GLOBAL FUTURE-PROOF PHONE
The main highlight of the online presentation is the launch of Nokia’s foray into 5G with the Nokia 8.3 5G — dubbed as the first TRULY GLOBAL future-proof phone. While there are 5G phones out in the market as early as 2019, Juho Sarvikas, Chief Product Officer HMD Global, claims the Nokia 8.3 5G is the only phone that you can bring anywhere in the world and will adhere to every 5G band. From the lowest (600mHz) to the highest (3.8GHZ), the Nokia 8.3 5G ticks all the boxes.
Encased with a ‘Nordic atmosphere’-inspired design, the phone’s back refracts light just right to give it a good shimmer. The Nokia 8.3 5G also houses Nokia’s PureView Quad-Ai Camera with Zeiss Optics that’s built for taking excellent photographs and even more marvelous videos.
The presentation concentrated on the Nokia 8.3 5G’s video-taking capabilities with an Action Cam mode to keep the image clear and stable even while moving, as well as a cinema-mode where settings can be calibrated to mimic high-end cinema cameras being used today. Video HDR allows you to take in more details no matter the lighting situation and various cinema filters gives you a whole slew of creative freedom.
Under the hood, the Nokia 8.3 5G is powered by Qualcom’s new Snapdragon 765G Modular chipset. This should give the phone a good amount of power for gaming and day-to-day use.
The estimate global price for the Nokia 8.3 5G falls under 599 Euros or roughly Php 33,000 converted. Quite a hefty price, to be honest. While we’re used to seeing the 8 series of the Snapdragon in place for phones priced beyond the 30k, we have yet to fully try the 765G out to give it a proper verdict, but we hope that price could come down once it hits Philippine shores (maybe somewhere below 30k, here’s hoping).
BIG BATTERY, BIG PERFORMANCE
Aside from the Nokia 8.3 5G, the Finnish brand announced a new iteration for its Nokia 5 series, namely the Nokia 5.3 promising to have everything big, except the price.
The Nokia 5.3 boasts big screens at 6.55″ display, a Quad-camera configuration (13MP wide, 5MP ultrawide, 2MP Macro, 2MP Depth Sensor) all powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 and up to 6GB RAM (depending on market), all packaged with stunning chassis. The sand colorway caught my attention instantly. But what the phone touts is its signature 2-day battery life, a huge claim considering some smartphones, even flagship ones get depleted within a day’s use! Global SRP for the Nokia 5.3 is at 189 Euros or somewhere along the Php 10,000 price-range.
BASICS AND A BIT MORE
Nokia has sold more than 5 million Nokia tier 1 devices since HMD Group started. This, “first-phone” of sorts gives you all the basics that you need and has a superbly friendly price point. Nokia ups the ante again with the Nokia 1.3. With its 5.7″ IPS display and running on Android 10 Go, the Nokia 1.3 is one of the most affordable android phones to date. With a global SRP of 95 Euros or roughly Php 5,200, the Nokia 1.3 admittedly looks pretty premium thanks to simplistic, yet wonderful designed back covers.
RETURN OF THE COMEBACK…AGAIN!
If there’s one thing Nokia has in bulk, it’s nostalgia. Back then, Nokia has been aggressive trying to fill each and every single market segment. If you were into photography, they had a phone for that, if you’re into fashion, they had a phone for that; if you’re an audiophile and just wants to listen to sooo much music but can’t be bothered to bring your Portable CD Player with you, Nokia had a phone for that as well: the Nokia 5310 Xpress Music.
Guess, what, it’s back! Almost in every way you remembered it but better, because of new functions interwoven with its classic design and frame.
Aside from text and calls, the new Nokia 5310, like with most retro Nokia phones, can hook up to the internet, albeit at a slower bandwidth (2.5G). It has about 30 days of standby time and days of continuous music play. The Nokia 5310 is said to come with a 39 Euro (or Php 2200) price tag.
Nokia knows that to make it through the clutter, they’ll need the support of various partners and they’re partnership with Google is stronger than ever. With a commitment to have updates for all the devices until 2022, these new Nokia phones are looking to solid contenders in today’s market.
3 Smartphones for 2020 that targets various market segments, and a legacy phone re-introduced for nostalgia’s sake, is this enough to have Nokia compete among the varied smartphone brands in the market today? We feel that it just might.