Class Apart

Seldom does a phone bowl you over with its design. Nokia 8 Sirocco is a fine piece of hardware crafted from a single piece of stainless steel. The screen is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 with curved edges that blends into the thin metal strip on the side panels. Even at 7.5 mm thickness, it is surprisingly razor thin. And being IP67 certified, makes it water resistant.

The 5.5-inch 2k display does a great job at colour reproduction. Gaming and video streaming on the curved edge-to-edge display is a delight. The Nokia 8 Sirocco runs Android One - the pure stock Android OS - which means there is no bloatware or custom UI. Our review unit, running Android 8.1.0, consumed only 13 GB of the 128 GB of internal storage. The overall performance of the Nokia 8 Sirocco was satisfactory as the device performed smoothly with multiple apps and games running in the background. However, despite being priced at `49,990, it is powered by Qualcomm 835 processor; whereas the new flagship breed packs in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor.

Sirocco's Zeiss optics for the rear camera is worth mentioning. The dual camera at the rear captures live bokeh images - it worked smoothly when the focus was on humans, but on objects, it struggled. It also needs a well-lit environment to capture bokeh images. There is also an option to edit the background blur under the bokeh editor setting in Google Photos. It also offers the 'bothie' feature that allows a user to capture an image or video with both the front and rear camera in one frame. This fancy feature may not be of much use unless you are a YouTuber or Vlogger. One can also stream the bothie video live on YouTube or Facebook.

The Nokia 8 Sirocco is a perfect blend of beauty and brain. Despite its slim build, it packs in a 3,260 mAh battery which lasts a day with average use. Using the fast charging feature, 50 per cent battery gets charged in just over 30 minutes.