Nokia 8 review: Connecting the dots

Telephony

The Nokia 8 has the generic phonebook/dialer app with the list of favorites, the call log and the contacts are all tabs within the same app. The dialer is summoned with a tap on a button. Smart dial is supported too.

Favorites • Call log • Contacts • Dialler

Loudspeaker

The Nokia 8 has a single loudspeaker - the Nokia 6's stereo setup didn't make the cut. The lone driver can pump out a lot of decibels if the tune is right and it scored an Excellent rating in our three-pronged test. It kept its sound distortion-free even at max volume, too.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Sony Xperia XZ Premium	62.9	65.2	71.6	Below Average
Oppo R11	66.4	71.5	65.0	Average
Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus	65.0	68.2	70.8	Average
OnePlus 3T	61.0	69.3	78.3	Good
Samsung Galaxy S8	66.2	70.5	72.5	Good
LG G6	66.8	68.8	74.5	Good
Apple iPhone 7 Plus	68.3	72.2	72.9	Good
Nokia 6 (Global version)	63.1	70.9	82.5	Good
Xiaomi Mi 6	66.1	69.0	84.1	Very Good
OnePlus 5	69.2	72.9	77.5	Very Good
Huawei P10	67.7	70.0	83.6	Very Good
Huawei Mate 9	83.1	74.5	85.0	Excellent
Nokia 8	88.0	77.1	81.4	Excellent

Google's Photos is your multimedia hub

There are no custom apps for handling multimedia content on the Nokia 8. For gallery, you get Google Photos, which isn't half bad, though for most of its functionality you need to have cloud upload enabled. If you do, you'd be able to search for photos with words: "beach", "selfies" and even people by name.

The AI assistance goes on - Google will automatically take photos (or videos) it finds interesting and spruce them up. It will create collages, panoramas, filter-heavy images, short animations and other.

You can, of course, stay offline, and then the album, GIF, and collage creation can be done manually.

Google Photos

Photos has a built-in editor too, which offers filters, light and color correction and basic cropping and rotation. There's no option for doodling on the images, or for slapping overlays and such - but that's hardly a shortcoming, really.

Photos editor

If the photo was taken in Portrait mode, then you can also launch a Bokeh editor and choose a different strength for the bokeh effect.

Bokeh Editor • Playing with the bokeh strength

There's no dedicated video player, Google Photos also takes care of that. Its feature set is basic at best - the most it can do is loop a video, and there is no subtitle support. You can, however, edit videos - trimming, 90-degree rotation, and stabilization are the available options.

Photos as video player

Google Music

Google Play Music is loaded on by default and it has come a long way. Even if you don't intend to subscribe to Google's streaming service, it still offers bells and whistles like album art, powerful searching algorithms and also the neat ability to upload your own tracks to the cloud and stream them for free.

Google Play Music

Audio output is good

The Nokia 8 didn’t impress with its loudness in either part of our audio quality test. The flagship was below average on both occasions, which is hardly ideal given its status. Still, the clarity of its output was quite good with no major weak points.

The scores were excellent throughout with an active external amplifier, while plugging in a pair of headphones didn’t cause too much damage. Some distortion crept in, while stereo quality degraded a moderate amount, but the overall performance was still pretty solid.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Nokia 8	+0.01, -0.03	-94.2	90.5	0.060	0.087	-88.5
Nokia 8 (headphones)	+0.06, -0.18	-93.8	90.3	0.166	0.282	-63.5
OnePlus 5	+0.03, -0.01	-94.1	94.1	0.0010	0.0070	-94.2
OnePlus 5 (headphones)	+0.15, -0.08	-94.0	94.0	0.0033	0.139	-59.9
HTC U11	+0.05, -0.11	-94.1	94.1	0.0017	0.0067	-94.5
HTC U11 (headphones)	+0.05, -0.02	-93.7	93.8	0.0018	0.105	-53.7
Samsung Galaxy S8	+0.04, -0.00	-92.5	92.5	0.0016	0.0072	-92.8
Samsung Galaxy S8 (headphones)	+0.03, -0.03	-92.3	92.3	0.0056	0.060	-77.2
Sony Xperia XZs	+0.01, -0.02	-93.5	93.3	0.0042	0.0092	-92.7
Sony Xperia XZs (headphones)	+0.12, -0.32	-92.6	93.2	0.0072	0.219	-67.0
LG G6	+0.01, -0.02	-93.3	93.3	0.0059	0.0095	-94.4
LG G6 (headphones)	+0.01, -0.02	-93.4	93.4	0.0067	0.020	-56.3
Huawei P10	+0.01, -0.04	-93.0	94.8	0.0019	0.0080	-93.5
Huawei P10 (headphones)	+0.25, -0.02	-92.7	93.0	0.192	0.175	-59.5
Apple iPhone 7	+0.06, -0.10	-92.4	92.3	0.0015	0.0093	-80.9
Apple iPhone 7 (headphones)	+0.03, -0.11	-92.3	92.3	0.0011	0.012	-77.0

Motorola Moto Z2 Force frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.