Nokia’s assault on the nostalgic parts of our brain has continued with the release of its first luxury handset in over a decade, the Nokia 8 Sirocco.
Last used in 2005, the Sirocco name is Nokia’s way of signifying that this phone is as much about its design and craftsmanship as it is about taking selfies and chatting on Facebook Messenger.
The 8 Sirocco is based, rather unsurprisingly on last year’s Nokia 8 flagship smartphone with a few pretty important differences.
For starters there’s a whole new design here with a single sheet of 3D-curved Gorilla Glass 5 that wraps around the sides and on all corners. Underneath it is a curved 5.5-inch 2K POLED display.
In plain english that’s about as good a display as you’ll find on any smartphone, and most flagship TVs for that matter.
Rather than use cheaper, lighter aluminium, Nokia has chosen to machine the 8 Sirocco out of a single block of stainless steel that has been diamond polished. This makes it heavier, but a lot stronger.
On the back you’ll find that the trend of incredibly shiny phones continues with a single polished sheet of Gorilla Glass complete with an almost infinite black coating underneath. Looks fabulous but it’s going to attract greasy fingerprints like you wouldn’t believe.
Also on the back you’ll find a new, faster fingerprint sensor and a 12MP and 13MP telephoto lens dual-camera system that has been tuned and perfected by Zeiss optics. For those that want to take selfies, there’s also a 16MP camera on the front.
If you’re someone who values recording audio as much as they do video then there’s good news on that front as well. The Nokia 8 Sirocco comes with three high-performance mics that can record in crystal clear 24-bit audio. If you’re someone who likes videoing music gigs, then this is probably the phone for you.
Like so many other flagship phones out there the Nokia 8 Sirocco is also water-resistant and supports the QI wireless charging standard.
The 8 Sirocco also runs the latest version of Android 8 Oreo and thanks to a new partnership with Google, will get the latest updates at the same time as Google’s own smartphones. For those worried about storage, the phone has 128GB of internal storage but won’t come with a MicroSD card slot that 128GB is all you’re getting.
It’s available in Black, will go on sale in April and is set to cost around €749 with a UK price expected shortly.