Quick Verdict
The Nokia 8 Sirocco is a premium quality, well built phone with lots of features and storage however the camera quality is the same as that found on models lower down in the range. If you want a super stylish phone that will take fair to good quality images, and are willing to pay extra for a very sturdy build quality, it could be the phone for you.
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The Nokia 8 Sirocco is the premium smartphone in Nokia's new range, which includes the Nokia 8, Nokia 7 Plus and Nokia 6.1. The phone is carved out of a single piece of stainless steel, to create a solid and uniquely slim shape. It features 128GB of storage, 6GB of ram and a 12-megapixel main camera that has ZEISS optics.
The Nokia 8 Sirocco is available for £649.95 from Amazon UK. Here, we see how it performs.
Nokia 8 Sirocco Features
The Nokia 8 Sirocco has a dual 12-megapixel rear camera with ZEISS optics and optical zoom - with a wide f/1.8 aperture. There is also a 13-megapixel telephoto lens with f/2.6 aperture offering a 2x zoom.
The front facing camera is a 5-megapixel offering - which is low compared to other premium phones, with most offering at least 8 megapixels on the front.
It's a very sleek and well-built phone. Nokia boasts that the 8 Sirocco has been painstakingly machined out of a single piece of stainless steel to create a slim and compact shape. The phone (and screen) is heavily curved at the edges, especially the left and right, on both the front as well as the back giving the phone very slim edges.
Full 3D Corning Gorilla Glass 5 has been used to make the screen robust against scratches. The display is a 5.5-inch QuadHD offering, and the phone runs Android One, with the latest update to Oreo 8.1 available.
There's 128GB storage space and 6GB RAM, which should be plenty for running lots of applications at the same time. Nokia says that the Sirocco 8's chipset is one of the fastest available for Android (at the time of release), and Nokia's fastest smartphone to date, using a SnapDragon 835 processor.
USB type C is used for charging the phone, and there is no headphone jack, so an adapter has to be used if you don't have wireless ones. Nokia provides in-ear headphones with a USB-C fitment in the box, which is handy.
On the back is the Zeiss branded dual rear cameras and the round fingerprint sensor for unlocking the phone, On the right-hand side are the power button and volume rocker. On the left-hand side is access to the SIM tray.
The phone is waterproof (IP67) and dust resistant, and supports wireless charging. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity is available, as well as NFC.
In the camera app, there is a Pro mode available letting you change white balance, ISO, shutter speed and focus mode. There's also a live Bokeh mode to make backgrounds more attractive.
Key Features
- 12mp f/1.8 wide-angle lens (25mm equivalent), 1.4micron pixels
- 13mp f/2.6 telephoto lens (50mm equivalent)
- ZEISS optics
- 5-megapixel selfie camera
- Pro & live Bokeh modes in camera app
- ISO 100-3200 (selectable in Pro mode)
- 4K video recording
- 5.5inch QuadHD 16:9 screen
- 128GB storage, 6GB RAM
- Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth
- Runs Android One
- 3260mAh battery
- Waterproof and dust resistant
Nokia 8 Sirocco Handling
The Nokia 8 Sirocco is a very slim and curvy phone, and whilst it looks great, this means that it feels quite slippery in the hand. The back of the phone is also glass, which adds to this. The phone does feel really well built and sturdy, but a case is definitely recommended for grip and protection from scratches, thankfully one is provided in the box. It looks extremely thin from the side and very sleek.
The phone is very fast to respond, with the camera app allowing you to touch the screen in order to focus. The Pro mode is also very easy to navigate by clicking on the relevant setting and sliding the bar until the necessary setting is reached. Focusing and shutter speed response are both very good.
In the basic photo setting, we have access to 6 features along the top of the screen:
- Beauty - Turn this on and adjust the slider to make the effect stronger or weaker.
- Type of capture - There is standard single capture, or you can also allow dual capture, where front and back cameras capture an image at the same time, or finally P-I-P capture in which a small front camera image is captured within the frame.
- Auto timer - Off, 3s or 10s options are available.
- HDR - Off, Auto or On are the available options here.
- Flash - Again Off, Auto or On are the options.
- Switch cameras - switch between front or back cameras.
Pressing the hamburger menu button to the left of the camera screen allows you to switch between panorama, pro and live bokeh modes as well as access settings. Video recording mode is accessed via a button next to the shutter button at the bottom of the screen.
Post-capture, there are options to add a filter to your image, and also adjust levels including light, colour and pop. Light and colour also have drop downs giving you more slider options for highlights, shadows, whites etc. You can also rotate your image in the camera.
On viewing the screen, a heavy colour cast is created in the form of a blue haze on the left and right due to the very curved edges of the phone. This is especially noticeable when viewing pale things, both in camera and when browsing websites etc. It's quite offputting and is something that we can't see there being a fix for any time soon, as it's purely down to the thickness and curvature of the glass - a design fault that some will find very distracting. This may be the reason why many manufacturers are moving away from overly curved screen designs.
The smartphone has plenty of RAM, at 6GB, and plenty of storage as well, with 128GB, which is a good thing, as there is no MicroSD slot. It uses the SnapDragon 835, so isn't as fast or powerful as other smartphones running the SnapDragon 845, such as the OnePlus 6. The phone scores 1035 (single core) and 3960 (multi-core) in Geekbench 4, which is a little disappointing for a flagship phone. AnTuTu v7.1.0 benchmark gives a score of 159,303.
Battery life - The phone features a 3260mAh battery, which should keep you shooting for a full day, however, prolonged camera use could cause the battery to run down faster, so we'd recommend packing a portable charger just in case, to keep you going.
Nokia 8 Sirocco Performance
The performance section is where we look at the image quality performance of the camera. Additional sample photos and product shots are available in the Equipment Database, where you can add your own review, photos and product ratings.
Nokia 8 Sirocco Sample Photos
For the most part, sharp images are captured with good colour reproduction. The camera seems to handle shadows well, putting lots of detail into brickwork etc, however, it does have a habit of blowing out the sky in some situations. We also found that white balance was a problem on some images, with the clouds in the sky appearing to have a pink hue We encountered problems with blur, down to camera shake in a few of our images, this is most likely down to the lack of OIS for still images, meaning you have to have a very steady hand.
We were impressed with the detail in images, and there isn't much sign of purple fringing, which is good.
Nokia 8 Sirocco Lens test images
In some situations, the 2x telephoto lens appears to be the one that has issues with white balance, with the standard lens images looking more natural. The 2x zoom lens images seem to have a pink hue in some images. Macro performance is reasonable, with a good-looking background blur possible, even without using the dedicated "Bokeh" mode.
Nokia 8 Sirocco ISO test images
For the lowest noise and best detail possible we would recommend using ISO100 to ISO800, as images have low levels of noise and good levels of detail. For lower light situations ISO1600 still provides good results, although noise increases and detail is reduced. At ISO3200 noise levels become strong and we would recommend avoiding this setting if possible, although results may still be useful if resized and used on the web.
Nokia 8 Sirocco White-balance test images
White Balance Performance - Auto white balance (AWB) performs well under a variety of lighting conditions, indoors particularly, with good results under tungsten, fluorescent and mixed lighting. The presets don't make a large difference but can help if you want to control the output more precisely. Outdoors, in some situations, the auto white balance struggled at times.
Nokia 8 Sirocco Digital filters
There are 14 different filter settings which can be applied post-capture. These are: Auto, West, Palma, Metro, Eiffel, Blush, Modena, Reel, Vogue, Ollie, Bazaar, Alpaca and Vista.
Panorama mode - Panorama mode produced a decent image from far away however on closer inspection parts of the image aren't as sharp as they could be and evidence of poor stitching can be seen. The trees in the background look very warped in places.
Video - The Nokia 8 Sirocco records 4K UHD video at 30fps with OZO Audio. Video is sharp and detailed, although compression is quite high with 4K UHD video recorded at 42mbps (H264, MPEG-4 AVC). FullHD video is available, as well as high-speed video recording (at FullHD resolution, without audio). The camera lens is quite resistant to flare, even with the sun in the frame. The lack of optical image stabilisation means that video isn't as stable as other premium smartphones. You can view more videos on the ePHOTOzine YouTube Channel.
Value For Money
The Nokia 8 Sirocco is available for £649, making it more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy S9 at £535. The latter offers a more advanced camera for photographers, with a real changing aperture that adapts like the human eye to different situations, as well as optical image stabilisation (OIS). There is also the OnePlus 6, available for around £469, with OIS.
Nokia also offers a range of smartphones that aren't marketed as premium, that actually offer better camera capability. The Nokia 7 Plus has a similar spec on the back cameras and also has the ZEISS optics, and features a 16-megapixel selfie camera on the front, compared to the Sirocco's lowly 5 megapixels. To further rub it in, it's available for £329, a £300 saving on the Sirocco 8.
Have a look at more smartphones in our Top 10 Best Smartphones for Photography or have a look at the Best Smartphones under £300 for Photography.
Nokia 8 Sirocco Verdict
The Nokia 8 Sirocco is a gorgeous looking phone with an almost exclusively glass and metal construction, making it surprisingly pleasing to hold. However, what we have here is a severe case of style over substance.
The phone is slippy to hold, will scratch easily and lacks in the camera department when a cheaper Nokia model trumps it on the selfie camera spec. Add into this mix the colour cast on the screen, which can be distracting when trying to take images, and it's difficult to come to any other conclusion than this: the phone is overpriced, particularly when it comes to the camera offering.
Images are adequate and produce a good colour likeness for the most part however blurring and colour casts on the 2x zoom lens are an issue, and the lack of optical image stabilisation is a glaring omission for a premium smartphone.
It offers plenty of storage for your images and lots of RAM, but ultimately it's not going to appeal to those that value great camera functionality. Those that must have the most stylish looking phone will appreciate the high-quality construction and aesthetic, but it's not a phone that's been designed with the photographer in mind, despite the ZEISS branding on the lens.
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