Since the recent revival of the Nokia brand under HMD Global, the company has certainly kept busy and have announced the upcoming release of five, yes you read that right, five new phones in April/May 2018. These are the Nokia 8 Sirocco, Nokia 7 Plus, New Nokia 6, Nokia 1, and a remake of the classic Nokia 8110 banana phone .
Whew, that’s quite a lot of new gadgets to keep up with! To make things a little easier, let’s take a closer look at two of those models – the Nokia 8 Sirocco and Nokia 1 – and explore the differences in their respective Android One and Android Go systems.
Nokia 8 Sirocco
The Nokia 8 Sirocco is an upgraded variant of the 2017 Nokia 8. Thinner than its predecessor, it opted to remove the classic home button for a larger edge-to-edge curved screen and minimal top and bottom bezels. There is only one colour available (black), and the phone’ body is made up mostly of durable Gorilla glass, with a thin stainless steel frame, leaving us with a compact, sleek phone with a large 5.5” 2K QHD screen.
One of the phone’s main selling points is its camera, boasting 12/13 megapixel dual rear cameras with ZEISS optics allowing for 2x optical zoom and low-light photography, while the 5 megapixel front camera has a wide lens for great wide-angle shots.
The 8 Sirocco is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 853 processor, with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of memory. It adds the useful function of wireless charging capabilities, but at the cost of a thinner frame, HMD has sacrificed the trusty headphone jack, so users will have no choice but to use Bluetooth or USB-C headphones instead.
This is one of Nokia’s latest additions to its family of Android One devices. Launched by Google in 2014, Android One encompasses a line of smartphones that run a completely unmodified version of the Android operating system. Under this programme, phones remain secure and up-to-date through regular OS updates and Google Play Protect, providing a consistent and safe user experience.
The Nokia 8 Sirocco will be available from early April 2018, retailing at a global average price of €749.
Nokia 1
The Nokia 1 prides itself on being a quality smartphone that is accessible to everyone. It doesn’t have all the flashy cameras and screens of its fellow Nokia colleagues, but it’s a humble, affordable phone that is equipped with all the necessities – 4G LTE, Quad Core processor, 5 megapixel rear camera, and 2 megapixel front camera.
The phone comes in two colours – Warm Red and Dark Blue, but with the Nokia 1, HMD is re-introducing the Nokia X-Press On covers, offering tough and durable polycarbonate phone covers that can easily be changed to express your personality.
Nokia 1 runs on the Android Oreo Go Edition, a system tailored for lower-end smartphones with 1GB of RAM or less. The OS is optimized with smaller-sized applications, fewer pre-installed apps, and special versions of existing Google apps (Google Go, Google Assistant Go) for a smoother user experience.
Compared to Android One, which is a partnership directly between Google and phone manufacturers and is more skewed towards a pure, secure Android experience, Android Go is an optimized version of the regular Android Oreo OS made specifically for entry-level smartphones.
The Nokia 1 will be available from early April, retailing at an affordable average global price of $85.
These two phones in Nokia’s upcoming slew of releases couldn’t be more different from one another. Further information and technical specifications of the Nokia 8 Sirocco, Nokia 1, and the rest of the upcoming Nokia phones can be found on the Nokia webpage.
Joyce is a language nerd whose idea of a good time includes speed-solving Rubik’s cubes and binging Netflix, all fuelled by drinking many, many mugs of tea.
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