That brings us to the Dual Sight camera, or to use the marketing term, ‘bothie’ mode. You can take photos and record video with the Nokia 8 where scenes from both the front and the rear camera will be visible at the same time. The unfortunate marketing name aside, this could be a nice way to, say, record your own reactions when your kid is doing something cute. Resulting images are 16:9, instead of 4:3 when capturing stills using a single camera on the Nokia 8 by default (this can also be changed to 16:9 from Settings within the Camera app, if you want).
We’ve seen third-party apps and other Android phones do this before, but what HMD is really pushing here is the ability to livestream bothie (and indeed ‘regular’) videos to Facebook and YouTube right from within the camera app. The company says it worked closely with Qualcomm to be the first to push this feature out, but you can expect it to be available on other smartphones soon.
We can imagine this feature being useful when you are at, say, a concert, or if you are a reporter covering a live event, when you want to capture both sides of the story. The streaming feature worked as advertised, though we should note that you might need to verify your YouTube account and enable live streaming manually to stream to Google’s platform. Extended bothie streaming sessions can warm up the back of the phone considerably, which is a sign that the heat management solution we described earlier is doing its job.
Quality of photos and videos taken in bothie mode is decent, but not as good as you can capture when using the individual cameras normally. Note that there is no way to use the bothie mode outside of the stock Camera app at the moment.
Verdict
Nokia made its name selling no-nonsense phones that were built to last, and while the ownership of the mobile brand might have changed hands, the Nokia 8 is a smartphone that would have been a worthy addition to the lineup of the Finnish company even in its heyday. It offers good build quality, a great display, excellent performance with stock Android, the promise of regular updates, first-class battery life, and good cameras with some neat tricks. On the flip-side, some might find the design boring, it isn’t fully waterproof like many competitors are, and the low-light camera performance could’ve been better.
Priced at Rs. 36,999, the Nokia 8 goes up against the likes of the OnePlus 5 (Review), and overall, we found it to be the better of the two, despite the latter sporting better specifications on paper. If you are on a tighter budget, you could also consider the Honor 8 Pro (Review), which has a similar dual-camera setup and is a solid all-round performer as well.
Expectedly, the overall experience with the Nokia 8 isn’t as polished as it is with some of the more expensive Android smartphones such as the HTC U11 (Review) and Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and Note 8 flagships, but it’s safe to say that if a smartphone like this had shipped from the Nokia stable a few years ago, the Finnish company might never have had to step back from the mobile business. As for taking on the likes of Samsung and Apple at their own game, there’s the rumoured Nokia 9 to look forward to.
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