Michael Crider
Nokia-branded phones are still pretty rare on this side of the Atlantic, especially outside of the budget category. Verizon’s trying to shift the trend: it’s announced the Nokia 8 V 5G UW (which I’m told we can shorten to “Nokia 8 V” to stop everyone’s eyes from rolling). It’s launching on the network for $700 today on Thursday, November 12th.
The Nokia 8 V appears to be a rebadged version of the Nokia 8.3 5G, which has been on sale in Europe for some time. It’s massive, even by today’s big phone standards, with a 6.81-inch screen and 4500mAh battery. But the star of the show is easily the cameras. The four-sensor rear cluster is headlined by a 64 megapixel, F 1.8 Zeiss-branded standard cam. A wide-angle 12MP secondary sensor is next to it, with a 2MP macro and 2MP depth sensor thrown in for good measure. The front-facing cam is no slouch either, at 24 megapixels.
Elsewhere, the phone is a step down from flagship territory. It uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chipset with 6GB of RAM (the same hardware setup as the Pixel 4a 5G), a side-mounted fingerprint sensor in the power button, and 64 gigabytes of storage with a MicroSD card expansion.
There’s no word on water resistance or wireless charging, and though Nokia’s software is pretty light, the 8V is launching with the year-old Android 10. That makes it a pretty hard sell for $700, though it does include access to Verizon’s ultra-wideband 5G, which has driven up the price of similar phones.
