Nokia 8.1 128GB

Just like the Nokia 5.1 Plus (review) and 6.1 Plus (review), which are rebranded iterations of the Nokia X5 and X6 respectively, the 8.1 was launched in China as the X7. Like all the smartphones in this series, the Nokia 8.1 sports a glass-sandwich design with an aluminium frame and a display notch. As you can guess, the build quality of Nokia's 8.1 is top-notch (pun intended). Not only does the device look classy, but it also feels solid when held in the hand. The phone utilises Series 6000 aluminium that makes it seem very robust. While the phone tips the scales at 180g, the weight has been distributed really well. The smartphone is also quite sleek, thanks to a 7.97mm waist.

Ever since its comeback, we've had high hopes from Nokia in the camera department. That's because even before the current crop of camera-centric smartphones, Nokia has been there and done that. Crazy megapixels? Check. Ability to click RAW photos? Check. High-quality optics? Check (thanks to its partnership with ZEISS). Sadly however, we've seen mixed results from the brand with regards to the imaging capabilities. But if my experience with the Nokia 8.1 is anything to go by, the brand has a winner on its hands. In terms of specs, you get a 12MP optically-stabilised shooter with a 1.4um sensor size, which is paired with a 13MP depth sensor. The lenses are ZEISS-certified, while the camera offers live bokeh mode, and can record 4K videos along with slow-mo and timelapse clips. For selfies, the handset flaunts a high-res 20-megapixel snapper, though it's a fixed-focus unit.

The Nokia 7 Plus was the first smartphone in India to draw power from Qualcomm's Snapdragon 660 chipset. Carrying that legacy forward, the 8.1 is the second device in the subcontinent to come equipped with the Snapdragon 710 SoC. The chip brings several flagship features from the SD8xx series, including the power-efficient 10nm fabrication process. The octa-core silicon features custom-built Kryo 360 architecture which has two quad-core clusters running at 2.2GHz and 1.7GHz, respectively. For graphics, Snapdragon 710 comes integrated with Adreno 616 GPU. The hardware ensures incredibly smooth performance, which is also likely due to the fact that the smartphone is part of Android One and runs the latest iteration of Google's mobile OS, i.e. 9.0 Pie. There's zero bloatware in the OS, and apart from the custom camera app (described above), all the apps in the device are stock. The Nokia 8.1 also offers swift multitasking, thanks to 4GB of RAM.

One of the biggest hallmarks of the Nokia 7 Plus was its battery life as it shipped with a 3,800mAh cell. The Nokia 8.1 also aims to continue in the same vein, although it comes with a slightly smaller 3,500mAh battery. However, when combined with the power-efficient processor, you get similar battery life, if not better. Strangely however, in our battery test wherein we play an HD video on loop with both the brightness and volume set at 50 percent levels, the phone was only able to run 11 hours, which is just about average. In real-life however, the smartphone usually had about 20 to 25 percent by the end of the day. The screen-on time is also quite impressive as I got around more than four and a half hours on more than one occasion.