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  • .vodka - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    Another notch. Yuck.

    Is it ever going away at this point?
  • Dragonstongue - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    yeh..hate that stupid notch as well, no 3.5mm jack or have one but have notch, not buying it IMHO

    as well

    still do not get why smartphone makers are NOT using the largest possible battery they can these days...they want to make them all "bling" with quite high end components, an equally high asking price, glass as far as the eye can see and a barely acceptable battery to handle it all (in this case asking price is verging on asking too much just because of branding instead of the overall "package" justify the cost, like when others notably Redmi 5 Plus is WAY better overall spec (maybe not camera) for ~$140 less then this)

    they should be targeting a minimum battery size of 3500-4500 (or more) unless they are Apple who does their own stupid things (they seem to handle smaller battery better then most...but, hardly worth paying through the nose for anything Apple these days, unless you are Apple or bust type person)
  • philehidiot - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    I do wonder if part of it is fear of another Note 7 disaster?
  • kaidenshi - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    Apple's newest phones solve the issue by having two battery packs fused together in a non-rectangular shape to fit as much battery as possible inside the shell. It would be nice if the other manufacturers could follow suit instead of chasing gimmicks like notches and curved screens.

    Then again, I'm old school; I miss having user-swappable batteries, a headphone jack, and physical buttons on my phone.
  • jabber - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    I think the smaller batteries are more about shortening the battery's actual useful charging life. You get a battery that new gives you a days charge. Within a year to 18 months you only have 60% capacity left...
  • Zingam - Saturday, October 6, 2018 - link

    So you prefer big, fat, ugly bezels that only makes the phone bigger?
  • quadrivial - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    Moving down from a 660 in the 7 plus to a 636 in the 7.1. Why would anyone buy this?
  • quadrivial - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    That's a 40-60% slower GPU according to notebookcheck and 25% slower CPU. In addition, the only memory sources I can find seem to indicate that the 636 has 1333MHz RAM instead of the 1866MHz in the 660.

    It seems like the 636 is the 660 with lower binning and lasered-off GPU and DSP.
  • Marlin1975 - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    Yea the 636 is a lower binned 660 chip. The only net positive is lower power usage perhaps. So my guess is it saves money for the chip and makes the battery's performance look better than before.
  • neblogai - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    I would gladly buy this if price was better. Do not care about mobile CPU speed at all, as long as it is midrange and good with battery. But interested in having a good screen and camera.
  • Teckk - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    Any idea how this might compare to the upcoming Snapdragon 710? Will that be reserved for expensive phones?
  • ZolaIII - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    S710 A75's is 25% faster then A73's, A55's are 13% faster then A53's (MHz/MHz), the GPU is almost 2x faster. As the things go & you can buy Paco F1 for less money and Meizu 16 for a little bit more both with S845 that has 2x more GPU power than S710 the S710 will have hard time on anything more expensive than 300$/250€. HMD won't sell much of those that much is certain.
  • Teckk - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    Thanks! 710 looks like top of the line or above a mid-ranger. I do own a Xiaomi phone now and I'm not a fan of their updates. I also like the Nokia design and build quality. Got a Nokia 6.1 for my mom and it is pretty impressive.
  • ZolaIII - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    I am not a fun of Xiaomis neither software nor updates but that's OK as I do my own. Unfortunately I didn't lived up yet to the part that I don't have to do it my self disregarding of OEM & I had lot of them.
  • WorldWithoutMadness - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    It's not moving down because it's 7.1 not 7.1 plus. Nokia 7 is 630.
  • fred666 - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    4 GB or 64 GB storage? typo?
  • BurntMyBacon - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    Yes, it is a typo in the chart. It calls out 64GB for the more expensive model in the body of the article.
  • Nitas - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    What about the speakers, stereo? That's an absolute essential to me.
  • philehidiot - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    Generally, if they're not bragging about it then you can assume not. They're not bragging about the type of display either - I wonder where this leads us.
  • Meteor2 - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    I just wish someone at the hands-on had played some audio and told us how the speaker sounds
  • melgross - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    Ooh, Zeiss optics. I hope everyone understands that while Zeiss makes some of the finest lenses, and I have some, smartphone lenses cost about $5. They are totally different from the $1,000+ optics made for interchangeable lens cameras.

    Many companies design, and make excellent lenses for small sensor cameras. Zeiss, Leica and Schneider have no advantage over them.

    This is just marketing.
  • rocky12345 - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link

    Notch check (someone should tell these companies no body actually likes the notch or at least most do not.)
    Zeiss Lens check ( I guess they did not get the memo Zeiss is not the cool kid on the block any more I think that stopped happening back in like 2009.)
    Looks like every other phone with no redeeming qualities they can call their own check.

    Other than that hey it's a great phone or at least it would be if Nokia actually was still just Nokia and not some name sake only from the past.

    Do not get me wrong I was a huge Nokia fan I really liked their phones until they changed hands a couple times and the best of the company ended up in the dumpster.
  • haukionkannel - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    Well most people like notch that is why it is so popular in the phones.
    I am not too interested of having notch phone but most customers think that phone is oldfachioned if there is not notch in it. So company has ro have notch if its wan to sell big amounth of its phones...
    ... trends Are not always sensible...
  • LiverpoolFC5903 - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    In what way?
    They provide good build quality, distinct design (check out the 7 plus) and stock android. Their cameras are decent if not class leading. Their 'core' is still Finnish and the brains behind the operation.
    How does ownership determine a phone's quality again? Do illuminate us.
  • ads295 - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link

    Look at Motorola on its own and Moto under Lenovo, and you'll see they're worlds apart. The first Moto G was nothing short of awesome, while the current Gs are filled with bugs and a new one comes every few months.
    Nokias under the previous ownership would never have used a sealed-in battery (for example even the Nokia N8's battery only needed two screws in order to get it out.)
  • Diji1 - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    If they don't like it then why aren't they buying the alternatives that don't have the notch?

    Personally I prefer the notch as it reduces the bezel size. If the notch was not there there would be taskbar space that rarely gets used instead and more bezel.
  • piroroadkill - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    Smartphones are becoming insanely boring. They're all the same these days. I recently started using my old Sony Xperia Z3 Compact as my work phone instead of my Huawei P10 Lite (which was free from work), and holy shit do I love the form factor of the Z3 Compact. I figured maybe I would be too used to a larger screen - not true at all. It's so nice having a phone that actually fits in the hand.
  • Notmyusualid - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    My brother bought the version before this - loves it!

    And as I also PAY for my handsets, and use minimalist monthly contracts, I'm waiting on 5G before changing.

    The notch and no 3.5mm would kill this for me too.
  • RBFL - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    If you look at the text and the last picture it has a 3.5mm jack.
  • gamer1000k - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

    Sad to see yet another promising phone ruined by a glass back and notch (and a bit too high of a price tag).

    Glass backs might feel nice in the hand for 5 minutes (until the phone slips out of the hand and shatters on the floor), but add unnecessary weight and fragility. I can understand people not wanting cheap plastic backs, but there's plenty of high quality plastics or composites (like carbon fiber or kevlar) that probably could be made to feel just as nice. Not to mention that most people put their phone in a case right away anyways, completely defeating the purpose of using any sort of "premium" materials for the back.

    The notch is just a marketing gimmick to allow them to quote a larger screen size in the same size body. Aside from looking tacky, those little"ears" on either side of the notch are so small as to be fairly useless, but now we have Apple and Google going full speed ahead to cram all the notifications into that space which ultimately results in a less usable device compared to the full width notification bar we have now. Hopefully they won't start drawing a virtual notch on non-notched phones now...
  • Frangelina - Tuesday, October 9, 2018 - link

    A 2 years OS support update with a disposable zeiss camera. A lot of money for that ephemeral.

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