Alleged Nokia 8 seen at CES 2017 becomes center of controversy

A few days ago, videos by Total Tech set the mobile world on fire when they showed what is supposedly Nokia’s upcoming flagship smartphone, the Nokia 8, in Qualcomm’s booth at CES 2017. After all, many people are still rooting for the brand. And with TK O’Connors — the man behind the YouTube channel — talking about specs that could catapult Nokia to the top of the smartphone charts again, who wouldn’t hope that he was right?

First video Total Tech uploaded: ‘Nokia Supreme (aka Nokia 8) hands-on’

Second video Total Tech uploaded: ‘Camera comparison: Nokia 8 with Snapdragon 821 vs Nokia 8 with Snapdragon 835’

Turns out the device in question may not be the Nokia 8.

Qualcomm, in a statement sent to Android Authority, said: “At CES, we unveiled our Snapdragon 835 processor, and in our booth, we had Snapdragon 835 reference-design devices to showcase different features of the processor. These were internal reference designs that we demo every year with our latest SOC [system-on-a-chip], not an OEM [original equipment manufacturer] device. Any suggestion otherwise is incorrect.”

O’Connors fired back, claiming that what is shown in the videos is a Nokia device manufactured for Qualcomm for the Snapdragon 835 reference hardware. “Remember [what] they said my S5 Active and Moto X leaks. Couldn’t be real either, hmmmmm. We all know how that turned out,” he added.

At time of posting, he still stands by what he had reported.

O’Connors had said that the Nokia 8 could come into variants. The higher-end version will supposedly boast a 24-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip with 6GB of RAM and up to 128GB of built-in storage. The base model, on the other hand, will allegedly come with less advanced optics and a Snapdragon 821 processor with 4GB of RAM.

No matter. It’s almost MWC 2017 time in Barcelona, Spain. The drama will finally be settled at the February 26 press conference organized by HMD Global, the company that secured the rights to use the Nokia brand on its mobile phones.

Image via International Business Times

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Alora Uy Guerrero

Editor-in-chief: Alora Uy Guerrero has 22 years of experience as an editor for print and digital publications such as Yahoo. She took time off journalism to manage OPPO’s digital-marketing campaigns. When not busy with her babies, she’s working on Revü, a passion project — or probably traveling or obsessing over her favorite bands, movies, TV shows, and basketball teams.