Nokia 8 Happily Continues The Brand's Rugged Legacy

Nokia was popular and, at the same time, notorious for its smartphones that were veritable bricks you can sometimes throw at would be assailants. That was, however, in the distant past, when phones were less smart and less fragile. With the return of the brand to the smartphone market, sans Microsoft, each model seems to be met with the same question: will it bend? Of course, JerryRigEverything just had to put the new Nokia 8 to the test to see if it is indeed Nokia's most powerful, both in specs and in form.

There was initially a red flag raised when Zack Nelson started his stress test of the phone. Nokia and HMD advertised that the Nokia 8 used 600 series aluminum. That is the very same type of metal that Apple stopped using exactly because it was prone to bending on its iPhone 6 generation. But before Nelson could answer that, other tests had to be made.

Except for smartphones that advertise shatter-proof screens or those that don't use Gorilla Glass 5, the screen scratch test is almost always consistent. The Nokia 8 starts scratching at a Mohs level 6. Same with the burn test. With few exceptions, LCD screens blank out after 10 seconds of applied heat but they do recover quickly. In contrast, OLED display leave a permanent ghost mark.

Having a metal back, however, does mean that the Nokia 8 is susceptible to scratches on its rear side. Keys and coins might not be much of a problem, but anything sharper or harder will definitely leave a permanent mark. Nokia uses some plastic on the top and bottom edges that extend past the corner, both for the antenna as well as for dissipating the force of impact.

And finally, the bend test. The Nokia 8 is, fortunately, not subject to the same structural integrity problems as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, despite using the same materials. Even Nelson's might hands and arms couldn't make it budge. That's not to say it won't dent and break when dropped, but, unlike the iPhone 8 or some other smartphones, this one isn't begging for a drop test.