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Nokia Bringing Global 5G Phone to US, But Keep an Eye on Its Flip Phones

Nokia announced its 8.3 5G model is coming to the US. But its flip phones may make just as big a splash.

Sascha Segan
 & Sascha Segan Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

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(Nokia 8.3 5G)

Nokia has been sneaking back into the US market for a while. The legendary mobile-phone name has been working its way into US prepaid carrier lineups, and getting solid reviews for clean, well-performing Android handsets. Now the company is ramping up its US presence by appointing its chief product officer, Juho Sarvikas, as the head of Nokia phones in the Americas.

The current incarnation of Nokia is sort of the old Nokia, but also sort of not. It's really a company called HMD Global, which licensed the Nokia name after the former leader sold its smartphone business to Microsoft—and after Microsoft's smartphone business failed. What makes the company interesting is that it's full of ex-staffers from the pre-Microsoft years, including Sarvikas.

Sarvikas started at the old Nokia by launching the E61i, a BlackBerry-like handset, and hung on through the Microsoft transition. According to his LinkedIn, he was responsible for introducing the Lumia Windows Phone lineup to the US, as well as running Nokia's AT&T partnership from 2011-2014, a time when AT&T secured a bunch of exclusives on Nokia Windows Phones, and swiftly buried each of them after a few weeks of promotion.

In a shift from those days, for the past year or so the new Nokia has focused on building up its brand at prepaid. We love the Nokia C5 Endi at Cricket, for instance, which offers great performance for under $200. But we haven't seen any 5G phones from Nokia in the US yet, even though Sprint's Ryan Sullivan hinted he was in talks with Nokia late last year.

The company's big news for the moment is that it's bringing the Nokia 8.3 5G, unlocked (shown above), to the US in the fall. The 8.3 5G is a $650-ish, Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G-based phone with four rear cameras. It's most notable for its global 5G roaming. Relatively few 5G phones right now operate on both US and international 5G bands, but the 8.3 5G does.

The 8.3 5G only has "sub-6" 5G bands, lacking Verizon's millimeter-wave, but Sarvikas hinted strongly that he's pursuing Verizon and that Nokia will build a millimeter-wave 5G phone if there's interest. "We definitely want to make sure that no matter what carrier you're on, you can experience Nokia phones and our take on 5G," he said. "Some of those will come to life sooner, some later."

What About Flip Phones?

But let me talk about the flip phones. About two years ago, I got a figure that about 12 million voice phones per year were sold here in the US. Many of them aren't great; they're lowest-common-denominator cheapies. Nokia, on the other hand, makes some great voice phones. Its 2720 flip phone combines a solid body with just a soupcon of internet, just barely enough to keep you getting your messages. Unfortunately, it hasn't been certified by any US carrier and thus won't work on our 4G voice-over-LTE networks.

Related

Nokia 2720 flip phone The Nokia 2720 4G is a classy flip phone.

Nokia sells the 3310 3G bar phone here in the US, but 3G GSM phones currently work only on AT&T nationwide. They don't have great coverage or quality here any more, and that carrier is turning off its 3G network in 2022.

"We would love to see the Nokia 2720 4G in the States," Sarvikas said. "But if you look at the profile, the motivation for buying a voice phone is completely different in the US versus emerging markets. In the US, it's predominantly accessibility-driven, having to do with an age group, or looking for a cool weekend phone. In emerging markets, it's the lowest cost means to access the Internet. We are very happy to look at opportunities in carrier lineups," he said.

A great 4G flip phone, at this point, excites me more than another $650 5G phone (although it wouldn't excite me more than a $400 5G phone, which is another story.) Hopefully, Sarvikas' experience with US carriers will help get Americans talking more stylishly.

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About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

  • US and Canadian mobile networks
  • Mobile phones released in the US
  • iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
  • Mobile hotspots
  • Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services. 

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

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