Nokia 7 Plus: Rumors, Specs, and more

In October 2017, HMD Global unveiled the Nokia 7, a phone that found a sweet spot between the budget Nokia 6 and high-end Nokia 8. While most of the latest smartphone rumors and leaks from HMD have been pointing to a new flagship phone dubbed Nokia 9 and the entry-level Nokia 1, it appears that these might not be the only phones the Finnish company is working on.

Apparently, there’s a new Nokia 7 Plus in the works. We haven’t heard a lot about this phone, but late last year, the Nokia 7 Plus name popped up online thanks to an APK teardown of the Nokia camera app. With the latest development, it’s the first time concrete details of the handset are showing up online, suggesting that it could join the Nokia 6 2018 at the MWC 2018 next month.

But what does it bring over the standard Nokia 7? Let’s find out.

A small design change

At the moment, there’s nothing much in the public domain regarding the design of the Nokia 7 Plus. However, the Nokia 7 has one of the best-looking designs and packs some premium build material. Looking at what we’ve seen before with respect to standard phones and their Plus counterparts, it wouldn’t make sense to expect a design overhaul when the Nokia 7 Plus goes official.

Despite the expected minimal design changes, the Nokia 7 Plus, as you would expect, will reportedly rock a plus-sized screen. While the exact size is still unknown, we expect the phone to jump to the new 18:9 design with a panel of between 5.5 and 6 inches, meaning thinner bezels compared to the standard Nokia 7.

More powerful specs

As pointed out earlier, HMD is expected to use the upcoming MWC 2018 show to unveil the global variant of the Nokia 6 2018. The phone is an obvious upgrade over the OG Nokia 6, meaning you get more powerful specs that include a Snapdragon 630 SoC and 4GB RAM.

Well, given the Nokia 7 already rocks the same Snapdragon 630 SoC and a RAM of up to 6GB, HMD wouldn’t want to give the same specs to a phone that is expected to be superior to the standard Nokia 7, leave alone the new Nokia 6 2018.

In this line of argument, the Nokia 7 Plus has just stopped by benchmarking platform Geekbench (via Mobielkopen), giving us what is the first look at the core specs to expect. From the listing, the 7 Plus will rock a more powerful Snapdragon 660 processor, but you still get 4GB of RAM, which is not bad at all. The Nokia 7 has 64GB of internal storage and it’s possible this will be used on the Plus variant as well, perhaps alongside 128GB on the 6GB RAM variant.

As expected, the Nokia 7 Plus will debut with Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, an OS that is already rolling out to the Nokia 7 in China. Due to the expected jump in the overall size, the Nokia 7 Plus should also get a bigger battery than the 3000mAh unit used on the standard 7. In terms of photography, there’s talk of a dual-lens setup on the back like the Nokia 8 alongside Carl Zeiss optics, but whether one of the sensors will be the same 16MP unit used on the standard 7 is still unknown.

A solid performer

Although benchmarks are not a true representation of the performance of a phone in real life, they do give us an idea of what to expect. With this in mind, you can expect the Nokia 7 Plus to be a solid performer.

From the benchmarks, the combination of Snapdragon 660, 4GB RAM and Android 8.0 Oreo result in a single-core score of 1636 and a multi-core score of 5902. These are simply impressive scores and nearly the same stuff you get from the likes of Snapdragon 835 and co. But as noted, it’s only real life use that can tell you exactly how a solid performer a given phone is – and this is true for the Nokia 7 Plus as well.

Nokia 7 Plus price and release date

The first instance of the Nokia 7 Plus was not so long ago and we have another one. So, what does this tell us regarding the expected release date? Well, one thing that is for sure is that the Nokia 7 Plus launch is approaching and while we’d like to believe that it will accompany the Nokia 6 2018 at the MWC 2018, we cannot guarantee this.

The Nokia 7 (4GB RAM) was priced at 2499 yuan and the 6GB RAM variant had a price tag of 2699 yuan at launch. Since the Nokia 7 Plus is set to bring a bunch of upgrades over the standard Nokia 7, you can expect a small price hike, perhaps somewhere in the regions of 3000 yuan for the base model, which translates to under $500.

Global availability may be on the cards

So far, HMD has been using the Chinese market as a testbed for its new Android phones. Unlike the OG Nokia 6, it seems HMD took longer to decide on going global with the Nokia 7. Well, it’s too late since the Nokia 6 2018 has already matched the specs of the 7. Also, HMD knows that it would be shooting itself in the foot if it releases two phones that are supposed to be different with the same specs in global markets.

The Finnish company wants to grow its market beyond China and this means the rest of the world should also know about the existence of the Nokia 7. But since most tech enthusiasts already know about the Nokia 7, the company is supposedly opting to go with a slightly upgraded version dubbed Nokia 7 Plus.

Even if does release in China, we are adamant that the Nokia 7 Plus will for sure be the variant that finally comes to a shop near you. Of course, always be prepared for surprises, especially since sections of this article are based on rumors and speculations, but we’ll update it regularly as new details come in.

Would you buy the Nokia 7 Plus if it came to a shop near you? Let us know in your comments below.

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