If you thought LG took a long time to bring the gorgeous 5G-enabled Velvet mid-ranger to the US after domestically unveiling the phone back in early May, then you must have forgotten about the official Nokia 8.3 5G announcement.
Unfortunately, there’s also nothing new to report on the retail pricing front yet, so we’ll just have to assume the Nokia 8.3 5G will cost $600 or so unlocked based on its European MSRP. It remains to be seen if HMD plans to release both the entry-level 6GB RAM/64GB ROM configuration and the slightly higher-end variant packing an extra 2 gigs of memory and twice that internal storage space in the US.
Keep in mind that the aforementioned
LG Velvet 5G costs $599 as standard stateside with 128 gigs of local digital hoarding room and a 6GB RAM count on deck, a configuration shared by Samsung’s
Galaxy A71 5G, which just so happens to be priced at six Benjamins as well.
Because it’s unclear if any of the nation’s major wireless service providers will pick up the 5G-capable
Nokia 8.3 anytime soon, a comparison with the unlocked $500
Motorola Edge 5G might be more fitting. That particular 6.7-inch model, which is
currently marked down from a $700 list price, comes with a whopping 256GB storage and 6GB RAM, as well as a quad rear-facing camera system composed of a 64MP primary shooter, 8MP telephoto lens, 16MP ultra-wide-angle snapper, and 3D ToF sensor.
In contrast, the main 64MP camera slapped on the back of the Nokia 8.3 5G is accompanied by a 12MP ultra-wide-angle lens, 2MP macro shooter, and 2MP depth sensor. The two devices share both a Snapdragon 765 processor and 4,500mAh battery, but the OLED screen on the Motorola
Edge is curvier and smoother than the IPS LCD panel of the Nokia 8.3, with a 90Hz refresh rate in tow.
Bottom line, we should keep our fingers crossed for a significantly lower Nokia 8.3 5G price point than $600 in the US, at least for the sake of healthy market competition.
