Nokia announced its return to the global smartphone stage with the launch of the Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia 3, a trio of Android smartphones designed to attack the affordable segment of the market.

The Nokia 6 first launched in China as a JD.com exclusive and by all accounts, it was very well received. The Nokia 6 saw 1.3 million pre-registrations in 4 days and once it went on sale, demand outstripped supply.

Now this affordable Nokia comeback phone is coming to the rest of the world. Here's everything you need to know about the Nokia 6.

Nokia 6: Design and build

  • Aluminium body, anodised
  • 154 x 75.8 x 7.85-8.4mm
  • Sculpted Gorilla Glass

The biggest thing outlined by HMD Global when announcing the launch of the Nokia 6 was talk about the process and the quality of the build. The company details that it takes 55 minutes to machine the Nokia 6 from a block of 6000 series aluminium, before it's anodised twice and polished five times, taking 10 hours to complete. It's the sort of attention to manufacture that we've become used to from companies like HTC or Apple.

There's 2.5D Gorilla Glass on the top, giving nice soft curves to the edges of the display, leading into the bodywork. There's a central fingerprint scanner beneath the display, flanked with back and recent app buttons.

One of the interesting details is the antenna lines which stick to the ends of the phone very much like the iPhone 7. There's a 3.5mm headphone socket, but this handset uses Micro-USB rather than the newer USB Type-C.

One of the interesting details is that this Nokia phone offers dual speakers with amplifiers that claim do be able to create a Dolby Atmos effect, although that's something we need to hear for ourselves before we get too excited about it.

We're left with no doubt that this is a premium quality metal unibody handset and it certainly feels that way in the hand.

The Nokia 6 comes in blue, black, silver and copper, but there's also an Art Black special edition. This version of the phone has a wonderful glossy finish (as pictured below), and slightly boosted hardware specs, which we'll also detail below.

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Nokia 6: Hardware specs and display

  • 1920 x 1080 pixels, 5.5 inches, 403ppi, IPS LCD
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 430, 3/4GB RAM
  • 32/64GB storage + microSD

The Nokia 6 has an octo-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset. There's 3GB of RAM onboard and 32GB of storage, There is a microSD card slot for storage expansion. This chipset is mid-range, so this isn't a powerhouse and the 3GB of RAM is good enough. 

However, the Art Black special edition handset has 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage (matching the specs of the Chinese version of this phone), but you will have to pay a little more for this version of the phone.

The 5.5-inch display offers a full HD resolution, which again sees this as a mid-range device, but it's a resolution that's worked at this size for companies like Huawei or OnePlus. That gives you 403ppi and having seen this phone, it looks like a nice, vibrant display that will be great in most conditions.

There's a 3000mAh battery, which sounds like a great capacity for a device of this size and we suspect it will give day-long battery life.

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Nokia 6: Cameras

  • Rear: 16-megapixel f/2.0 rear camera with 1.0µm pixels, PDAF
  • Front: 8-megapixel f/2.0 front camera with 1.12µm pixels, AF

The Nokia 6 has a 16-megapixel rear camera, offering phase detection autofocus, so it should be nice and fast. The pixels are reported to be 1.0µm, which is a little small compared to some of the 2016 flagship devices, meaning that they might not be as well equipped to capture light, which could affect the quality. The f/2.0 aperture should help with this though.

The front camera is 8-megapixels and takes a small bump to 1.12µm, again with f/2.0 aperture. It reports a 84 degree field of view, so it's fairly high resolution and wide aperture, so should be good for selfies. It is also autofocus, so those selfies should be nice and sharp.

On the camera front, the Nokia 6 offers automatic scene recognition and an exclusive camera app.

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Nokia 6: Software

  • Android Nougat
  • Monthly software updates
  • Google Assistant expected

Despite jumping off the Symbian train and falling into the Windows Phone quagmire, the new Nokia is all about Android. The Nokia 6 launches on Android 7 Nougat. This is pure Android and the only change is the camera app that we've mentioned.

Other than this, the aim, according to Nokia, is to deliver and experience as close to the Google Pixel as possible. We discovered Google Assistant and round icons on the Nokia 6 when we looked at it, but we're waiting to see exactly what the final version of this software looks like.

There is no bloatware however, no pre-installed apps, other than the standard Google apps, and there's no changes to other areas of the phone: it's just Android.

Nokia also promises monthly security updates and that new Android features should be implemented quickly.

Nokia 6: Release date and price

  • Announced globally on 26 February 2017
  • Available 10 July 2017 in the US, 16 August in UK
  • Priced at €229, or €299 for the Art Black special edition, £219.99
  • Amazon Prime exclusive in US

Nokia announced the global version of the Nokia 6 and the pricing of €229 for the standard version of the phone, or €299 for the Art Black edition of the phone.

In the US, Amazon has announced that the Nokia 6 will be an Amazon Prime exclusive and that it will be available from 10 July 2017. The discounted version comes with lockscreen offers and ads, but gives you a $50 discount.

In the UK, the Nokia 6 will be available on 2 August 2017, with a price of £219.99 and it will be available from Carphone Warehouse.