HMD Global, the guardian of the Nokia smartphone brand, has announced the Nokia 8, revealing the flagship smartphone that fans have been waiting all year for.

The Nokia 8 will take the fight to the likes of the OnePlus 5, HTC U11 and Samsung Galaxy S8, sitting on the powerful Snapdragon 835 platform and offering a 5.3-inch 2560 x 1440 pixel display. 

So what makes this phone different apart from the Nokia name on the back? Well that comes down to the camera.

Nokia has revived its partnership with Zeiss, with the precision optics company teaming up with HMD Global to work on the dual camera on the rear of the phone. This isn't a dual camera like the iPhone 7 Plus or LG G6, so there's no wide or telephoto lens, instead this is about quality first and foremost. 

It offers the same approach as the Huawei P10, with two sensors, one capturing RGB colour data and the second concentrating on monochrome. Combining the data from the two sensors should result in better image quality - no matter what the shooting conditions are. 

But that's not all: there's also a 13-megapixel front camera (so that's three 13-megapixel cameras on this phone), with the unique offering being the ability to not only take photos from both cameras at the same time (front and rear), but to be able to livestream video from both. That means you can have Facebook Live watching what you're filming and your reaction at the same time. Nokia calls this Dual-Sight. 

Beyond the camera, Nokia is offering Ozo Audio, with binaural audio capture, but aiming to preserve that, so when you capture a 360 audio and share a video, others get the benefit of that great audio too.

Coming in four colours - with Polished Copper very much being the most interesting and unique - the Nokia 8 runs pure Android 7 with the promise of a quick update to Android O when it becomes available. 

While the Nokia 8 isn't quite hitting the asking price of the likes of the HTC U11. Priced at €599 (UK prices still to be confirmed), the challenge is really competing with devices like the OnePlus 5, which is £449, a healthy bit cheaper.

The Nokia 8 will be available globally in September; UK prices and networks have not yet been confirmed.