The launch of HMD Global’s first 5G phone, the Nokia 8.3 5G smartphone, has taken long enough. Announced back in March 2020, it went on sale in Europe in September 2020 and has been launched in South Africa in the first week of December.
Touted by its manufacturers, HMD Global, as a global 5G phone due to the wide range of 5G radio frequencies it supports, the Nokia 8.3 is a premium device that is available on contract from South Africa’s leading mobile network (Vodacom) as well as prepaid.
It is compatible with the 5G frequencies in use by both Vodacom and MTN and would readily work on the operators’ 5G networks respectively.
Price
Contents
The Nokia 8.3 5G smartphone is available from the leading online store in South Africa, Takealot, at R13,999. Before now, it had been available as grey imports for higher pricing.
It can still be imported via Amazon (US) for a slightly cheaper price of R12,443.80 (ZAR pricing would vary by daily exchange rate fluctuations) that includes customs clearance and expedited AmazonGlobal shipping. However, the device would take much longer (about 2 weeks) to be delivered to a South African address and there is also the risk of no local warranty coverage considering this would essentially be a grey import.
Vodacom
The 5G smartphone is now available from Vodacom South Africa as prepaid or postpaid contract.
Vodacom is retailing it as prepaid at R13,999 and contract pricing options start from R499 per month on the Smart XS+ open contract that also comes with 50 minutes of airtime, 50 SMSs and 350MB of data.
Others
There is currently no mention of the smartphone from other South African networks like MTN and Cell C. If precedence is anything to go by, they might not carrying it at all considering none of them offered the previous higher end Nokia smartphones.
Chip
The Nokia 8.3 5G is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon™ 765G chip and also powers several other midrange Android smartphones some of which are available in South Africa:
- OnePlus Nord
- LG Wing
- Motorola Moto Edge
- LG Velvet
- Google Pixel 5
I am wowed by the specs of this phone, can’t wait to get it gfor myself. Thanks for the review