Nokia's New Phone Replaces the Selfie With the Bothie

Is the world ready?
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 17, 2017 5:44 PM CDT
The World Embraced the Selfie. Is It Ready for the Bothie?
Nokia hopes the "bothie"--a photo or video taken using the front and rear cameras at the same time--will be enough to get consumers to buy its new smartphone.   (Twitter)

If we're being honest, the selfie is passé. Today's discerning Instagrammers require a new way to document their every waking moment. Enter the Nokia 8 and its "bothie." Nokia's attempt to compete with Samsung and Apple in the high-end smartphone market hits stores in Europe in September. Wired reports the Nokia 8 is standard stuff for a high-end smartphone; it's got 64 gigs of storage, 4 gigs of RAM, a 5.3-inch screen, and so on. And the Verge came away fairly unimpressed by the phone, calling it "average," especially compared to what Apple apparently has planned for its new phone. The one thing the Nokia 8 does have, and what it could live or die on, is the bothie.

The bothie uses Dual Sight technology to let users take photos or videos using both the front and rear cameras at the same time, the Guardian explains. The resulting video or image shows whatever is in front of the user alongside the user's reaction to it. Those photos and videos can then be shared directly to Facebook or YouTube. Wired calls the bothie the Nokia 8's "only truly unique feature," meaning the phone was made "for the YouTubers and Instagrammers of the world." And they'll have to embrace the bothie if Nokia has any chance of competing with Apple and Samsung. Meanwhile, the future of the American bothie is unclear, as Nokia has not announced plans to bring the phone to the US. (More Nokia stories.)

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