Before Microsoft bought out Nokia's mobile division, rumours were spreading that Nokia planned to release phones running versions of Android as a new investment in the company's future. Indeed, pictures released online of a supposed new Nokia phone seemed to show that a prototype was at least being worked on prior to or during the deal taking place. However, with Microsoft having its own, long-established mobile OS in the form of Windows Phone; and with Google, who "owns" Android, being a major rival to Microsoft, it's fair to say a lot of us saw Microsoft as putting paid to that plan with their buyout.
Last night, at the start of the Mobile World Conference, the new Microsoft-owned Nokia phone division took to the stage... but to our surprise, it WASN'T to promote the existing Lumia range of Nokia-branded Windows Phones. Instead, what was revealed was a new range of smart phones, known simply as "X", which run... Android?!?
Pictured above: The Nokia XL with the customised Android Build on display. Other phones in the X range have a smaller profile, but all run the same system and have the same choice of colourful backplates to select from.
The announcement comes only a short while after Microsoft announced its willingness to keep Nokia's legacy alive and allow Windows phones to target lower as well as higher-end markets, following Nokia's own established business practices. However, there's no plans for the X range of phones to hit major markets like US, Korea and Japan - the X line is apparently geared more towards the emerging markets of lesser countries, where interest in new technology is high but the economies are low (which probably rules out the UK too, but nothing's been said there yet).
The phones themselves take a lot of design cues from the pre-existing Nokia Asha 503, consisting of the same matte polycarbonate chassis but without the transparent crystallic case surrounding it. So far three models of the phone have been announced: The X phone - out right now for 89 Euro - is 10.4mm thick and sports a 4-inch LCD screen with 800 x 480 pixel resolution, a 3-megapixel camera, a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 1,500mAh removable battery, 4GB of internal storage, a microSD expansion up to 32GB and 512MB of RAM. For ten Euro more, Nokia will soon release the X+, which bumps up the RAM another 256MB and comes with a 2GB microSD card included, but is otherwise exactly the same. Finally, announced for the second quarter of 2014, the third model is the XL, which sports a five-inch screen, TWO cameras - a 5-megapixel rear snapper and a 2-megapixel front with an LED flash, 768MB of RAM and 4GB of built-in storage along with the microSD support. This has an expected retail price of 109 Euro. All three phones are dual-SIM, so separate SIM cards can be utilised for phone and data plans - a practice common in these emerging markets.
While the new Nokia X phones may run Android, however, they're far from a pure Android experience - instead, the whole experience has been customised using a mix of Microsoft and Nokia's own design cues, resulting in an experience that, perhaps unsurprisingly, looks similar to Windows Phone. As you'd also expect, this customised Android experience also ditches all the usual Google services with Microsoft or Nokia-branded alternatives - the sole exception being the internet browser, which is built on a mobile version of Opera. The X launcher consists of a series of neatly lined-up tiles; and unlike Windows Phone, which only recently added folder support via add-ons released by Nokia itself, the X line has folder support built-in for those who like to keep their apps organised. Keeping with the "similar to the Asha" theme, the X phones also have Fastlane; here it takes the form of a side menu which is the X's version of a notification menu; and logs most-used apps, nearly all of your activities, open apps and background processes on the same page in a neatly organised manner.
The new X phones even have their own App Store, in the Nokia Store. This store contains modified versions of Android apps specifically designed for the X line of phones, but Nokia say a developer needs to add no more than a few extra lines of code to a standard Android app to make it compatible. Nokia then curate the store, deciding if apps go in or need changing. But if the app you're looking for is nowhere to be found in the Store, a screen pops up with suggestions for other third-party app stores which should feature that particular title. Nokia also claim that as the X phones are built around Android's OSP, sideloading APKs and apps are also possible, potentially allowing anything to run that would run on a standard Android phone - and I'd put money down on resourceful developers calling their bluff soon enough.
Nokia also state that the system itself; and the individual apps contained within will receive regular updates according to consumer demand, which should act as a reassurance that the phone won't lag behind current Android releases or end up stuck on the same version forever - a common problem with Android phones - unless it sells badly. Honestly, this is an article I never expected to write and it colours me as quite impressive, but will it come up trumps for Microsoft and Nokia? And if it does, will it be at the expense of Windows Phone itself? Only time will tell.
