Nokia surprised everyone at the Mobile World Congress when it came out with the announcement of not just one, but three Android phones.
The last few months have been rife with rumours that before Nokia gets swallowed whole by Microsoft, the company was working on an Android phone. Nokia’s MWC event just concluded with Stephen Elop announcing not one, not two, but three Nokia branded Android phones. Sort of.
The Hardware
The phones in question are the Nokia X, the Nokia X and the Nokia XL. The Nokia X and the X feature a 4 inch IPS display with a resolution of 800×480. The Nokia X comes with 512MB of RAM on board while the X has a slightly more 768MB of RAM. Both the phones have 4GB of on-board storage, but the Nokia X allows you to expand that with the means of a microSD card. Both the phones have the same 3 megapixel rear camera.
The Nokia XL is the bigger of the three, featuring a 5-inch IPS panel. It also features a 5 megapixel rear camera with autofocus and LED flash along with a 2 megapixel front facing camera. It sports the same amount of RAM as the Nokia X but packs in a beefier 2000mAh battery when compared to the 1500mAh battery found in the other two phones. Interestingly, all the phones come in the dual-SIM configuration.
Android, but not Android
Clever marketing and wordplay has got everyone super excited about the fact that the Nokia X lineup is running Android. Truth is, it is and isn’t. Confused? Well, we dont blame you. Truth is, the Nokia X lineup runs on Android Open Source Project (AOSP), and is a custom version of Android, with modifications at the source code level.
While the OS may be able to run standard Android apps, Nokia says that some of the apps might need to be recompiled in order to run on the Nokia X. Other than that, the phone’s interface has a very familiar tile-like layout, reminiscent of Windows Phone. The UI also borrows heavily from the Asha phone, including a feature called Fastlane. The feature was first introduced in the Asha 501, and stores all the recently accessed apps and features in a multi-tasking like interface. Based on how frequently a particular app is used, it would move higher up in the list for even quicker access. This feature has now come to the Nokia X, X and the XL.
The phone will tie into the Microsoft cloud services instead of Google’s offerings. You will still be able to use the various Google services though, as many of the corresponding APIs come built in by default. However, there is a catch for developers; Nokia uses slightly different APIs for enabling carrier billing, in-app purchases, and notifications, meaning developers will have to add some lines of code to their existing Android apps in order to get it to be fully compliant with the Nokia X series.
Pricing and Availability
Stephen Elop today announced that the Nokia X will be available immediately and has been priced at 89Euros. The Nokia X and the Nokia XL will be available in the second quarter for 99Euros and 109Euros respectively.