Nokia have attempted to join the Android foray with little success in recent years. Their phones have been very lacklustre with low end specs and low end performance. They are hoping to change all this with an upcoming phone with high-end specs.
A couple of days ago one of our favourite social media leaking platform, Baidu, was host to a leak about a Nokia D1 (or Nokia 6). The product packaging that was leaked showed the specs for it being:
- 5.5-inch display with Full HD (1920x1080px) resolution
- Octa-core 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor
- 4GB RAM
- 64GB storage + microSD card slot
- 16MP rear camera with autofocus and LED flash, f/2.0
- 8MP front-facing camera
- Front-facing fingerprint scanner
- Support for Dolby ATMOS surround sound technology
- Android 7.0 Nougat
At that stage none of these were confirmed and still aren’t. What is official is the device itself. Today Android Police have received a link for the promo video for this device which has now appeared on the Nokia website as the Nokia 6.
https://vid.me/AzHI
The video gives very little away except for the presence of an under-the-glass fingerprint scanner and a microUSB port. It has also shown up on HMD Global’s website (“The Home of Nokia Phones”) and states that the Nokia 6 will be available in China only and will be coming in “early 2017”. This is disappointing but of greater note is the dot point stating “Nokia 6 marks the first step for the Nokia brand into Android smartphones with more to come in H1 2017”. HMD say the device is designed to give a “real-life premium smartphone experience” at an affordable price point (1699CNY — ~AU$355).
Each Nokia 6 is crafted from a solid block of aluminium and takes 55 minutes per device to do so. The end result is a superb looking phone in my opinion and bodes well for the future of Nokia with HMD.
Further products are expected to launch in the first half of this year hopefully we will see some of them land on our shores. Chris and Duncan may well have a chance to see some of them at MWC this year as they are expected to launch there.
Yes please. Welcome back, Nokia.