Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
NOKIA HAS STEPPED into the Android market after it revealed its Nokia X range.
Rumours that Nokia would be releasing its own Android phone, which was codenamed Normandy, had been circulating for a while, but the Finnish company surprised some by revealing two more Android phones, the X+ and XL.
The Nokia X is a mid-range phone with a 4-inch screen, a 3-megapixel fixed focus camera and a 1GHz duel-core processor. The X+ has similar specs but has more memory and an SD slot while the XL has a 5-inch screen, 5-megapixel camera and a 720p front-facing camera.
Announcing the handsets at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the smartphones run on a version of Android 4.1, also called Nokia X, and can run Android apps, provided they’re ported over to the Nokia Store. The company has developed an analyser tool to help reduce the time needed to do this.
While it runs on Android, the focus of Nokia X is on using Microsoft and Nokia products instead of Google’s. Instead of using Google Drive or Maps, the smartphones uses OneDrive, Microsoft’s own cloud service, Skype and Outlook.com while Nokia’s navigation apps such as HERE are also provided.
The Nokia X is priced at €89, designed to appeal to first-time smartphone buyers in developing markets, and will be released immediately. The X+ and XL will be released later in the year and will be priced at €99 and €109 respectively.
(Video: Nokia/YouTube)
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Seriously, what are the chances of an Irish phone provider offering any of those prices?
The same chance of an Irish phone provider offering value on anything.
This is the American influence at work now in Nokia. Cheap n nasty handsets to make more big profits for Microsoft .
That episode of South Park with the cable company!
The network providers here would have to stock up on the cable company’s shirts Conor
Welcome to the 21st Century Nokia.
I have no idea what any of that meant.
My only question is does it have snake?
That is not a question you should ask a gentleman.
Does it have snake ?
Check this out
Why would you want that extra trouble rather than just buying a proper android phone?
What extra trouble?
Porting apps over to the Nokia store. And therefore a reduced number of apps are available.
Slicker interface, more user friendly, fastlane is a great idea, no heavy skin, better office/onedrive/outlook intergration.
Cheap android phones are all terrible except for the Moto G which is about 50 euro more expensive. For a lot of people these would be great phones. Plus colorful phones are cool.
OK good points thanks.
You’re right AH, they really don’t have the momentum to make those sorts of demands, replacing Google Maps won’t do them any favours either. Great prices though.
Bought a Lumia 520 recently as a cheapish Android I bought was a dud. Despite bring an Android fan, I’ve had absolutely no issue in transitioning. Most apps I need I can get on the Nokia store, and for the few I cant I have my tablet or laptop. Simple UI, great music player, bloody affordable. An Android/Lumia hybrid would actually only provide even more apps,and bring them a step closer to an attempt at full Android someday. And byjaysus it will be better than anything that Apple lot produce.
Lack of google as my preferred search engine made me ditch lumia I don’t rate Bing at all rubbish at even getting my local takeaways number on it
There’s a Google search app, or, you could have searched for Google on Bing…
Seems like a case of getting the worst of both worlds.
God be with the days everybody had a Nokia 3210
I was a Motorola man, loved the antenna.
It’s no longer Nokia. Is Nokia not owned by Microsoft now ? So Nokia only being used for the brand name now to sell Microsoft products.
So it won’t have access to the Play store?
Uses ASOP and Nokia store. All apps are compatible but lots require Google play services for saved games and the like. It will have the important Android apps.
Something all apple and android fans can agree on- this will be a rubbish phone like all their previous junk. The phones just give up after a month! I could never convince my last Nokia I wasn’t in Central London .
Nokia? Ah I remember them!
They insist on you using their Nokia store and program’s thus alienating themselves from other compatible formats. They are still doing it. The new phone is not Android, it will just run Android apps.
They’re on the brink ok disaster and they still might disappear if this folly continues.
They seem to be following the blackberry business model.
You are aware that Nokia is owned by Microsoft? So they have hundred of billions in cash to burn?
Not going anywhere.
Yes they are . But quite the opposite. They have a deadline to get their products out and get the brand recognition restored to their hay day.
They were huge. They dropped the ball on a monumental scale.
Nokia was dead in the water and snapped up for their patents and their manufacturing sites.
Great timing again by Nokia , late to the party again. A recent release from Russian information technology (IT) security firm Kaspersky Lab says by late January 2014, it had accumulated about 200,000 unique samples of mobile malware for Android mobiles, up 34 per cent from November 2013, only two months earlier, when 148,000 samples had been recorded. The report found the number of malicious Android apps had topped 10 million
At least Android users don’t have to use iTunes. Every cloud …
When you see how Nokia has disappeared then you wonder about the price Facebook paid for Whatsapp. If it was prime office space in New York they had paid for it would always have value. Seems to be a lot of money tied up in tech stocks and shares.
Is this not a really cheap version of the Nokia lumia hardly something new
Jaysus Nokia, bit behind aren’t ya
have your say