Nokia has finally launched its series of Android phones at MWC 2014, The low-cost devices are running a forked version of Android laden with Microsoft services, as well as the ‘Fastlane’ UI as on Nokia’s Asha.
The aim is to make the Nokia X a bridge to high-end Windows smartphones under the Lumia brand. It will ditch many of the Google services that come with Android, which Google lets phone makers customize at will.
“More and more people are buying smartphones for less that 100 euros,” said Stephen Elop, Nokia executive vice president.
However, as the Nokia X is not an ‘Android’ device in the exact sense as it doesn’t have Google Play certification, apps need to be loaded onto the device from Nokia’s own app store, which provide special section for apps that run on devices in the Nokia X family. Other than loading apps via Nokia’s app store, users will also be able to download them from third-party app stores like Yandex or side-load an APK directly onto the device from a computer.
The first of the devices are the Nokia X and Nokia X+: both feature 4.0-inch WVGA displays, while the X+ will be slightly beefed up. Internally having a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 SoC with a 1.0 GHz dual-core CPU, a 1,500 mAh battery, dual-SIM support, as well as a 3-megapixel fixed-focus camera and a microSD card slot. The X has 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB of storage, while the X+ comes with 768 MB of RAM.
“The essential reason in Microsoft being interested in Nokia mobile phones and not just Lumia is that they are also [looking to] connecting the next one billion [people] to the cloud; to their cloud services like Skype and Outlook and such.
