This past weekend, the annual Mobile World Congress happened in Barcelona, Spain and surprise surprise, Nokia announced their comeback into the international stage.
After the highly successful “soft launch” of their current flagship the Nokia 6 in China, it seems that they are now confident to bring it (and some others) into the saturated phone market.
Here’s what you need to know.
The Nokia 6, 5, 3
Previously only exclusive to China, Nokia has now decided that the Nokia 6 is ready to take on the world. Though no exact countries were mentioned, the Finnish company hopes to have a global roll out in the second quarter of the year.
With yesterday’s announcement, Nokia will also be releasing a slightly more premium version of the Nokia 6 called the Arte Black. It will have a glossy black finish, 4gb of RAM and 64gb on internal storage, but with everything else remaining the same.
Although you are currently able to buy imported Nokia 6 phones via local sites like Lazada and Qoo10, do note that the Chinese version does not have the Google Play Store pre-installed, so it’s best that you hold out for the international version.
Going down the hierarchy we have the Nokia 5, an identical but smaller device.
The Nokia 5 is largely similar to its older sibling except that it has a 720p 5.2 inch screen, a slightly lower resolution camera at 13 megapixels, and specs like storage and RAM being taken down a notch.
Lastly, we have the Nokia 3, the baby of their Android lineup.
Everything about this device screams “entry-level” as almost every specification has been dumbed down to make it Nokia’s most affordable Android phone in the current range. It shares many of the features from the Nokia 5.
To “Welcome Nokia into the Android family”, Jamie Rosenberg VP of Android and Google Play took to the stage to commend their commitment to delivering the pure Android experience as well as to push updates as they come.
The Google booth at MWC also saw a Nokia 6 unit being displayed.
One More Thing…
Before the keynote ended, HMD Global CEO Arto Nummela pulled a “One more thing…” and everyone already knew what that thing was.
You’ve guessed it, it’s the Nokia 3310 – alive and designed for 2017.
The sharp edged styling of old has given way to the curves of the present. The 3310 in essence is a feature phone with a month-long battery and 2.5G connectivity, and it is precisely because of this last bit that we don’t see this phone coming into Singapore.
If you’ve already forgotten, Singapore will no longer be supporting 2G come April this year, so if you do manage to get a Nokia 3310 for old times’ sake, it will be reduced to an over-glorified (and overpriced) device to play Snake.
Alternatively, if you are a big fan of Snake and not that interested in the 3310, find solace in the fact that Nokia has now made it immediately available through Facebook Messenger as a game you can play with your friends.
In the face of Android veterans like Samsung, LG and many others, Nokia is slowly trying to figure out its place before taking on the big boys with its own high-end flagship device.
As of now though, they are banking on nostalgia to hopefully get the Nokia name back to the top of the ladder once more.
