After months of speculation and leaks, It’s now official, the Nokia X Android phone is here. Even if Microsoft is earmarked to buy Nokia’s phone business soon, this has not deterred the Finnish smartphone maker from showing us its own vision of what an Android Phone should feel like. Nokia has launched 3 versions, the X, the X+, and the XL as a category to sit between the Asha Phones and their Windows Lumia Phones. Within the X range, all three combine Lumia-style design with low-cost hardware aimed at the masses, starting at a large 5-inch screen on the 109-Euro (UGX 360,000) XL to the 4-inch display on the 99-Euro (UGX 334,000) X+. The X will be released for just 89 Euros (UGX 300,00) all prices before taxes in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and elsewhere globally.
The phones come with a new “forked” version of Android that’s akin to what Amazon does with its Kindle Fire line. The company as taken advantage of the open source elements of Android and then bolting on its own services, a Windows Phone-like UI, and yet another Android app store. So don’t expect to have access to Google’s Play store or Google-specific apps like Gmail, Chrome, Maps, and others. But on the bright side, Android apps will run on the device with only limited changes required by developers. The Finnish company has also creating its own store where it will curate “hundreds of thousands” of apps. Third-party stores will also be integrated into the Nokia Store, providing other sources for Android apps.
The looks a lot more like the Lumia 520 both in colors and design spotting the following specs
- 4-inch display.
- 4GB of storage with 512MB of RAM, but microSD cards
- dual-SIM support
- 3-megapixel fixed focus camera,
- capacitive button for navigation.
- Windows Phone-like tiled home screen that looks like a blatant rip of Microsoft’s own UI
- Based on Android Jellybean 4.1.2 (OASP)
More members of the X line are supposed to be coming this year, hoping Microsoft doesn’t kill the project once the company fully acquires Nokia. Its clear Nokia made this move to take advantage of Android’s vast app selection that Windows Phone 8 seems to lack.The company has also added some of it’s on extra goodies on top of the X line of phones there is also MixRadio, Here Maps, OneDrive, Outlook, and Skype will all be preinstalled, and Bing is the default search engine on the X.
