Back in May, we heard that HMD Global – a new mobile company made up of ex-Nokia staffers – is looking to use the Nokia name to manufacture smartphones running Android as well as feature phones. Today, HMD has announced that it has secured exclusive licensing rights to Nokia’s branding for 10 years.
The first batch of Android smartphones bearing the Nokia name will make their debut in the first half of 2017.
HMD is a Finnish company staffed with ex-Nokia people, so it makes sense they’d be working together on this. Hopefully this means Nokia can focus on what it does best – the backend – while the smaller, more nimble HMD san focus on making great phones.
If they can come up with a competitor to the Samsung Note series, I bet a lot of people would move over to them.
I miss using Nokia phones, but one of the main reasons I used them was because they were NOT Android or iOS. Them making Android phones to me is basically ‘oh, another one.. meh’.
Really? The reason I liked them was that they had genuinely good radios and a superior call experience. The reason I left them was that I just couldn’t run a darned thing I needed on one anymore. Perhaps they could combine the good of Nokia along with timely Android updates and hopefully not too much UI modifications? Please? And, pretty please, a physical keyboard again?
Their build quality is awesome, no denying that. And their hardware in general. But I can already guess at what their Android is going to be like. Check out the Nokia Z launcher. It’s certainly weird and cool, but I couldn’t use it for much longer than a few minutes, then again it’s supposed to be a ‘learning’ launcher.
Regardless, I think Android is a beast and you end up wasting a lot of hardware just to make it run decently. Some say that’s because I’ve used Samsung devices with touchwiz, but I’ve used AOSP as well, and it feels like an a version of the OS that is 2-3 versions behind the features / improvements that Samsung had done.
MeeGo was so extremely usable, if they’d ever gotten the Android compatibility layer working great, and they had continued on with their own store and included some Android apps that were compatible, it could have gone somewhere awesome! But instead we go the MS infection that ultimately killed the Nokia phone division.
Unfortunately Nokia had multiple personalities, maybe they finally got some medication.. but I feel that they’re going to end up being just another Android phone. Unless, as I said, they manage to make some nice flagships with a stylus (and a hardware keyboard would certainly be nice!)
I’d buy one if they did something close to the Note, nothing else comes close at the moment, and the Note 7, possible fire issues aside, was an epic phone and I miss mine.
Ive said it before and say it again,
if it wont be the same BUILD QUALITY as Nokia had before ….. DONT BOTHER !!
This feels somewhat like Amiga or C64 being remade as a phone or PC ..
As an European, this exactly what I am looking for : A quality hardware (Like german cars).
Something rock solid which, will not go to recycling after six months.
If it is designed by Europeans but made in China, I don’t care. Chinese can do quality stuffs, really, just pay the price for it.
And if it runs Android, until it is not full of bloatwares impossible to remove, it will just do it.
HMD engineers must remind the story of the unbreakable Nokia 3310.
Quality and Simplicity.
Wait and see.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps…
Superficial premium feel and poor reliability? (check the JD Power survey before you doubt me). Totally the opposite of what I want.
Basically I want a better Moto G 5 inch and an equivalent of the Pixel.
Minor changes to android only. Sound profiles like the 8210 era phones had would be ideal.
What if they came out with a new keyboard phone? A new manufacturer to take over the mantle from BlackBerry! Would be a “huzzah” moment (at least for me)!