Category: Nokia

To be honest, if you have been paying attention to the smartphone market over the past year, you know that HMD Global’s Nokia brand has been making a serious comeback.  Now we have a more substantial report that reflect what everyone suspected:  Nokia has had a killer year.

Counterpoint Research has published their report on the Smartphone market and they, like IDC earlier in the week, confirm that Huawei has passed Apple as the number two smartphone company in the world.  But the Counterpoint report goes into more details than the IDC report on the “other” brands, of which Nokia is lumped into.  That’s where you find that the brand has gained some 782% in market share since Q2 2017.

The revamped Nokia 6 for 2018 is now available for purchase here in the United States on Amazon.  Listed as the Nokia 6.1, the updated midrange phone sells for $270, and comes with more RAM than last year’s Nokia 6.  The new Nokia 6.1 was introduced earlier this year at Mobile World Congress and at the time, it was announced that the phone would be coming to the US in May.  It seems things are rolling a little bit faster than expected.

For those that don’t recall, the 6.1 is powered by the Snapdragon 630, an octa-core SoC clocked at 2.2GHz.  Here in the US, it will come with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, which is expandable an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.  This is 1GB more RAM than the international versions of the new 6.  It has a 5.5″ FHD display that is protected by Gorilla Glass 3.

By any measure, Mobile World Congress was a good show for Nokia.  The company announced several new phones including the revamped Nokia 6, the Nokia 7 Plus and the Nokia 8 Sirocco.  But it appears that the HMD Global owned brand is far from done for 2018.  According to an exclusive at Nokia Power User, the company plans to launch two more devices this year:  The Nokia 8 Pro and Nokia 9.

First is the Nokia 8 Pro.  It will be powered by the Snapdragon 845, have a rotating zoom lens, and will feature a double-glass (front and back) design.  It will also be an 18:9 ratio device with a 5.5″ display.  Looking at the design concepts, this device harkens back to Nokia devices when they were making Windows Phone based phones.

HMD Global, the company that owns the rights to the Nokia name, has confirmed that all of their current devices will be getting updated to Android P when it is available in 2018.  It is a bold statement given that the company is just now starting to roll out Android Oreo to the Nokia 8, their flagship.

The announcement came during the Nokia 8 launch event held in the Philippines yesterday and it was made clear it would be not just for the 8, but for the Nokia 3, 5 and 6 too.

The rise of the phoenix that is Nokia continues as the company made some key announcements at Mobile World Congress.  First, they announced that the new Nokia 5 and Nokia 3 are soon to be available for the low and mid-range market.  The bigger news however is that their flagship device, the Nokia 6, is going to be released globally.  To this point, the 6 has only been available in China.  It will come to Europe first followed by other markets throughout the first half of the year.

This global version of the Nokia 6 is the exact same phone as the one in China but with an updated software package.  It will be running Android Nougat with Google Assistant, has a 5.5″ Full HD display, Snapdragon 430 SoC, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.  It has a dual-SIM configuration, a MicroSD slot and a 16MP rear camera with phase-detection auto focus.  Add to that a 3000mAh battery and a fingerprint scanner and you have a solid performing phone that will likely be met with open hands throughout the world.

Nokia fans, it is official.  The company, at least in name, is back and has a brand new smartphone.  The Nokia 6 was launched with little fanfare late last week as CES 2017 wrapped up, pulling the covers back on the China exclusive phone.  HMD Global, the owners of the Nokia brand, had indicated they would be launched Android powered devices in 2017 and they let little time pass in the new year before making it happen.

The 5.5″ Android Nougat powered phone has some great specs for a phone that will retail for approximately $250 in China.  It fits well with HMD’s desire to offer well featured phones at competitive prices.  This certainly looks like a good start.