Fresh reports suggest that Nokia may announce Nokia D1 and E1 smartphones at the upcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017. The leaked sketches of the smartphones have now surfaced.

The rumor mill has revealed a lot about Nokia D1C midrange smartphone that is speculated to get unleashed at MWC 2017. However, there are new rumors starting that another Nokia smartphone dubbed as Nokia E1 will also get unveiled at the event.

The leaked sketches of Nokia D1 and Nokia E1 are said to have surfaced from a well-known source that has a good track record of revealing leaked information of prototype leaks from Nokia and Microsoft in the past.

The rumored Nokia D1C (aka D1) would be arriving in two variants. Fresh speculations suggest that the Nokia E1 may be lower-end version of the Nokia D1C midrange smartphone. A distinct ‘NOKIA’ logo can be clearly seen on the top right of the leaked sketches both the phones.

The Nokia D1 seems to have rounded edges whereas E1 has squared edges.  The placement of selfie camera and proximity sensor suggest that is offers a better symmetrical design. It appears that it does not feature a physical Home button.

The Nokia E1 seems to sport a design that is similar to Lumia 830/925. It sports a physical Home button that may house a fingerprint scanner. It also appears that upper and lower edges are equipped with dual antennas.

Related: Nokia to Launch A Mysterious Smartphone With Powerful Specs in China?

Nokia D1C Specifications, Price

The Nokia D1C is pegged to be available in two versions that will feature different display sizes, RAM and camera configurations. The smaller model is expected to house a 5-inch full HD display, 2 GB of RAM, and 13-megapixel rear shooter.

The larger Nokia D1C is expected to house a 5.5-inch display, 3 GB of RAM and 16-megapixel rear snapper. Both the models are expected to be powered 1.4 GHz Snapdragon 430 processor.

Other common features include Android 7.0 Nougat and 8-megapixel fixed focus selfie camera. The Nokia D1C with 2 GB of RAM is expected to cost 999 Yuan ($144) and the 3 GB RAM model is likely to cost 1,299 Yuan ($187).

The rumored specs of Nokia E1 smartphone is unavailable. However, as mentioned above it is likely that the lower-end Nokia D1C variant may launch as Nokia E1.

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Just about a week after Nokia officially tweeted that the company’s CEO would deliver a kynote address at MWC 2017 bill for the first quarter of 2017, a senior Microsoft Executive has come out to disclose that the much anticipated two Nokia phones would be released in second quarter (Q2) 2017.

According to the report which emanated from Vietnam, James Rutherfoord, CEO of Mobile device commodities in Microsoft Asia-Pacific was quoted as saying HMD Global Oy is working on launching two new Nokia phones, perhaps feature phones, by Q4 2016 which means any moment from now, and then two smartphones should be expected in the early part of Q2 2017.

News about the return of Nokia branded phones have been coming in and out for the past couple of months right after two Android Nokia phones leaked. A Nokia feature phone was later on spotted on TENAA and of late the Nokia D1C made the rounds on benchmarks, sporting Android Nougat. A Nokia tablet is also said to be in the works, even though we are not too sure about that.

Read More: Android-based Nokia Phones with 2k Display, SD 820 SoC Leaked

It remains to be seen how the Nokia brand will be re-jigged to get back into the groove. The specs posted on benchmarks have been anything but spectacular and uniqueness is a key factor in the highly competitive smartphone market. We’ll wait to see what exactly Nokia has in store because an official teaser is yet to come from the company.

(source)

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It is getting more and more certain that Nokia will start rolling out its Nokia branded Android phones under the new partnership arrangement with Helsinki-based HMD Global Oy. A Nokia Exec had also hinted earlier on that the Nokia Android phones may likely pop in the fourth quarter (Q4) of this year.

Well, we just might see that happen soon as two new Nokia smartphones running on Android operating system has appeared on Benchmark website Geekbench revealing some of the specs which isn’t in any way similar to the few rumored specs we had gotten before now.

The Nokia smartphones bore the model names, Nokia 5320 and Nokia RM-1490. Nokia 5320 is listed as sporting a 2.27GHz quad-core processor with 2GB RAM. The clocking frequency of the Nokia 5320 resembles that of a high-end chipset but the small RAM size is a turn off. Perhaps it is possible to ramp up the RAM size in the coming days since this is just a prototype. The Nokia 5320 is also listed to run on Android 4.4.4 operating system which is quite weird.

On the other hand, the Nokia RM-1490 is listed as featuring a single core AMD A8-5545M chipset clocked at a miserable 500MHz. The RM-1490 also clutches a 2GB RAM as the Nokia 5320. The Android phone is listed to run on an even older Android  4.2.2 operating system.

Related: Android-based Nokia Phones with 2k Display, SD 820 SoC Leaked

This is all the details we have for now, that is as bad as it can get. The leaked Benchmark data ended up confusing us the more instead of throwing more light on the expected Nokia Android smartphones. We hope more leaks detailing the Nokia branded Android phones emerge soon. Like always, we’ll keep you posted here on Gizmochina whenever that happens.

(Via)

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Remember Rovio? Does “Angry Birds” ring a bell? Rovio is the Finnish company that developed the Angry Birds franchise and that is what it is best know for. The thing is, HMD Global Oy, who now has control over the feature phones business of Nokia, has disclosed that it has hired Pekka Rantala, a former CEO of Angry Birds maker Rovio as its Chief Marketing Officer.

The new Chief Marketing Officer was also a former Nokia, having worked for the company from 1994 to 2011. Mr Rantala is said to have joined Rovio as CEO in 2015 but left the Finland based company just a year later. The new exec joins another Nokia veteran, Arto Nummela, who runs HMD Global Oy.

HMD is yet to offer specific details of how it plans to bring back the Nokia brand into the market. The deal with Nokia, provides the company with naming and patent rights, in exchange for royalty payments. Nokia is providing some oversight via a position on the company’s board, though it’s not investing directly in HMD, as per the deal.

What we know before now is the rumor that the Nokia Android powered phones will be manufactured by Foxconn. It has now emerged that Foxconn’s subsidiary, FIH Mobile will likely handle the manufacture and distribution of the two expected Android Nokia phones but the time-table for that wasn’t disclosed.

However, Nokia Networks China and Shangai Bell CEO Mike Wang has hinted in an interview that the expected Nokia branded Android phones and even tablets will likely hit the market by the fourth quarter of this year. The CEO also disclosed Nokia will have to go through brand licensing again after its ill-fated contract with Microsoft expires.

Read More: Nokia Phone could be made by Foxconn, Featuring Camera made of Graphene

As a reminder, the expected Nokia phones comes with a 5.2-inch and 5.5-inch AMOLED display sizes respectively, both of which will have 2k resolution. The phones are said to boot Android 7.0 Nougat with Nokia’s own Z-Launcher UI on top. All-metal design, camera made of graphene, Snapdragon 820 chipset and IP68 dust and water protection, form the highlight we know so far about the expected Android phones. The phones are rumored to fall within 3000 Yuan ($453) price range and would likely make their first appearance in China when launched.

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I am sure that majority of the readers here, had one or even multiple Nokia branded smartphones in the past. This isn’t surprising since Nokia was once the king of the smartphone market. However, the last decade wasn’t too good for the company, with losses increasing and its decision to stick with Microsoft’s Windows platform leading to its ultimate demise. We’ve all dreamed about an Android based Nokia smartphone in the past, with Finnish company’s solid hardware and design and Google’s open source platform. While we haven’t really seen a real Nokia based Android smartphone in the past, this is soon going to change.

After the establishment of the new ‘Nokia Technologies’ company, we have heard multiple times that it wasn’t going to enter the smartphone market directly. There wasn’t much information in the past about its plans for this market, but now, things have become a lot clearer.

We are definitely going to see Nokia Android smartphones in the coming months.

Nokia Technologies revealed today that it has given exclusive global license to HMD Global, a startup company based out of its own home country of Finland. This means that HMD Global can now manufacture smartphones as well as tablets bearing the Nokia brand name. In return, Nokia Technologies gets royalty for using its name. The company also has conditionally agreed to acquire rights to use the Nokia name from Microsoft.

At the same time, Microsoft is selling its feature phone business to FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn for $350 million. The deal is expected to close by the second half of 2016. And guess what, FIH and HMD Global have entered into a collaborative deal which gives full operational control of sales, marketing and distribution of Nokia branded smartphones globally.

So, it looks like finally things have come together to revive Nokia’s smartphone business. The company also confirms that Nokia smartphones and tablets will be based on Android, which is what we wanted from the start.

In case you are wondering, Nokia Technologies will have a seat on the board of HMD Global to ensure that the quality and reputation of Nokia’s name is maintained. Given that HMD Global is founded by ex-Nokia employees, we can expect great design on the upcoming Nokia branded smartphones. The company also confirmed that ex-Nokia executive and current head of Microsoft’s Mobile Division Business for Greater Asia, Middle East and Africa, Arto Nummela will be the CEO of HMD.

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Chinese site and Weibo account CTechnology, with a pretty good track record of China based smartphone leaks, has more details about this cheap Nokia Android. Those Nokia cheap phone will be running Android OS codenamed “Mountain View” as a “Plan B”, if they failed to break through with Windows Phone.

And now we have a leaked information that Foxconn is already making those phone for 10,000 unit but not sold since Nokia is merge with Microsoft.

While for now, the development is not stopped just yet, since Foxconn is still making of Mountain View smartphones. In fact, before the announcement of sale, Foxconn has already manufactured and delivered a batch of more than 10,000 prototype Mountain View units.

The device, based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 8225Q chip,  was being developed and tested by Nokia’s Beijing based R&D team, and was already at somewhat advanced prototype stage.

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