Within a fortnight of its global presentation at the recently concluded Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, Spain, Nokia has commercially launched the all-new Nokia X in the Indian market at a starting price of Rs 8,599.
Within a fortnight of its global presentation at the recently concluded Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, Spain, Nokia has commercially launched the all-new Nokia X in the Indian market at a starting price of Rs 8,599.
At the MCW 2014, Nokia showed off three new smartphones in its all-new X-Series – the X, X+ and the XL. While, the Nokia X is now available on sale across India from today, the X+ and the XL are expected to make their respective commercial debuts in the next two months.
Nokia’s first Android smartphone, the Nokia X is based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and is powered by Microsoft and Nokia services. The highlight of the Nokia X is the highly customized version of Android, with Metro-inspired UI access to Nokia’s own app store. While, there’s no access to Google’s Play Store, users can side-load Android apps from any third-party source. Nokia has used the AOSP version corresponding to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean as the baseline for its operating system.
Specs-wise, Nokia’s first Android phone offers dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) support with dual standby and features a 4-inch IPS LCD display with 480 X 800 pixel resolution, translating to a pixel density of 233ppi. The budget smartphone is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, alongside 512MB of RAM. It sports a 3 megapixel rear camera that can record SD quality video and comes with 4GB of in-built storage, which can be expanded up to 32GB via microSD card.
Connectivity features include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS with A-GPS, EDGE, GPRS and 3G. The battery pack consists of a 1,500mAh unit, which is rated to deliver up to 13 hours of talk time and up to 672 hours of standby time on 2G network. The Nokia X is being offered in a total of six colour options: Black, Green, Cyan, Yellow, Red and White. Lastly, Nokia is also offering 3GB of additional free OneDrive storage for photos, with auto-sync features. Nokia Mix Radio and Here Maps with voice directions will also come pre-loaded.
Overall, the Nokia X is the Finnish brand’s big effort to make greater waves into the low, low end of the smartphone market – and for that, the company has enlisted help of Android. The device comes with a fairly decent spec list for a phone thats’ coming at Rs 8,599. It certainly cannot be compared with the likes of say, the Moto G as the Nokia X is not meant for the more developed regions in terms of smartphone use. This smartphone is for areas where Android devices are sold at a much lower average price, but still can do the most basic things that other smartphones can. With that is mind, the Nokia X is probably one of the highly economical and feature-rich budget smartphones on sale in India today.
