Nokia confirmed to re-enter smartphone business in 2017

PanARMENIAN.Net - HMD Global confirms its presence at the Mobile World Congress next year, triggering speculations about the launch of much-awaited Nokia Android smartphones, BGR reports.

From once being one of the most popular handset companies in the world, Nokia later saw a massive downfall, and ultimately exited the handset market altogether. In spite of losing the smartphone race, Nokia has promised a grand comeback with Android phones. It now appears that HMD Global, the company that now owns the license to launch Nokia phones for the next 10 years, has confirmed its presence at Mobile World Congress (MWC), which is scheduled to kick off on February 27.

This falls perfectly in line with what CEO of mobile device commodities at Microsoft, Asia Pacific, James Rutherfoord told a Vietnamese publication last month, “HMD Global (the owner of Nokia commercial rights for 10 years) planned to launch two new phone products in the fourth quarter 2016 and at least two smartphones in the early second quarter 2017.” Adding more cement to the brick wall, earlier in October, Nokia had also confirmed its presence at MWC 2017 where the company president and CEO Rajeev Suri is expected to address the keynote. While the company’s presence at MWC 2017 does not guarantee any smartphone announcement, one cannot completely rule out the chances.

Now, talking about Nokia Android smartphones that are expected to be launched, there have been a hoard of leaks lately. Recent leaks have hinted at two high-end devices, one of which will be featuring a 5.2-inch QHD (1440×2560 pixels) display, whereas the other is believed to be sporting a slightly larger 5.5-inch QHD display. In terms of hardware, both smartphones will be powered by Qualcomm’s 64-bit Snapdragon 820 quad-core processors. On the camera front, both smartphones will feature a 22.6-megapixel primary camera with LED flash and 4K video recording capabilities. While the smartphones are likely to support connectivity options such as 4G LTE, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 802.11ac, other details such as battery capacity, selfie camera resolution, onboard storage and amount of RAM are currently unknown. These smartphones could run Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. According to rumors, prices of the smartphone could start at Rs 30,000 approximately.