For years Nokia has explicitly denied any rumors of making an Android phone, and for years many Nokia fans have hoped they would change their mind. Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia last September didn’t exactly incite confidence in those of us wanting to see Nokia branch out from Windows Phone, but it looks like there’s still hope. For a while now we’ve been hearing of the Nokia Normandy, which is going to be Nokia’s first Android phone, but it looks like there’s a twist. Nokia might be forking Android much like Amazon did, replacing core Google services with Microsoft ones which pretty much eliminates the purpose of going Android in the first place. Without the Google Play Store you miss out on all the apps that make Android so good, and all the Google features like Google Now that have become a part of everyday life for many Android users. What’s more the first Browsermark results are out for the Nokia Normandy, or model RM-980, and they pretty much confirm what we thought the Normandy might have onboard.
While the Normandy scores better than the best Windows Phone out there, the Lumia 1020, that’s not exactly saying a lot since most mid-range Android phones outscore the Lumia as well. The tests use Google’s mobile Chrome browser, which is generally considered something of a standard when it comes to browsing speed and features, and might even give us a little hope that we could still see some Google apps on the Normandy. The Normandy’s score of 1885 in Browsermark, which tests for page viewing speed as well as a number of other tests involving web-related content, comes just above the Lumia 1020’s at 1776. That number is below even Sony’s mid-range Xperia C, which comes in at 1984, and when you look at Android flagships like the HTC One which scores 2262 all the way up to the Galaxy Note 3 which scores 3041, you’re looking at a significant performance difference. This is to be expected though as the Normandy has a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor much like all the Windows Phones do anyway, which hasn’t been considered high-end since mid-2012. Still if you’re looking for a budget phone from a manufacturer that doesn’t usually make Android devices, and are willing to take a gamble on whatever Nokia is going to change up with its own version of Android 4.4 KitKat, the Normandy looks to be releasing in the very near future, but worldwide availability is still unknown at this point.
Source: Rightware; Via: Phone Arena