A few months ago Nokia surprised the world with the announcement of the Nokia X, the company’s first Android phone. After years of working against Google and it’s Android OS, and of course after being purchased by Microsoft, Nokia finally made the Android phone everyone wanted them to make. Well actually it wasn’t the phone that everyone wanted, rather the phone that would likely make them the most money. Of course releasing an entry-level device in India or China right now is the hot thing to do, and that’s just what Nokia did with the Nokia X. The big caveat here is that Nokia forked Android much like Amazon did with their Kindle Fire line of devices, with Nokia inserting Microsoft services in place of Google’s services. Nokia’s Windows Phone devices aren’t exactly selling like hotcakes, so it looks like Android variants are here to stay for the company.
Now we’re seeing the first signs of the followup to the Nokia X, appropriately titled the Nokia X2 for now. Unfortunately for the tech enthusiast in us the phone still carries seriously low-end specs, boasting a Snapdragon 200 running at a maximum frequency of 1.2GHz. We’re also looking at an 800 x 480 resolution 4.3-inch screen, which puts it squarely in the range of many 2010 flagship phones. Android 4.3 powers the device, which is interesting given that it’s only running 1GB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. Upping the Android version to 4.4 KitKat would help Nokia in the performance area, as Android 4.4 KitKat supports down to 512MB thanks to some serious tweaks and optimizations that Google made under the hood, but whatever floats their boat we suppose. We’re certain that Nokia will once again bake Microsoft services into the Nokia X2 instead of Google ones, and those hoping to see a Lumia 1020 type of camera will be sorely disappointed, as the Nokia X2 only features a 5 megapixel rear camera and a 0.3 megapixel front-facing one. Overall nothing real exciting here, but it means that Nokia is set on making Android phones, and maybe, just maybe, one day we’ll see a proper flagship from the ailing Finnish company.
