Today at Mobile World Congress HMD held a press conference in Barcelona to showcase its newest Nokia-branded phones. Nokia also provided an update on its Ozo VR camera and its smart home business.
Nokia unveiled its Ozo, their 360-degree camera for virtual reality. Nokia also talked about Withings, which it owns, and its plans for healthcare. Withings products are dropping their branding and will now carry the Nokia brand name as will as a new Nokia Health Mate app. Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri outlined plans for the Nokia Home hub.
As expected, the Nokia 3 and Nokia 5 appeared, and the international variants of the ‘phablet’-sized Nokia 6, the Rolls Royce of the range. Rumours that HMD was going to reboot the legendary Nokia 3310 device proved correct. (Read more about them here, here and here.)
The new phones are not manufactured and sold by Nokia but by HMD Global, another Finnish company, which has licensed the Nokia brand.
The Nokia 6 had already launched in China. Its international variant has a 5.5-inch display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor, 4GB RAM+64GB storage, 16 MP rear camera+8MP front camera and 3000 mAh battery. Nokia 6 will cost 229 Euros and the Nokia 6 Art 299 euros.
HMD Global CEO Arto Nummela said the Nokia 6 was sold out in 23 seconds in China during the first sales — setting what they hope will be the pattern elsewhere. The Nokia 5 was also announced but this has a smaller 5.2-inch display and comes in blue, copper, black and silver colours.
Nokia 3 has a 5-inch HD display, Gorilla Glass, with an 8MP selfie camera. The price will be 139 Euros. All of the devices will be available from Q2 of 2017 and all run pure Android Nougat. The 5 has an 8MB sensor from camera with a wide-angle for selfies.
Scant information was given about the re-boot of the 3310 other than it will have a massive 22hrs talk time (10 times more than the version in the 90s), 1 month standby time, Snake and the old Nokia Ringtone.
What’s the upshot? HMD Global is using the Nokia brand to gun for the low-end, mid-range segment of the market, with pure Android, premium built devices and all will get Google Assistant.
