Last month in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress event, Nokia unveiled its Nokia X lineup of smartphones. The phones – Nokia X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL, were the Finnish giant’s first attempt at Android smartphones. Nokia had announced that it will soon start shipping Nokia X, while the other two will arrive in the next quarter. Now many Indian outlets are reporting that Nokia India has started sending out invites to an event it will host on March 10th.
Just yesterday an Indian retail site listed the Nokia X smartphone at 8,500 INR. The site had mentioned March 15th to be the date when the phone would be available. Now that we know Nokia has an event coming next week, the launch date may sync with it.
To refresh your memories, Nokia X runs on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), and lacks all of Google Mobile Services such as Gmail, Google Maps, Google PlayStore and more. Instead, Nokia has installed its own and Microsoft’s apps on the device. Nokia X sports a 4-inch IPS touchscreen display, powered by a dual-core 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, and a rather outdated Android JellyBean 4.1 OS. With an unimpressive 3 MP camera at the back and the lack of a front facing camera, and just a 1500 mAh battery, the device leaves a lot to be desired.
Nokia X will be facing a strong competition. In a market which is already jam-packed with better and cheaper Android smartphones, it will be interesting to see if customers favor Nokia X.
