Nokia Goes Android with X, X+, and XL
Nokia isn't very good at keeping secrets, and this one has been been in the air for years. However, during the first day of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Finnish handset maker finally revealed the Nokia X family of smartphones—all powered by Android.
Of course, that statement comes with a lot of caveats. The X family runs Android but strips away Google Mobile Services (GSM). The play store is essentially supplanted by Nokia's own store. The same can be said for Google Maps (Here Maps), Play Music (MixRadio), etc. This is a similar OS maneuver that the Amazon's Kindle Fire has been doing for years.
The X family has three different members: the X, the X+, and the XL. The first two are four-inch options with the X+ sporting a little bit beefier specs, and the XL is your 5-inch addition. The user interface resembles Windows Phone, but not entirely. The tiles are still there and the ability to adjust them still exists, but the experience is way different from the Lumia 1520 or the newly released Icon. On the outside, the phone looks pretty similar to the Lumia 520, and the Android-powered X family is targeted for emerging markets with only 512MB of RAM and only 4 GB of storage (with MicroSD card support). Strangely enough, the X family runs on 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, though KitKat was specifically built for low-end phones using 16 percent less memory.
The X also houses Microsoft services like OneDrive and Outlook and therein could lie Nokia's strategy for the X—introducing new users to the Windows ecosystem. With Microsoft fully acquiring Nokia in the coming weeks, it's possible that the X lives in our tech memory as a strange hiccup or anomaly, or maybe, it could be a new direction for Nokia and Microsoft's collective future.
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Nokia isn't very good at keeping secrets, and this one has been been in the air for years. However, during the first day of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Finnish handset maker finally revealed the Nokia X family of smartphones—all powered by Android.
Of course, that statement comes with a lot of caveats. The X family runs Android but strips away Google Mobile Services (GSM). The play store is essentially supplanted by Nokia's own store. The same can be said for Google Maps (Here Maps), Play Music (MixRadio), etc. This is a similar OS maneuver that the Amazon's Kindle Fire has been doing for years.
The X family has three different members: the X, the X+, and the XL. The first two are four-inch options with the X+ sporting a little bit beefier specs, and the XL is your 5-inch addition. The user interface resembles Windows Phone, but not entirely. The tiles are still there and the ability to adjust them still exists, but the experience is way different from the Lumia 1520 or the newly released Icon. On the outside, the phone looks pretty similar to the Lumia 520, and the Android-powered X family is targeted for emerging markets with only 512MB of RAM and only 4 GB of storage (with MicroSD card support). Strangely enough, the X family runs on 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, though KitKat was specifically built for low-end phones using 16 percent less memory.
The X also houses Microsoft services like OneDrive and Outlook and therein could lie Nokia's strategy for the X—introducing new users to the Windows ecosystem. With Microsoft fully acquiring Nokia in the coming weeks, it's possible that the X lives in our tech memory as a strange hiccup or anomaly, or maybe, it could be a new direction for Nokia and Microsoft's collective future.
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