Nokia’s epic revival
Is Nokia the Mark Twain of the cellphone world? Like the great author, who famously told a reporter that rumours of his death were exaggerated, the once dominant mobile phone brand, written off by many as dead and gone, is back – and in decisive fashion too.
If you were one of those who had already mourned the fallen Finnish phone giant’s demise and moved on, you did so with some justification.
After failing to cash in on the touchscreen smartphone revolution, Nokia was already a shadow of its former self when Microsoft acquired it in 2014, three years after it signed an agreement with the US tech titan to exclusively use its Windows Phone platform on future smartphones.
The pact with Microsoft did little to arrest its apparent slide into oblivion. Despite releasing some excellent devices, several of them boasting class-leading camera technology, sales were pitiful compared to the likes of Apple, Samsung and even newcomers like Huawei.
Just how dire the situation was became apparent in July 2015 when Microsoft wrote off $7.6 billion against the Nokia phone business and retrenched 7 800 staff. After that, many assumed Nokia was quietly allowed to die and its branding disappeared from subsequent Windows handsets.
Few took notice when, in May 2016, Microsoft Mobile sold its Nokia-branded feature phone business to HMD Global, a new company founded by a former Nokia executive, made up of veteran Nokia staff and based in Finland.
But now Nokia is back with not one, but four new phones. Ironically, the one that’s garnered the most attention – the retro-themed Nokia 3310 feature phone – is the least impressive technologically. As I’ve already covered it in this column, I’ll move onto the other three.
The Nokia 3, 5 and 6 are smartphones running Google’s Android operating system and aimed at the lower mid-range to upper mid-range segments of
the market. My first impressions are pretty favourable. Each runs the latest version of Android, 7.0 (Nougat). Even better, it’s a completely stock build of Nougat, so there’s none of the “bloatware” other manufacturers love to cram onto their devices, hence HMD’S tagline for them: “Pure Android”.
Apart from making for a faster, uncluttered user experience, running stock Android means these new Nokias will get software updates – including Google’s monthly security patches – much quicker than competitors running unnecessarily tarted-up versions of the OS. This for me is a huge tick in their favour and something that’s going to become increasingly important going forward as hackers get ever more aggressive and ingenious about targeting Android devices with malware.
All three of the new phones will also get Google Assistant, the search giant’s Ai-powered voice assistant which was, until very recently, exclusive to Google’s expensive Pixel phones, which aren’t available in South Africa.
This brings me to another big plus of the new Nokia line-up: value for money. Manufacturing of the Nokia 3, 5 and 6 is outsourced to a division of Chinese manufacturing behemoth Foxconn and build quality is by all accounts excellent, especially when you consider their recommended South African price tags – R1 999, R2 999 and R3 699, respectively.
If I have a complaint, it’s that they don’t exactly stand out looks wise, something you couldn’t say about some of the luminescent earlier Nokias running Windows Mobile. The most unassuming of the three, the entry-level Nokia 3, is the smallest with a five-inch screen, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a Mediatek quadcore processor, and 8MP front and rear cameras. While it has a polycarbonate back, rather than the metal of its pricier siblings, build quality is solid. When you factor in the software and security advantages I mentioned earlier, it’s great value for under R2 000.
The Nokia 5 is a little larger, with a 5.2-inch HD display. It’s also more powerful and feature rich, with 2GB of ram, 16GB of storage and a beefier Snapdragon 430 processor. It’s got a 13MP rearfacing camera and an 8MP front camera.
The biggest and most wellendowed specs-wise of the three, the Nokia 6, comes with a 5.5-inch HD display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of onboard storage, and Snapdragon 430 processor. There’s an 8MP frontfacing camera, while the 16MP rear camera boasts a dual-tone LED flash. If decent sound quality on a phone is a priority for you, you’ll be pleased to hear the Nokia 6 sports dual speakers with Dolby Atmos enhancements.
Will these new arrivals be enough to revive Nokia’s fortunes as a smartphone brand? Maybe not on their own. But they’re certainly a solid first step, and as more people start to realise the benefits of a “pure” Android experience, brands like Nokia which emphasise this feature will, I believe, become increasingly popular.
Nokia and its parent company HMD may be a relative Chihuahua in the dogfight for smartphone dominance, but perhaps another Mark Twain quote is applicable here: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog”. Follow Alan Cooper on Twitter @ alanqcooper.