With Nokia X, X+ & XL, Nokia Finally Embraces Android At Affordable Prices

The Mobile World Congress has begun with a bang with unveiling of Nokia’s X family of smartphones. We had heard a lot about the Nokia X before but the unveiling of Nokia X+ and Nokia XL has surprised us. Many of our readers (and authors) had also thought that the Nokia X would be a one-off attempt from Nokia to embrace Android but we were wrong, since as it turns out Nokia has introduced the X lineup to sit somewhere between its Asha and Lumia series of smartphones. Since all of these devices run Nokia X OS which is a forked AOSP Android OS (Android 4.1 to be precise) you won’t be getting access to Google’s apps or Play Store. Apps will be available from the Nokia Store, third-part app stores and they can also be side-loaded. The Nokia family of smartphones borrows UI designs from Lumia and Asha. You get tile-based Home screen that you find on a Windows Phone and a second home-screen which is a redesigned version of Asha Fastlane notification center. Other salient features of Nokia X family include offline satellite navigation service (HERE Maps), Nokia Mix Radio, free cloud storage space of 7GB from Microsoft OneDrive, Outlook email service and a free one month subscription for international landline calls on Skype for selected markets. Third party apps like BBM, Plants vs. Zombies 2, Viber, We Chat, Vine and Twitter come preloaded.


Coming to the smartphones’ hardware, they are all powered by a 1GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8225 processor. Since the smartphones have been targeted at emerging markets, Dual-SIM functionality has been included. Despite having different sizes they all feature 15:9 aspect ratio IPS LCD panels that have a WVGA (800 x 480 pixels) resolution. All screens come equipped with display features like brightness control, tactile feedback, orientation sensor, Nokia Glance screen, wide viewing angle and screen double tap unlock. All of them come with Bluetooth 3.0, microUSB, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi hotspot functionality and 3G connectivity. Onboard you get 4GB of storage and an option to expand that storage to up to 32GB by using microSD cards. So the question that you might be asking right now is what are the differences between all these smartphones? Well, your queries have been answered in the following paragraphs.

The Nokia X is the base model and it comes with a 4-inch display. It includes 512 MB of RAM and a 3-megapixel camera. It will be available for the public from today in Asia Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle-East and Africa for a retail price of € 89 (7,574 INR) in green, black, white, yellow, cyan and red colour variants.
The Nokia X+ is the next model and it comes with a larger RAM of 768 MB and a 4GB microSD card in the box. The phone will set you back by € 99 (8,429 INR).


Finally we have the Nokia XL which is the biggest of them all as it comes with a larger 5-inch display and the same amount of RAM as included in the Nokia X+. It has a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with flash and a front 2MP camera for Skype calls. The Nokia XL will cost you € 109 (8290 INR). The Nokia X+ and the Nokia XL will arrive in stores in second quarter of 2014.


You can peruse through the comparison spec sheet of the three smartphones below.


So you have met all the members of the Nokia X family now, the much leaked #-Link-Snipped-# and the surprises like #-Link-Snipped-# and #-Link-Snipped-#. So have all your expectations been met by Nokia in its foray to the Android ecosystem? Post your views right now in the comment section below.

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