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Hardware

New Nokia Smartphones and Tablets Are Coming in Late 2016: Company Executive (pcworld.com) 58

An anonymous reader writes: The resurrection of the Nokia brand may happen in the fourth quarter of this year, which could make for some really nostalgic holiday gifts. According to Chinese site ThePaper (in Chinese), Nokia executive Mike Wang confirmed that three or four Nokia-branded Android devices are on the way for the fourth quarter of 2016. The comeback effort would include both phones and tablets. There is a chance, however, that the timeline could get pushed back depending upon how things progress. It wouldn't be a terrible shocker considering we're talking about a new company, HMD. It's composed of former employees from Microsoft, the old Nokia, and others who are banding together to resurrect the once-iconic brand. The best rumor we have is that the phones will have 5.2-inch and 5.5-inch Quad HD, OLED displays, a Snapdragon 820 SOC, 22.6MP back camera, and a metal build with water and dust resistance. No word on what a tablet would look like.
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New Nokia Smartphones and Tablets Are Coming in Late 2016: Company Executive

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  • by npslider ( 4555045 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @02:44PM (#52721277)

    In order for a new phone / tablet to stand out in the ever-growing crowd of smart devices it needs to be truly different. The rumored specs listed could be for any device!

    Perhaps it will play the classic Nokia ring tone by default? That may turn a few heads.

    • by aliquis ( 678370 )

      In order for a new phone / tablet to stand out in the ever-growing crowd of smart devices it needs to be truly different. The rumored specs listed could be for any device!

      Maybe not the camera.

      But yeah, it's not going to be just random Chinese phone with Nokia brand? Like Blackberry does? Actual hardware from Nokia?

      • by npslider ( 4555045 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @02:51PM (#52721327)

        Maybe not the camera.

        The camera's mega-pixel count did sound high, but those numbers are nearly meaningless w/o the quality optics and image sensors to make those huge images actually look good.

        But yeah, it's not going to be just random Chinese phone with Nokia brand? Like Blackberry does? Actual hardware from Nokia?

        Will the place of origin matter to anyone comparison shopping? Will we even know?

        • by aliquis ( 678370 )

          The camera's mega-pixel count did sound high, but those numbers are nearly meaningless w/o the quality optics and image sensors to make those huge images actually look good.

          Earlier they made(?) and used sensors with high pixel count even though you could save the pictures at a lower resolution, but it still gave better details (also normal CCD processors doesn't catch all colors per pixel but the colors in a grid even though the final resulting image has all colors in one pixel so the output data doesn't match the input data there and with a higher original resolution you shrink the errors there relative the output pixel / get better averages.)

          I don't know if someone else (one

    • What Blackberry did then Apple was change how we think about phone and how we use them.

      Both of these companies had created a new product that was considered popular and it changed how people used the device.
      First Blackberry using your phone for emails and texting was a big deal, with a full keyboard, as well keys placed in a way that was comfortable and practical for a lot of usage. This really had set the vision on how a smartphone looked for most of the 00's

      Apple did the same thing with the iPhone, befor

      • And kinda as shown from past history trying to appease the Slashdot crowd isn't the answer.

        They CAN be appeased?!

    • It could have the widest of configuration options, but have all of them preloaded w/ Marshmallow or Nutmeg or later, so that no matter what one buys, one could (depending on memory) support the latest apps
    • In order for a new phone / tablet to stand out in the ever-growing crowd of smart devices it needs to be truly different. The rumored specs listed could be for any device!

      perhaps they could include a VPN service that made all their users' search queries appear to be one single user, bonus if it appeared to come from the town of Nokia.

    • The ring tone? I still hear it from time to time, and these days it mostly draws looks of pity.

      About being different: what would you want out of a new player on the market? For me: stylish phones that are not super thin so they are easy to hold and have excellent battery life. Vanilla Android without bloatware. A 3.5mm jack (that's going to be a differentiator). And perhaps having a somewhat thicker phone will allow for better optics for the camera (that wart on the back of the new iPhones must have Job
    • In order for a new phone / tablet to stand out in the ever-growing crowd of smart devices it needs to be truly different.

      For me, the difference in this case is that the phones would be from Nokia. That maker's mark is worth a lot to me. My Nokia candy bars were great, just... old. I'd love to see that level of quality and attention to detail make a comeback on the Android platform, especially at an attractive price.

  • by bdh ( 96224 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @02:46PM (#52721293)

    People salivating over this should remember that Nokia has already released an Android; the N1. That was two years ago. Was it a good tablet? By all accounts, it was excellent. Did it make a massive effect on the market? It barely made a ripple, and was quickly forgotten. And this is a spinoff of that Nokia.

    People who are expecting Nokia to come roaring back are going to be disappointed. I'd love to see some new of the old Nokia magic myself, but like Ashton-Tate, Borland, Sun Microsystems, and the like, their time has sadly passed. Nokia was exceptional at making quality feature phones, and some really smart stuff went into their smartphones (I had a 5800 and loved it), but their skills didn't map to the mass market smartphone market. Like Blackberry, they were still selling phones with some computer features, while the rest of the market was selling hand-held computers that happened to make phone calls.

    Fortunately, they appear to be making tentative steps. Maybe they'll come out with some cool features and give Samsung some competition. I hope so, but I'm certainly not expecting them to become one of the big three phone/tablet vendors any time soon.

    • by npslider ( 4555045 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @02:57PM (#52721365)

      The big players (Apple, Samsung, Nexus, etc) have already established themselves, and like all new market niches, competition eventually kills off the weaker ones. Nokia is too late to the party, the music is over and the lights are out.

      I do hope they can buck that trend, but short of inventing a NEW kind of phone, what will they do to stand out. Smart phone shoppers already know the brand names in the race. Nokia, for some will bring back fond memories, for others... blank stares - "Noki- who?"

    • Nokia phones were solid until they tried to install windows on them, and then they crashed and burned.

      • by aliquis ( 678370 )

        N900 should had been released with Android rather than Maemo and things would had been different.

        Nokia, Nvidia, Sony and Apple are all too greedy for my tastes. Nokia had to have (the sales of) everything, Nvidia is just as much into vendor-lock in Apple, Sony may have learned but it took them time. Apple and Nvidia both seem to be able to pull it off but that's likely "only" because their products "are so good."

    • You forgot Digital Equipment Corp and Commodore Business Machines.

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @02:50PM (#52721315)

    "No word on what a tablet would look like"

    Usually they're rather thin, rectangular black slabs with a glass screen on the front and either a plastic or metallic back.

  • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @02:56PM (#52721361) Journal

    After using a Windows 10 mobile device (a tablet) for a few hours now, all I can say is holy shit, does Windows suck on touch devices. Christ almighty, even in "tablet" mode, it's just bloody awful. No wonder Microsoft's mobile plans are falling through, what a fucking disgrace. Even early versions of iOS and Android had a better user experience. Please Nokia, be done with Windows.

    • by aliquis ( 678370 )

      After using a Windows 10 mobile device (a tablet) for a few hours now, all I can say is holy shit, does Windows suck on touch devices. Christ almighty, even in "tablet" mode, it's just bloody awful. No wonder Microsoft's mobile plans are falling through, what a fucking disgrace. Even early versions of iOS and Android had a better user experience. Please Nokia, be done with Windows.

      That part of the business is Microsofts now so Nokia is indeed done with it.

  • http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-euro... [wsj.com]
    Sigh.
    I do wonder what'd have happened if they'd continued with maemo/harmattan, and put decent effort into it, rather than leaping to Microsofts side and tanking the stock price further.

    • Well, maemo/harmattan IS still around as Sailfish OS [sailfishos.org].

      I was running Sailfish OS 2 on a Nexus 5 until last May and it is a nice OS. I was going to develop apps for it until the Jolla Tablet debacle.

      • by rgbscan ( 321794 )

        Sailfish didn't strike me as too exciting. Similar lock screen to Android, and Apple's familiar grid of icon's home screen interface. At least Palm/webOS looked different.

      • Quite - I have one - but regrettably it is somewhat different a scale than Nokia Maemo. At least as of yet.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • The 900 was considerably more developed.
        Though was not actually sold in many markets, despite demand, through internal nokia politics.

  • by short ( 66530 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @03:08PM (#52721439) Homepage
    Nokia started the smartphone era with Nokia Communicators. They had QWERTY keyboards. With arrow keys, a numeric row, extra keys for launching applications (no touchscreen!). Where is the QWERTY?
    • Where is the QWERTZ? Where is the AZERTY? Where is the Russian keyboard? Where is the Danish keyboard? Where is the Czech keyboard? and so on.

    • HELL YEAH! Bring in a new N900 and I'll jump at it even if the specs would suck. In fact, I still use a N900 as iToys and Android are fit for a fart app and maybe a Fecesbook status update or two, but nothing more.

      N900's keymap was brain-dead (most symbols required a pull-up menu) but, as Maemo used regular sane X, it's nothing you can't fix [angband.pl]. Once you have full ASCII available, you are set for long hacking sessions without even bothering to fire up the big computer. Yes, I do use my phone nearly exclusi

  • By now, that would probably mean going back into the tire business [wikipedia.org]. I can't see anything else worth saving.

  • by rlp ( 11898 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @03:22PM (#52721521)

    Way back in the prehistoric days of PDA, Nokia made a couple of awesome little Linux based PDA's. If they want to make something beyond the standard Android phone, they should do a Linux based phone that can also plug into a dock and function as a full desktop. Perhaps partner with Canonical using their software base.

  • The first ones are being designed and built by Foxconn with a license fee going to Nokia. I'll wait until the phones are 100% engineered by Nokia before considering one of these "Nokia" phones for purchase.
  • by Fencepost ( 107992 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @05:52PM (#52722285) Journal
    If they do a decent job with low- or mid-range devices they might be able to leverage their name in areas where feature phones persisted longest, but I think that's probably a really hard place to make much money. Sure you can sell phones in Africa, but can you sell them with any kind of profit margin and still sell enough volume to make it worthwhile?

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