Nokia entrenches Android move

Nokia X is a feeder system to Lumia and is helping Microsoft compete in the fast-growing and competitive affordable smartphone market.

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Nokia deepened its move into Android handsets yesterday, when its parent company, Microsoft, unveiled the Nokia X2.

The handset is the newest addition to the expanding Nokia X family of what it says are "affordable smartphones designed to introduce the next billion people to the mobile Internet and cloud services".

The dual-SIM device, which should retail for EUR99, will be rolled out from next month. However, a launch date for SA has yet to be set.

Leo McKay, Microsoft's communications manager for South East Africa, explains the company's continued investment in its X range is a bid to "bring popular Microsoft services to lower price points and a wider base of consumers around the world".

McKay says the Nokia X is a feeder system to Lumia and is helping Microsoft compete in the fast-growing and competitive affordable smartphone market. "Adoption of Microsoft services, including Skype and OneDrive, on Nokia X, is already outpacing adoption of these services on comparable Android devices."

The X2 follows the launch, earlier this year, of a family of low-cost smartphones - the X, X+ and XL, which Reuters reported run on a recently-debuted forked variant of Android, called the Nokia X Software Platform. In 2009, Nokia said it was not developing a handset to run on Android.

World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck says Microsoft is clearly making a push on all fronts, and is not being "precious" about brand purity. "Nokia X was the thin edge of the wedge as far as accommodating Android is concerned. It's in their best interests to be seen as an accommodating brand, rather than a walled garden like Apple."

Tech blogger and Swift Consulting CEO Liron Segev adds the move shows how far handsets have come, with Microsoft buying Nokia, and then running Android devices with BlackBerry Messenger on them.

The Nokia X2 sports a 4.3-inch ClearBlack display and 5MP rear camera with autofocus and flash. It also provides access to Android apps and Microsoft services.

The device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor featuring a dual-core 1.2GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM. It debuts the next-generation Nokia X Software Platform 2.0 and major enhancements to the user interface.

There is a choice of three types of screens to facilitate navigation: the colourful "home" with resizable tiles; Fastlane to access recent apps and future calendar items; and a new Lumia-inspired apps list, from which people can pin items to the home screen.

A pull-down notifications tab allows the user to glance at connectivity options, as well as actionable items, such as software updates available for download, and the device has a new home key.

Nokia X2: Specifications at a glance