It’s finally happening. HMD Global, the licence holder for the Nokia brand for smartphones, has announced its first smartphone bearing the iconic brand. Called the Nokia 6, it surprisingly has modest specs – and will launch exclusively in China.
The Nokia 6 is an all-metal unibody made from 6000 series aluminium machined from a single block. It sports a 2.5D 5.5-inch Full HD “hybrid in-cell display” with Corning Gorilla Glass, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a fingerprint sensor, but with only a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset. (Update: the official product page is now live, and reveals additional hardware info: a 3,000mAh non-removable battery, a microSD card slot that supports up to 128GB cards, and Corning Gorilla Glass 3).
The smartphone also features a 16MP f/2.0 rear camera with phase detect auto focus, and an 8MP front-facing camera. It will ship with Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. There is also space for dual audio amplifiers speakers, as well as Dolby Atmos support.
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Unfortunately, those who are looking to get a hold of the first Nokia-branded smartphone since 2014 will likely end up disappointed: HMD Global has stated that the Nokia 6 will be sold in China only, via JD.com.
The decision to launch the Nokia 6 as a China-exclusive product is a strategic move. According to HMD Global, the Chinese market is one that “highly values premium and quality”, but more importantly, it is also a market that expects to grow by almost 10% in 2017.
The Nokia 6 will retail for 1699 Yuan (about RM1,100), and will be available in “early 2017”, according to HMD Global.
(Source: HMD Global, Featured Image Source: Reuters)
