Nokia has not released, let alone announced a flagship smartphone for quite some time now. In fact, the last of which we’ve seen from the Finnish phone manufacturer was back in 2019, where it launched the quintuple camera-equipped Nokia 9 PureView. After almost two years of hiatus, it appears that the brand is finally going to release a new flagship handset in late 2021.
News of this was first brought to light by Chinese website ITHome, citing a statement by HMD Global’s Chinese product manager Zhang Yucheng which was posted on Weibo. Yucheng said that the company is preparing a new 5G Nokia flagship that is slated to launch in the country on 11 November this year, which also happens to be the major 11.11 “Singles’ Day” shopping event.
Unfortunately, that’s as much of what was revealed about the upcoming top-of-the-line smartphone. Its name, hardware specifications and features are anyone’s guess at this time, although there have been some rumours of a Nokia phone circulating online. This is referring to an alleged smartphone known as the X50, which is tipped to feature a 108MP main camera and a Snapdragon 775 chipset. It is not known whether this would be the same handset that HMD Global is planning to introduce later in November.
Meanwhile, a separate rumour by Twitter user Nokia Anew is suggesting that the brand is developing a more higher end smartphone supposedly known as the X70. Besides allegedly equipped with an imaging system developed by Nokia Technology, further details regarding this model are very sparse. And much like the X50 that was mentioned earlier, the likeliness of this particular model being Nokia’s upcoming yet mysterious flagship smartphone is merely a speculation for now.
Nokia, once the world’s most popular phone brand, has pretty much stayed outside of the limelight ever since entering the Android and iOS dominated smartphone era. While it had launched a number of noteworthy flagships such as the Lumia 1020 in 2013, most of them failed to reach the same level of recognition as the brand’s older handsets.
Maybe, just maybe, Nokia and HMD Global would finally make a difference with this new flagship. But only time will tell if that would be the case.
