The legend is back. Nokia has launched its first Android Nougat-powered phone called Nokia 6. What happened to 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5? I have no idea how they decided to name it 6. Perhaps the only clue that we have so far is that in Cantonese, 6 has the same pronunciation as Luck. There’s a reason why I said this.
According to HMD’s press release (PR), Nokia 6 is rocking a 5.5 inch full HD resolution display, “wrapped in 2.5D Gorilla Glass, and has an incredible colour reproduction.” It is running the “latest generation of Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 430 processor with X6 LTE modem designed for excellent battery life and superior graphics performance.“
It has 4 GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. Based on these specifications, I will make a guess that the battery is non-removable and storage is not expandable. Booooo! What happened to our signature removable battery for Nokia – the one I had with a portable charging dock?
The PR also mentioned that Nokia 6 has a great speaker, to be more precise, “unmatched clarity.” What about the camera? It has a 16-megapixel autofocus camera with f/2.0 aperture. I think I have to stop here with the specifications by saying that the phone is mid-range. The adjectives used in their PR are really written to cloud people’s mind so that they start fantasising holding a Nokia 6 in their hands. But there are many phones out there having similar specifications or better like some phones of XiaoMi.Sorry for bursting your bubble but there’s one more bubble to burst.
Nokia 6 is not available in Singapore or anywhere else in the world except… China.
According to Nestor Xu, Vice President Greater China, HMD Global, “China is the largest and most competitive smartphone market in the world. It is no coincidence that we have chosen to bring our first Android device to China with a long-term partner. JD.com is known for its upwardly mobile customer base and it has for many years believed in the Nokia brand and sold millions of our products to Chinese customers. Launching our first smartphone device, in such a strategically important market, with JD.com a trusted online retailer marks a signal of intent.”
Do not be discouraged yet. For people in Asia, Google is also doing this shit to us by not sharing their Pixel phones with us or like Amazon not giving us Kindle.
Will we see a Nokia available to all soon?
I do not believe that we will see Nokia 6 in the global market but maybe Nokia 7 will. Chief Product Office of HMD Global, Juho Sarvikas, left us a hint in his quote in the PR.
He said, “… The Nokia 6 marks the first step on our journey, with more to come in 2017.“
I am hopeful that 2017 will be a very interesting year for the mobile market with not just Nokia making a comeback from phone manufacturing, Blackberry is also making a tiny comeback with a phone of their own, powered by Android too. Remember, it is also the 10-year anniversary of the iPhone. So exciting!
How is the Nokia 6 selling now?
The Nokia 6 is rumoured to have more than 250,000 registrations of interest in approximately 24 hours since they broke the news about the new phone. The real figure is still yet to be confirmed. But with the country’s mobile market dominated by XiaoMi and Apple, it is going to be an uphill battle for Nokia to rise from the dead to beat these big boys anytime soon.
Nokia 6 is selling at ￥1699. Consumers can pre-order on JD.com from now until the flash sale on 19 January 2017.
