Nokia's Android offering, will it see the light of day

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#968371 16-Jan-2014 17:23

For those of you that don't think Nokoia will sell an Android phone, they are effectively already doing that.

Google Vertu.

Vertu was set up by Nokia as a high price custom case mobile phone product. Nokia sold Vertu but still make the phones for Vertu.

The lastest Vertu phones run Android.

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#968380 16-Jan-2014 17:30

Vertu makes their own phones AFAIK. It's all hand made/assembly in their own Vertu office/factory/plant somewhere in UK I believe.

Do whatever you want to do man.

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#968511 16-Jan-2014 21:38

Bill

Yes the Vertu website says 'Handcrafted in England'

According to Wikipedia Nokia still owns 10% of Vertu and Nokia still makes the handsets.

Perhaps the cases are made in England.

It makes some sense that Nokia would have involvement somewhere in the making of the handset since they originally set Vertu up. What is interesting is the choice of Android over WP.

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#968758 17-Jan-2014 10:55

Technofreak: Bill

Yes the Vertu website says 'Handcrafted in England'

According to Wikipedia Nokia still owns 10% of Vertu and Nokia still makes the handsets.

Perhaps the cases are made in England.

It makes some sense that Nokia would have involvement somewhere in the making of the handset since they originally set Vertu up. What is interesting is the choice of Android over WP.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Vertu, but were afraid to ask.

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#968759 17-Jan-2014 10:58

NikT:
Technofreak: Bill

Yes the Vertu website says 'Handcrafted in England'

According to Wikipedia Nokia still owns 10% of Vertu and Nokia still makes the handsets.

Perhaps the cases are made in England.

It makes some sense that Nokia would have involvement somewhere in the making of the handset since they originally set Vertu up. What is interesting is the choice of Android over WP.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Vertu, but were afraid to ask.

to me they look quite dated but I suppose when its that expensive it needs an individual look.

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#968777 17-Jan-2014 11:33

jeffnz:
to me they look quite dated but I suppose when its that expensive it needs an individual look.

I do think their latest handset is extraordinarily fetching, and aside from the lack of 4G, quite serviceable on the spec sheet side. Not so keen at £4,200, however - even if it does have a dedicated 'Vertu button' to give the owner VIP access to clubs and fashion shows.

Not at all indicative of what Nokia could have done with Android, mind you.

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#969401 18-Jan-2014 16:05

If it a fork just using AOSP as a base, I could nearly see it. Meego does not really exist any more, Tizen is still not ready. Mer is close to being viable, but still not yet. AOSP is mature and driver support is readily available, it makes the perfect base to my mind and it is not a Google device so no competition with Windows Phone. I think WP8's performance on low end devices invalidates it though. The Normandy device is similar to the 520 which runs WP8 like a champ.

The timelines for all the info about Normandy don't fully make sense to my mind, they are talking about it having been developed for 2+ years, but now it is suddenly Android 4.4.2 based which would mean they have been developing it up until the last 2 months or so. Maybe they have just kept up with the latest branch of AOSP.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

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#979675 3-Feb-2014 19:55

well the rumors are still around, looks like that if MS don't stop it then we will see on the 29th Feb.

link

personally I find this really intriguing if it happens, the phone looks pretty good as well.

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#979727 3-Feb-2014 21:18

paulmilbank: Meego does not really exist any more, Tizen is still not ready.

Meego lives on in Jolla I think you'll find, Samsung have announced the release of their first Tizen handset.

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#979730 3-Feb-2014 21:33

jeffnz: well the rumors are still around, looks like that if MS don't stop it then we will see on the 29th Feb.

link

personally I find this really intriguing if it happens, the phone looks pretty good as well.

When is D day for the Microsoft take over? Is there any possibility that the takeover will founder?

It's my bet this release will happen. There's too much speculation for the handset not to exist.

Microsoft doesn't yet own the Nokia handset division, so may have little influence on whether it gets released.

I see this is possibly a way that some from within Nokia will trying to show that WP was a bad choice for Nokia. I don't think everyone at Nokia has been totally happy with WP.

It will be interesting to see what market support there will be for this phone and what the pundits think of it.

I see parallels between this phone and the N9.

The N9 was released after the infamous "burning platforms" speech/email from Stephen Elop when he was referred to Symbian and Meego. However Meego still saw the light of day and for a so called burning platform was/is superior to the platform chosen to replace it.

If Nokia do release an Android phone I hope it doesn't become an orphan like the N9.

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#980236 4-Feb-2014 18:07

not sure the date but pretty sure they could stop them but one never knows. I think the fact that it won't be reliant on Google maybe the key and the interface (leaked) loos like windows tiles but still be interesting to see if it is released and also the price given the cost of the 520.

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#982214 8-Feb-2014 10:56

I stumbled across this today. http://www.seotechnocrat.com/nokia-android-phone/

If you can believe this Nokia have been selling an Android phone for a while now.

However I'm not sure any one who knows their OS's would take it seriously. Then there's all the comments at the bottom which makes me wonder what planet they're on.

I guess it goes to show you cannot believe all that's posted on the web!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This also applies to the current speculation, a lot of which is regurgitated rumour.

We'll just have to wait and see

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#982524 9-Feb-2014 07:53

Neither Microsoft, Nokia, nor anyone else should fork Android. It’s unforkable

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/neither-microsoft-nokia-nor-anyone-else-should-fork-android-its-unforkable/

uglyb0b

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#982734 9-Feb-2014 14:22

I wouldn't say it's unforkable, but it would be extremely difficult and potentially suicidal for any current Android OEM to fork Android. Nokia already have a map service, a backend system for an app store and various other systems. They also will not have to worry about getting their google apps licence taken away as they do not use one, so they would be free to manufacture their own hardware.

Microsoft also have plenty of the back end services that would be required to replace google apps. In fact I would go as far as to say that the ONLY companies that could potentially fork Android are Nokia or Microsoft.

It would be very difficult to pull this off, but as that article mentioned, one of the major obstacles to forking Android is finding a manufacturer to actually build your hardware. As Nokia already build their own hardware and are not contracted to Google, they be completely unaffected by this.

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#982993 9-Feb-2014 21:50

Ugly Bob

I agree that either Nokia or Microsoft could do this.

I see it as more likely being Nokia in this case.

I get an inkling that there is a bit of unrest or resentment at Nokia with the lack of speed from Microsoft with development of the WP platform, plus I think it would be fair to say WP has been a dismal failure for Nokia. By dismal failure I don't mean to imply WP is a bad OS. It just hasn't produced any significant market share especially in comparison to Nokia's old OS's.

Therefore I think there is a motive from within Nokia to show up the WP paltform. Nokia has email and other services it can offer as well as their excellent mapping apps and their own store.

May be one last gasp before Micrsoft takes over Nokia's handset division. I may be completely wrong, only time will tell.

Interesting times

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