Nokia's back and how!

Leaks and rumors regarding Nokia’s comeback have been gaining steam ahead of HMD Global’s February 26 MWC 2017 event. In May of 2016, Nokia had announced that it will grand HMD Global (A Finnish company) the exclusive global license to create Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets for the next 10 years and the company followed that up by launching Nokia’s first smartphone in years, the Nokia 6 in China on January 19.

Now Nokia’s comeback is set to be unleashed on a global scale with HMD Global set to announce 3 handsets at MWC 2017 later this month. The handsets in question are the global variant of the mid-range Nokia 6, the flagship Nokia 8/P1 and the low-end model, Nokia 3.

While specifications and details regarding the Nokia 8 have been making news for quite some time, details regarding the low-end Nokia 3 have been extremely scarce. Now, however, the specifications of the affordable Nokia 3 have hit the internet, thanks to Nokia Power User.

The Nokia 3 in detail

The smartphone is set to come with a 5.2-inch HD display, a 1.4GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 SoC, 2GB of RAM and the Adreno 308 GPU. Further, the device is expected to come with 16GB of unbuilt storage expandable via a micro SD card, Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box, a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera.

The report also claims that the Nokia 3 will be priced at EUR 149 (Roughly Rs 10,500) and will likely make it’s the way to major markets by March-April.

Nokia 5 - the mid-range competitor

Along with the Nokia 3, details of the Nokia 5 have also surfaced recently. The mid-range smartphone is also set to come with a 5.2-inch HD display and 2GB of RAM. On the imaging front, the device will feature a 12MP rear camera and will be priced at EUR 199 (Roughly Rs 14,000).

The return of the iconic Nokia 3310

An interesting rumor doing the rounds these days is the fact that HMD Global might introduce a 2017 refresh of Nokia’s iconic 3310 feature phone. The new Nokia 3310 is set to be priced at EUR 59 (Roughly Rs 4,000).

Along with the above, HMD Global is also set to launch the global variant of the Nokia 6 and its flagship smartphone - the Nokia 8/P1 at the MWC event, which will take place on February 26, 9 PM I.S.T.

The Nokia 6 in detail

The Nokia 6 comes with a 5.5-inch full HD display with 2.5D Gorilla Glass on top. The smartphone is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 430 processor paired with 4GB of RAM, a 3,000mAh battery and 64GB of internal storage.

On the design front, the device is made from a single block of 6000 series aluminum, which HMD Global claims takes 55 minutes to the machine. Further, the company says the handset receives two separate anodizing processes, taking over ten hours to complete, with each phone being polished no less than five times.

Nokia 8 - The upcoming flagship

Apart from the Nokia 6, HMD Global is also set to announce a flagship by the name of Nokia 8/P1 which will come with Zeiss branded optics as seen on earlier Nokia devices.

The Nokia 8 is set to come in two variants, one with 6GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage and the Snapdragon 835 SoC and one with 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage and the Snapdragon 821 SoC.

On the imaging front, the handset is rumored to come with a massive 24MP primary camera with Optical Image Stabilisation and a 12MP front shooter for selfies.




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Going for a hole in one

If 2018 was the year of the notch, 2019 is shaping up to be the year of the pinhole (or hole-punch) smartphone camera, with manufacturers like Huawei and Lenovo following the lead set by Samsung with its Infinity-O design (present in the Galaxy A8S) in a race to provide as much screen real estate as possible.





Now, it appears that Finnish company HMD Global is working on a Nokia-branded handset with its own hole-punch camera cutout, with 91Mobiles and @OnLeaks teaming up to release renders based on leaked CAD files of what's presumed to be the Nokia 8.1 Plus.

The renders, along with an accompanying 360-degree video, show a smartphone with minimal bezels and a tiny hole-punch cutout at the top left of its display which holds a selfie camera.


Other device features include a 6.22-inch display, rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, Zeiss dual camera setup, 3.5mm headphone jack and a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer.

Whether these renders really do give us a legitimate look at the next Nokia flagship phone is still speculative at this point, but you can check out the new images in all their glory in the gallery below.



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Camera phones are about to get even better

It has been a few years since the conclusion of the smartphone megapixel wars. Back then, manufacturers from across the industry sought to undo one another, cramming as many pixels as possible into each smartphone iteration released.

This mostly stopped by 2016, with manufacturers moving onto what was the next marketing speak craze of the moment, wider apertures.

In 2018 however, with the release of the Huawei P20 Pro, the Chinese behemoth fired the starting shot in the next phase of this war with its combined 92MP across four cameras. Though none as of yet have answered the challenge, 2019 is set to bring an onslaught.

The main weapon in this next phase will be the latest smartphone camera sensor developed by imaging giant Sony - the IMX586.

Behind the generic name lies a whopping 48 million pixels, grouped together, each with a 'compact' size of 0.8 microns.

With Xiaomi, Huawei and Honor (with the View 20) reportedly among the first buyers, and Sony and Samsung rumored to be working on using a similar megapixel count in future devices, it seems the 48MP smartphone onslaught is about to explode onto the scene.

What does this mean for you?

A lot has been done to deride the notion of stuffing megapixels into a smartphone camera, with the common assumption being that image quality is actually harmed through an abundance of them.

Historically, this has been true. Mainly, however, keen to differentiate themselves, marketing teams for smartphone manufacturers have used megapixels counts as absolute measures of image quality.

They are most certainly not this, and in the past having a few too many on a small sensor impaired low-light capabilities, but times have changed and technology has advanced.

The main advantage of more megapixels is greater detail representation. More megapixels means more image data making it to the processor, which means larger files, which means more versatility.

Famously, the Nokia Lumia 1020 had up to 4x lossless digital zoom thanks to its 41MP snapper. Those purchasing 48MP monsters in 2019 will be able to zoom in closer to their subjects than ever before, and all with little to no degradation in quality.


The Nokia Lumia 1020 boasted a 41MP camera when it launched in 2013

Secondly, there is the matter of low-light capability to consider. Typically, in the past, in order to achieve excellent low-light performance, three ingredients have been necessary: optical image stabilization (OIS), a wide aperture and a relatively restrained sensor resolution.

The first allows for the shutter to be held open for longer, allowing more light in, while the second performs roughly the same function, though in a different manner.

As for the last point, if we think of a smartphone sensor as a rectangle (as they are), pixels are 'windows' crammed into this rectangle. One megapixel is shorthand for one million pixels, and the more megapixels crammed into the sensor, the smaller each individual pixel needs to be (to squeeze them all in).

These 'windows' let light in, and what allows the processor to recreate the scene in front of it. The fewer pixel 'windows' there are, the larger each individual pixel can be. And the larger the pixel, the more light is let in.

A clever trick is used by this new sensor to get past this old limitation however, which effectively combines information from groups of four pixels creating 'super' pixels.

This brings the light gathering power up by a factor of four, making it roughly equivalent to a 12MP sensor of the same size.

Sony says this should improve the dynamic range available by up to four times the average possible for the sensor, allowing it to really push the limits of what is achievable.

The power within

A large part of what makes all of this possible is the raw computing power now available in the average smartphone.

The 41MP-toting smartphone beasts from the past weren't known for being powerhouses. Though it was capable, 2012's Nokia 808 Pureview ran Symbian and had a single core processor, and while it had a dedicated imaging co-processor to handle the large file sizes produced, it couldn't keep with the best of them at the time.


The Nokia 808 Pureview changed perceptions of what was possible from camera phones in 2012

As for the Lumia 1020, though it produced lovely images, the shot to shot time was yawn-inducing, with the average wait sometimes in excess of 8 seconds.

With the latest chipsets capable of easily plowing through the likes of PUBG and Fortnite on our mobiles, it's unlikely that a few chunky image files are going to hold things back.

Not just that, but the advanced post-processing of current and future smartphones will make the situation even more interesting.

Night modes with crazy motion adjusted long-exposures are commonplace, as is advanced auto-HDR. Combined with more exotic camera hardware such as the Sony IMX586, this promises to produce some game-changing results.

Samsung has its own version of the chip, the ISOCELL Bright GM1, offering much the same capability but for likely a lower price. There is no word as of yet as to whether rival manufacturer Omnivision will also jump on board, however, it's likely with time.

With warfare comes competition, with competition between manufacturers comes innovation, and with innovation comes benefit to the consumer.

2019 promises to be highly interesting for smartphone cameras, whether due to increased megapixel counts or otherwise, and everyone stands to benefit.



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Nokia launches its 5.8-inch screen Nokia 7.1 and also unveils two new wireless earphone products.

HMD responds on global availability

Nokia X6 to be available in two variants

And the prices look quite tempting

Nokia's updated 6.1 and 7 Plus handsets offer decent specs, competitive prices, and the unmodified Android One operating system.

Nokia 6.1	Nokia 7 Plus
Size	148.8 x 75.8 x 8.15mm	158.38 x 75.64 x 7.99 mm
Weight	172g	183g
OS	Android One (Android 8 Oreo)	Android One (Android 8 Oreo)
Screen	5.5-inch IPS LCD, 1,920 x 1.080, 16:9 aspect ratio	6-inch IPS LCD, 2,160 x 1,080, 18:9 aspect ratio
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 630	Qualcomm Snapdragon 660
RAM	4GB	4GB
Storage: total (free)	32GB (18.94)	64GB (50.63)
Camera(s) - back	16MP	12MP + 13MP
Camera - front	8MP	16MP
Battery	3,000mAh	3,800mAh

China Mobile has chosen Nokia Nuage Networks Virtualized Services Platform as the SDN platform behind its new public, private, and hybrid enterprise cloud services.

The Nokia 8110 curved slider phone makes a return in bright 'banana yellow'.

Nokia and AWS will team up over the advancement of 5G and IoT systems, while additionally attempting to quicken and enhance undertaking relocation to cloud and utilization of SD-WAN administrations.