Images of the on-again, off-again Android-running smartphone that Nokia is reportedly working on have been leaked on the Internet, so the flame was reignited, to the joy of anyone waiting for it.
What seems to be Nokia Normandy, the Android device that the Finnish company’s CTO office has been rumored to work on, appeared these days in a couple of photos. Both the front and the rear of the smartphone were photographed nonchalantly, and then leaked on Twitter. User @picturepan2 posted the following image, along with the explanatory text: “Another engineering prototype of Nokia Normandy.”
The first image, which is of a lower quality than the second one, depicts the Normandy booting up. This is not uncommon for a Nokia smartphone, so the only details that give it away pertain to its design. Evan Nelson Blass, notorious phone tipster known as @evleaks on Twitter, and probably a man wanted by all smartphone manufacturers out there, retweeted the first image and leaked the next one, which was obviously intended for the press, given its great quality.
Much like the Lumia series of Windows Phone 8 smartphones made by the Finnish company, Nokia Normandy is also supposed to come in various colors – Black, Cyan, Green, Red, White and Yellow. Well, some part of the bezel and the back are colored, everything else being black. Even the UI depicts an Android so heavily modified that it resembles the tile interface of Windows Phone 8.
Less than a month ago, I wrote about how Nokia ditched its Android plans in order to focus on wearable tech. Those rumors have yet to be confirmed, and the probability of these images being a hoax is not exactly null. The only thing that gives all this a bit of credibility is the fact that @evleaks retweeted the images.
Assuming that Nokia Normandy becomes a reality in the not-so-distant future, there are few reasons to be happy about this. Of course, such a smartphone would confirm that Microsoft isn’t a tyrant. On the other hand, the rumored technical specs could make people wish that Nokia sticks to Windows Phone. The device will reportedly sport a Snapdragon 200 SoC, a 4″, 854 x 480 display and a 5MP rear camera. It would really be a pity to see such a mediocre device coming from what once was a titan in the telecommunication industry.
If you liked this post, please check the announcement about Microsoft buying Nokia for $7.2B and the rumors about Nokia focusing on wearable tech instead of Android smartphones.
