Talk of a Nokia Android phone has been ongoing in the smartphone space. Thanks to an increasingly credible source, the buzz has reached a peak as visual evidence of the phone has surfaced, looking similar to a Windows device despite indications that it may be an Android gadget.
Gigaom covers the latest buzz surrounding “Normandy,” the prospective Nokia handset, Twitter leaks by user @evleaksES. Referred to by some as a serial leaker, @evleaksES tweeted screen shots of what is said to be a deeply customized version of Android bearing a striking resemblance to the Windows Metro interface. In fact, the interface looks nothing at all like that which Android users have come to know and love.
The Nokia Android phone will reportedly have a Qualcomm S4 processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 4 GB of storage, The Verge reports; it appears that the device may also offer more more capacity via a built-in microSD slot. At four inches in display size, the Normandy sounds like a handset designed to compete with the Sony Xperia and other smartphones on the more modest end of the market.
Microsoft Money
The allegiances of the parties involved make the Nokia Normandy story even more interesting, with Microsoft and Google competitors in several markets, the mobile operating system space among them. As another article from The Verge notes, Microsoft acquired the assets of Nokia’s phone and services business for $7.2 billion last fall. Since then, new Nokia models have been steadily rolling out with Windows software onboard—all the more reason that Android seems out of place in the current picture.
An Android Nokia phone seems even more incongruous considering Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s previous comments on the OS platform. “What we were worried about a couple of years ago was the very high risk that one hardware manufacturer could come to dominate Android,” said Elop in an interview with The Guardian. The company’s concerns turned out to be warranted in some regard, considering that Samsung is currently perched on the top rung of the ladder of Android device makers.
On the surface, signing off on a Nokia Android phone would seem counter-intuitive for Microsoft. However, things are not always as they appear: A ZDNet report claims that Microsoft makes approximately $2 billion per year on Android licensing. The report was based on insights from Rick Sherlund, a Nomura analyst who estimated that the software giant earns roughly $5 on each Android device sold. While it wouldn’t necessarily aid Windows in the fight for visibility in the mobile OS realm, this sort of arrangement would make supporting the rival platform a win/win for Microsoft.
Android on Windows Trending
While the gadget community speculates on whether or not Nokia’s Normandy has a future, other companies are actually working on making the hybrid OS concept a reality, cooking up their own respective methods to integrate Android and Windows on the same device. The line between mobile OS brands continues to blur.
Do you see a Nokia Android phone on the horizon with Microsoft in the picture?
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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