Finland's Nokia on Tuesday announced the Nokia N1, what the company is calling the "first Nokia-branded Android tablet." The tablet will be launched in China in Q1 2015 with a brand-licensing agreement extending to an OEM partner (Foxconn) that will manufacture, distribute, and sell it.
The Nokia N1 will cost $249 (roughly Rs. 15,400) before taxes, and will be made available in other markets globally.
With the launch of the
Nokia N1 tablet, the company neatly bypasses the restrictions imposed by the Microsoft deal - for those unaware, after the acquisition of Nokia's devices and services division by Microsoft
in April, the Finnish company
can no longer use the Nokia brand on smartphones till Q4 2016, and on feature phones for 10 years.
After the Microsoft sale
Nokia was left with its core network equipment and services business plus its smaller Here mapping and navigation unit and Nokia Technologies, which manages the licensing of its portfolio of patents and develops new products such as the N1 and the Z Launcher.
The Finnish telecommunications giant says the Nokia N1 tablet features the
predictive Nokia Z Launcher interface on top of Android 5.0 Lollipop.
Nokia says the N1 tablet features a "unique one-piece aluminium design with a soft finish", and will be available in Lava Grey and Natural Aluminium colours.
The Nokia N1 features a 7.9-inch (2048x1536 pixel) IPS LED-backlit display protected by Gorilla Glass 3, and is powered by a 64-bit 2.3GHz Intel Atom Z3580 processor (4 cores, 4 threads) coupled with a PowerVR G6430 GPU and 2GB of LPDDR3 (800MHz) RAM. It sports 32GB of inbuilt storage (non-expandable).
Nokia N1 tablet features an 8-megapixel rear autofocus camera with 1080p video recording, and a 5-megapixel fixed focus camera. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/n/ac with MIMO, Bluetooth 4.0, Micro-USB with reversible Type-C connector, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
The Nokia N1 tablet weighs in at 318 grams, and measures 200.7x138.6x6.9mm. Also onboard are 0.5W stereo speakers, and a 5300mAh battery. For sensors, it sports a 6-axis gyroscope and an accelerometer.
Sebastian Nystrom, Head of Products at Nokia Technologies, who announced the Nokia N1 at the Slush technology conference in Helsinki, said, "We are pleased to bring the Nokia brand back into consumers' hands with the N1 Android tablet, and to help make sophisticated technologies simple. The N1 has a delightfully intuitive interface and an industrial design to match it. This is a great product for Nokia fans and everyone who has not found the right Android tablet yet."
Written with agency inputs