Despite 2017 just being a few weeks in, it has already been dubbed as Nokia's comeback year. The company has just released its first handheld, the Nokia 6, which was exclusively sold in China. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, the unit sold out within seconds of its online sale and more than a million individuals are waiting for their next chance at owning the smartphone.
As RT notes, China has become known for quickly selling out on flash sale items, especially when it comes to tech gadgets. But while the brand like Xiaomi has started a following, Nokia and HMD Global are the newest members of that growing list. The first flash sale of the Nokia 6, which is being exclusively distributed via JD.com, was up and out in less than a minute.
The handheld, which sells for about US$245, has another million individuals registered at the online retailer's website for a chance to get their hands on the device. The next flash sale is expected to come on Thursday, but it is not clear how much stock of the Nokia 6 the retailer will have. Furthermore, JD.com has been told not to sell the same outside of China, so any interested buyers from other countries will have a hard time getting the same.
The Nokia 6 is definitely one of the cheaper choices to make in the market and the pricing does have its toll on the unit's specifications. According to NDTV Gadgets, the smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor and runs on 4GB of RAM. Its 5.5-inch touchscreen has a resolution of 1080 x 1920 or 403 pixels per inch.
The device has a built-in storage space of 64GB, but this is expandable to 128GB via a microSD card. The rear and front camera of the Nokia 6 has 16 megapixels and 8 megapixels respectively. And when it comes to the battery life, the company is generous with its 3000 mAh removable battery. Straight out of the box, the Nokia 6 runs on Android 7.0 Nougat. It weighs about 167 grams and measures a comfortable 154 x 75.8x 7.85 mm all around.
The device is simple and straightforward, much like the beloved cellphones of Nokia's stronger past. But since the time of the 3310 and the 3650, the company has been trailing along with its line of Lumia smartphones. In 2013, the company even sold its mobile division to Microsoft for US$7.2 billion. It was stated in the contract that Nokia could not sell handhelds under its brand name until the end of 2016.
Then Microsoft sold the Nokia brand to HMD Global and Foxconn for US$350 million - a fraction of the price it was bought - due to a 46 percent dip in revenue. All these drags through the mud seems to be a thing of the past. The Nokia 6 looks like it will change things around, much like Nokia's CEO of HMD Global, Arto Nummela, previously stated.
Nummela promised that with the company's most known aspects - simplicity, reliability, quality and ease of use - amazing new designs would surface. And it definitely seems to be the case with the Nokia 6. More excitingly, however, is that the company is expected to release more handhelds as the year continues to roll out.
