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MWC2014: Nokia takes Microsoft on an Android excursion

It may be the second day of press conferences, but today is actually the first day of the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.

First on the menu for today was a Nokia-branded bombshell in the form of Nokia X, a new product line somewhere in between Asha and Lumia that runs a custom version of Android.

All of the Nokia X phones run on the same software based on Android 4.1.2 which has had all of the Google services ripped out in favour of a combination of Nokia and Microsoft’s catalogue.

The Nokia X family launches with three different models, the Nokia X, Nokia X+ and the Nokia XL. The simple naming scheme helps position the phones in their respective feature sets. All three devices run on a dual core 1GHz processor from Qualcomm and have display resolutions set at 800X480 pixels on IPS LCD displays.

They’re all built using Nokia’s now familiar polycarbonate plastic body with a selection of bright colours like the green used at the launch event as well as, black, white, yellow, cyan, red and bright orange for the Nokia XL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oUCEN-XvC7g

First off is the Nokia X, it has a 4-inch display, a 3 megapixel camera and runs on 512Mb of RAM. It’s priced at €89 (roughly R1350) and according to Nokia it is available “immediately” around the world including in Africa however we’re still awaiting confirmation of local pricing and availability.

The Nokia X+ as the name suggests is the step up on the Nokia X. It has the same display and camera as the plain X but ups the RAM from 512MB to 768MB and comes with a 4GB microSD card out the box. It is marked at €99 (around R1 500) and is set to be available some time before June.

The Nokia XL, as the name suggests, is the big boy of the Nokia X family. It comes bearing a 5-inch display with the same 800X480 resolution of its smaller brethren. It has the same 768MB of RAM but manages to cram in a 5 megapixel rear and 2 megapixel front camera. Like the Nokia X+ it will be available at the end of the first half of the year for €109 (around R1 650)

We had a bit of hands on time with all three of the Nokia X phones and can safely say that on first impressions they’re absolutely brilliant. There are three panels of the OS. The main home screen is similar to Windows Phone as a long list of resizable square tiles that. To the one side of the main panel is the FastLane, an aggregated social media and contextual app control timeline brought from the Asha range of phones. While to the other is the list of installed applications.

All three phones are lag free and the OS is snappy and responsive. The IPS displays look fantastic even under the bright lights creating glare. With the smaller 4-inch Nokia X and X+ obviously having higher pixel density that the 5-inch Nokia XL the text and icons looked noticeably crisper.

App wise all three of the Nokia X phones come with Nokia HERE Maps, Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage and a month of free Skype unlimited world call subscription. Third party applications come pre-installed as well with BBM, Plants vs. Zombies 2, Viber, Vine and Twitter.

Along with Nokia X was a new entry-level feature phone with 2G data capability called the Nokia 220. The €29 (around R450) handset has a 2MP camera and, in typical Nokia style, a battery with one month battery standby. Rounding out the new handsets is a new Asha phone, the Asha 230 which is the cheapest touch screen Asha from the Finnish company at just €45 (around R675).

Check out the gallery below for our first hands-on pics of all of the new Nokia X devices:

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