HMD Global is off to a good start. Its refreshed 3310 feature phone has been able to generate some serious amount of buzz to revive the Nokia brand, and its Nokia 6 smartphone sold like hotcakes in China. Every time when it was put up on flash sale, it sold out within a minute. It’s a good beginning, but the company still has a long way to go, especially if it wants to become the powerhouse that Nokia Mobile once was. And in order to do that it needs a flagship product.
Now it seems that the company is already progressing well on the path of launching such a flagship. The much rumored and anticipated Nokia 9 smartphone probably hit the benchmark tools recently under different codenames but similar hardware configuration. One of them appeared on Geekbench from the name of “Unknown Heart” – it packed a 1.9 GHz octa-core Qualcomm chipset, 6GB of RAM and Android 7.1.1 Nougat operating system. In case you don’t know, HMD has a tradition of naming its upcoming devices Unknown Hearts.
Just a day after this appearance yesterday nearly same device appeared again, this time with model HMD Global TA-1052. It had exactly same configuration with only one difference – it had 4GB of RAM instead of 6.
So this suggests that Nokia 9 may have a 1.9 GHz Snapdragon 835 octa-core chipset with RAM options of 6GB and 4GB. The device is likely to come with a clean installation of Android Nougat 7.1.1, which can be extremely helpful for pushing out updates in a timely manner. From a software perspective you can think of it as something similar to Google’s Nexus line of products – pure Android, no bloatware.
Other expected specs based on leaks are 13 mp dual-camera setup on its back, 5.3-inch QHD display and storage choices of 64GB and 128GB. A Type-C USB port, 3.5 mm headphone jack and QuickCharge support are also expected.
However, while now after these Geekbench appearances it’s almost certain that a new flagship product is due from Nokia in next few weeks/months, it’s still unconfirmed whether it’ll be known as Nokia 9 or not, as rumors of Nokia 7 or Nokia 8 have also done rounds in the past. So a flagship from one of the most beloved phone brands is coming, but we don’t know accurately what will it be called.
In the meantime, Nokia is also releasing its Nokia 3, 5 and 6 smartphones in India on June 13. The phones are expected to repeat their China success story in India as well, thanks to the stock Android experience and company’s still trusted brand image in the country. The company has also confirmed that all these devices will be receiving Android O updates when it’s released, so that should also serve as cherry on the top for Nokia lovers.
We wish Nokia good luck for their revival in one of the largest smartphone markets and also for their upcoming flagship product(s). The quality of Nokia phones has always been great, and if they can continue matching those standards, their loyal fan base in country won’t take too long to embrace them wholeheartedly once again.