The cheapest Nokia smartphone by HMD Global is coming to Kenya. The company says that this smartphone, the Nokia 1, will be available in the country as from April 16 for Ksh 9,500. This is the recommended retail price and you will probably be able to get it for less depending on where you buy it from.
The Nokia 1 is the first smartphone by the company to run Android Oreo (Go Edition). This is a version of Android that is specifically made for entry level devices with 1GB or RAM or less. This version of Android also comes with some stripped-down version of popular Google applications including Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps etc. The main aim of doing this is to ensure users get to access these apps/services and use the phone seamlessly without it feeling slow.
Pricing the phone at Ksh 9,500 is strategic for HMD (Nokia) as it wants to compete with some established Chinese brands including Tecno, Infinix and Itel. This is a lucrative segment and most of the customers here do not demand that much from their devices. They tend to go for the basics and that is what the Nokia 1 promises.
“There are more than 1.3 billion feature phone users around the world, many from markets in Asia and Africa. As the value market leader in feature phones, we understand the barriers and challenges people face when it comes to the step up to a smartphone which is why we’ve made our most accessible smartphone ever. With the Nokia 1 smartphone, we have combined the reassuring quality and design of a Nokia smartphone with the latest Android Oreo™ (Go edition) software to deliver exceptional value and realize our dream of creating a complete smartphone experience, accessible to everyone,” said Joseph Umunakwe, General Manager, West, East and Central Africa, HMD Global.
Some of the key specifications of the Nokia 1 are listed below.
Display Size: 4.5 inches with a resolution of 480 X 854 Pixels
SIM: Dual SIM, 4G Support
Processor: 1.1 GHz Quad-core MediaTek MT6737M processor
RAM: 1 GB
Storage Space: 8 GB, can be expanded to 128GB using a microSD card
GPU: Mali-T720
Android Version: Android 8.0 (Oreo Go)
Camera: 5MP Camera at the back with a 2MP front facing one
Battery: 2150 mAh removable battery
As you can see from the specifications above, the Nokia 1 is not the most exciting smartphone on paper. Even with that said, this is not HMD’s main agenda. The company wants to position its devices as of great quality compared to what is on the market. It also wants to float Android Oreo (Go Edition) as being pure, secure and up to date and essentially say that is what its devices bring to the market.
Also Read: Nokia: We Want To Be Among The Top 5 Smartphone Manufacturers In The Next 3 To 5 Years
