Last week there was the hype about Android Go trying to revolutionise the budget smartphone market in India and several other countries. The first Android Go phone has finally launched at the MWC 2018. Unlike last time Google did it with its Android One by partnering with lowball players this time ‘Go’ has been accepted by the mega player Nokia itself. This fact is enough to give fuel to the expectations of the people, and there have been rumours already about the Nokia 1 being a game changer in the market of entry-level segment.
We all know that the budget smartphones have been the victim of low-quality hardware setup, untrustworthy software which was filled with glitches and thus the user experience has been filled with a plethora of issues. Android Go seems to be targeting this very problem. An OS platform which would allow users to experience the vast variety of apps that the Play Store offers and which would handle these applications well, was a much-awaited dream for the economic buyer of the smartphone segment. Android Go is going to fill that gap in, possibly in a lot of ways.
We all know that this isn’t going to be the first time that a company is trying to build an OS like this for the lower price category phones being talked about. Previous takes on this risky task have not been massively successful because of the dearth of support from app developers and the manufacturers.
This time, however, things look very different because the manufacturer supporting the platform happens to be Nokia. The deadly combination of the hugely loved OS Android and the incredible, innovative and dedicated hardware team of Nokia can really bring about the change in performance and quality of these phones which has been an impending for quite some time now.
This minimalistic and small version of Android is said to consume 50% less storage and also loads 15% faster than its competitors. Now that’s some numbers to make the product worth buying. Such qualities will give Nokia and Android Go an edge over their other counterparts. The fact that the Nokia 1 only runs on 1GB of RAM and is powered by a MediaTek MT6737M chipset might make us cringe a little bit, but like we said above, Android Go is going to make sure that the basic applications and the core functioning of the phone remain unhindered. This is going to be a huge step in hardware optimisation where all depends on how Google is going to use low specs hardware to the best and the most optimised way possible.
Of course, to ensure a successful path for Android Go, it is essential that Google does right what the other companies have done wrong. Support from app developers, and from smartphone manufacturers will be their top priority this time. If done right, this move can bring about a whole new segment of smartphones which will lie right in the middle of the latest tech smartphones and the lower end feature phones. Companies have been interested to please the buyers with the middle range budget by trying to provide them with enough value for money up till now, this move by Google paired with the right manufacturer can prove to be a massive game changer.
And Nokia (HMD Global) will be left with another massive job- pricing. At a global retail price of $85 (approx. Rs 5,500), the Nokia 1 will surely be a head-turner. In India, we have smartphones such as the Xiaomi Redmi 5A (first impressions) and Tenor D (first impressions) running the full version of Android and is available at Rs 4,999. It will be a challenge for HMD Global to make the Nokia 1 successful in the market. But the Finnish company is known for launching products affordably in the Indian market. Anything below Rs 5,000 for the Nokia 1 makes it a strong contender in the entry-level segment.
Summing it all up, the collaboration of Nokia and Google for Nokia 1 gives us pretty high hopes. We can expect quite a jump in the performance of phones which lie in this price range thus generating more choices for the customers who are looking to get their hands on a good device and also want good value for their bucks.
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