Nokia’s back in the US market partnering with Verizon and Cricket Wireless

Nokia 2 V-3

Nokia is on its way to make a great comeback in the smartphone market since we’ve seen a couple of great smartphone launches from the company last year.

While HMD Global has been ramping up their presence in European markets as well as in countries such as India, the company behind the Nokia brand has recently announced their partnership with two carriers in the US and one in Canada.

Verizon and Cricket Wireless have partnered up with Nokia to launch their devices in the US while Rogers Communications would be we Nokia’s carrier partner in Canada which would also be launching Nokia branded devices soon.

Partnering with these three carriers would really boost Nokia’s presence in the North American market once again since more consumers would have access to Nokia smartphones. The devices that have already been launched are the Nokia 2 V and the Nokia 3.1 Plus both of which are great devices in their respective price categories.

Hopefully, this is just the beginning of a series of partnerships between Nokia and North American carriers, with the likes of AT&T and T-Mobile expected to join the party in the future. This should see more Nokia devices come to the U.S., but for now, only two are officially available.

Let’s dive right in and check out a few more details about the two new devices from Nokia.

Nokia 2 V

The Nokia 2 V is a device targeted towards those who aren’t big on smartphone gaming or running CPU-intensive apps. The device is pretty good for an average user and it’s even on the Android Go program.

Since Android Go is a fairly lightweight OS, the Nokia 2 V should perform fairly good in general use. Unfortunately, it is still running on Android Oreo, but the best part is that an update to Android 9 Pie Go edition is expected. The device would be on the Verizon Wireless carrier exclusively.

Specifications

  • 5.5-inch LCD display
  • 8MP rear camera
  • 5MP front-facing camera
  • 4,000 mAh battery
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 chipset
  • Android Oreo (Go edition)
  • 1GB RAM
  • 8GB storage

As you might notice, the device comes with a 4,000 mAh battery capacity which is absolutely great given that the device packs in a decent low-power consumption chipset as well.

Nokia claims the device would last 2 days on a single charge which could be true given the specifications of the device combined with your usage patterns. The Nokia 2 V can be had for just $70, which is a steal if you ask us.

The device should be available from the 31st this month as stated by HDM Global.

Nokia 3.1 Plus

The Nokia 3.1 Plus is a slightly better device than the Nokia 2 V offering slightly better specifications although at a slightly higher price as well. HMD seems to be bringing its budget devices to the US market first which could later be followed up with their mid-range smartphones. This makes sense since the premium market in the U.S. is already dominated by Samsung and Apple.

Fortunately, Nokia has opted for the Snapdragon 439 processor for the Nokia 3.1 Plus in the US instead of the MediaTek-powered variant sold in other markets. This should hopefully mean the device would be a bit snappier than its counterparts in other regions as well as receive timely software updates.

Speaking of, the Nokia 3.1 Plus sold in the U.S. has Android Pie preinstalled as opposed to other markets where it comes with Oreo out of the box, although an update to Pie will be out before the end of Q1 2019.

Specifications

  • 6-inch HD LCD display with 18:9 aspect ratio
  • 13Mp + 5MP dual rear cameras
  • 8MP front-facing camera
  • 3,500 mAh battery capacity
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 439
  • Android Pie
  • 2GB RAM
  • 32GB storage

The device is available at $159 and is definitely a great offering at the price point. HMD Global will release new smartphones later on in the year; however, there’s no information on that yet.

Another device is expected to be launched with Rogers Communication as well though Nokia hasn’t revealed much in that respect.

Related:

Posted by
Dwayne

Used to be a Windows Phone fan until I got my first Android Phone. Never looked back since. When I'm not writing, I'm gaming. Email: [email protected]