Nokia N1 Android Lollipop Tablet in the Flesh!

Nokia N1 Android Lollipop Tablet in the Flesh!

Nokia N1 Android Lollipop Tablet in the Flesh!
Nokia N1 Android Lollipop Tablet in the Flesh!

Finally… the Nokia N1 Android Lollipop Tablet!

Last November Nokia unveiled their comeback consumer offering, the Nokia N1 Android tablet. We were psyched about this because we’ve always loved Nokia’s hardware design and quality. Unfortunately Nokia was only selling it in China so we never got around to getting our hands on a unit… until today.

We were going around the floor of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and we saw a huge booth by Nokia. We went up to it and found several units of the Nokia N1 for demo on display! w00t, w00t!

One of the product reps was kind enough to let us take a video of him explaining the main features. Check it out below.

Awesome eh?

Here are a couple of observations from our end about the device.

It looks so much like an iPad Mini

o_o;
o_o;

When we first saw this in photos last year we immediately thought that they looked like the iPad Mini. That thinking all came back to us when we finally saw it with our own eyes and held it up close. There’s no escaping the fact that the Nokia N1 literally is like a copycat. This had us scratching our head a bit seeing as we’ve looked to Nokia for more innovation when it came to hardware design. This one just screamed “me too.”

Really looks like an iPad!
Really looks like an iPad!

Don’t get us wrong, the device felt and looked good. However it was because the form factor and the build was tried and tested already with the Apple iPad Mini.

The Nokia Z Launcher is pretty sweet once you get used to it

Z Launcher
Z Launcher

On the software side, the Nokia Z Launcher can be a bit confusing at first. It will take some time to get used to but after a few minutes it becomes very natural and you’ll start scribbling and swiping away like a Z Launcher Pro. We particularly liked how the launcher adapted to user behavior (based on time and location).

Now the good news is that you don’t need a Nokia N1 tablet to experience the Z Launcher. Nokia made it available already on Google Play. Just get it there and install it on your smartphone.

More of a showcase product for licensing the Nokia brand

And here’s the rub. The Nokia rep said that this was a licensing product. The Nokia N1 being sold in China was licensed to Foxconn. This basically tells us that Nokia still wants to be in the consumer space but with minimum risk and exposure. They just want to leverage their brand, heritage, and name. Given this development it’s pretty obvious that we will rarely see new Nokia devices at the pace that we got used to when they were churning out Lumias like crazy.

And that’s it for our hands-on and initial impressions of the Nokia N1. Will we buy it if ever it comes to the PH? Probably not. Right now we’re leaning towards getting the Huawei MediaPad X2. 😛

This MWC coverage is brought to you by:

Xperia

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