5G Nokia phone silhouette teased at Snapdragon summit

Nokia Mobile was one of the few partners that shared the stage at the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii that Qualcomm is organising. On the first day of the summit, Qualcomm talked about the new 5G capable SoCs, improvements they are bringing in fields of camera, video, gaming, and 5G solutions in general.

Nokia Mobile’s Chief Product Officer Juho Sarvikas represented Nokia Mobile at the stage. Mr. Sarvikas had a very good presentation, talking about the upcoming Nokia 5G phone, but also mentioning some interesting technical details. Compared to other partners that often went away from the topic (mostly Qualcomm and 5G), Juho put connectivity at the focus of his period on stage, but also mentioning other aspects of a phone and Nokia Mobile’s unique approach in the industry.

A silhouette of a Nokia phone was shown on the wall and from it we can recognise a copper metal frame, curved back with something that looks like a circular camera housing, or is it maybe a curved screen with some reflection? We can also clearly see a side-mounted fingerprint scanner. I had the chance to use a device with it for a few weeks and have to say that physical side fingeprint scanners are very fast and very precise. Faster than anything underscreen, but similarly conveniently placed.

The upcoming Nokia 5G smartphone described above should be powered by the newly announced Snapdragon 765. Juho also mentioned support for standalone and non-standalone 5G. Non-standalone is 5G built on top of 4G infrastructure and these are the first networks to be alive, while standalone 5G are networks using 5G gear not aided by 4G gear. From Juho’s words, Nokia’s 5G phone should support both and he even mentioned something about 5G global roaming support. The first Nokia phone should also support low band FDD (600MHz), which has the benefit of wide coverage, meaning Nokia 5G phone getting 5G signal where others switch to 4G.

Other things that Juho mentioned about the upcoming 5G phone is premium experience, PureDisplay and Zeiss Imaging. From the posted image, the device looks promising. Maybe because I like the copper color and the fingerprint sensor placement. I also hope for wireless charging. This phone would be ideal for MWC2020, so that we could check it out on the ground. Launching in February 2020 would also be great from the “SoC” perspective, because Snapdragon 765 is brand new, and will be for the next 9 to 12 months.

A very good question is how should the first Nokia 5G phone be called? Maybe this is an opportunity to branch out the naming scheme and bring some order to it? Leave your thoughts in the comments down below 🙂