What to Expect From Nokia in 2023

A lot of things happened in the past month, and enough time has passed to discuss it now that we cooled off. Do check what I have to say in a recent video, or check the text below it and share your thoughts.

So Nokia mobile announced 3 new entry-level devices to start off the year. Of course, none is particularly exciting but it does also show us what to expect from the lineup for the rest of the year.

Nokia C22 is nice… hm

Starting with the C series, Nokia’s first time smartphone buyer range, and the Nokia C22. This one comes with a 6.5” HD IPS LCD display, a 5000 mAh battery, and ships with Android 13 go out of the box. It offers splash resistance, and Nokia talked a big game about the phone’s durability too.

It features a 13-megapixel main camera, and a 2mp depth sensor, and there’s a fingerprint scanner on the back. Its all powered by a mighty Octacore UNISOC chipset clocked at 1.6Ghz and built on a 28nm architecture….. yeah.

You can get the C22 with up to 3 gigs of RAM and 64 gigs of built-in storage, which can be expanded thanks to a microSD slot. It should be priced at around 110 euros when it comes out soon and you can pick it up in either midnight black or sand.

Nokia C32 looks more promising


2nd on the list is its big brother, the Nokia C32. It shares many of the same components, with the differences being a slightly more modern octa-core CPU built on 22nm architecture, a 50-megapixel main camera, and Android 13, not the go edition. You can also get it up with up to 4 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage, also expandable. The most interesting part is that it comes with a glass back….. so it should feel more premium in the hand. The C32 comes in 3 colors, charcoal, autumn green, or beach pink, and will be priced at around 130 euros.

 

Nokia G22 and iFixit partnership


Last but not least is the Nokia G22, the G21’s successor. It actually comes with many similar specs on paper, but with a few important upgrades here and there. So it comes with a 6.5” HD+ IPS LCD display and 90hz refresh rate, but with slightly better brightness than last year, at 500 nits. It has a 5,050 mAh battery, but this time with a longevity promise of up to 800 recharge cycles before going below 80% battery health, and the memory has moved from EMMC to UFS 2.2 which is a nice upgrade. You still get a triple camera system featuring a 50megapixel main sensor and 2 less useful depth and macro sensors, and the same octa-core UNISOC T606 processor clocked at 1.6Ghz, and up to 4 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of expandable storage, but also with the option of adding virtual RAM if needed. The device is also splash and dust resistant. Strangely enough, it ships with stock Android 12 out of the box, with the promise of 2 years of OS updates and 3 years of security updates.


The most important aspect is the focus on repairability, so nokia mobile teamed up with iFIXIT to ensure you’ll be able to find spare parts such as a battery replacement or display easily. They also worked on making sure its easy to replace things at home, so with simple tools you can replace the battery in around 5 minutes, and the display in around 20 minutes. I’m a fan of this direction, though wouldn’t it just be infinitely easier to have a removable back like the good old days?

Hopefully we will see this focus on repairability make its way to other devices this year, and perhaps refined more on in the future. The G22 will come in either lagoon blue or meteor gray and is priced at around 180 euros. I think the slightly squarish camera bump design looks much better than last year, helped by the contrast in colours, but its still nowhere as nice as the symmetrical camera bumps of the past.

New Nokia logo


The other big news from MWC is Nokia announcing a new logo…. Which is interesting. I wasn’t a huge fan of the change when I first saw it because to me it seems like a change for the sake of change. The old logo was timeless and iconic, and the new one isn’t as easy to read. Now I’ve kinda accepted it. It looks cool on their branded staff clothing actually. It won’t make its way to the phones apparently and based on the official tweet announcing the new logo…. Gives me a lot less hope about the future of Nokia branded phones.

Nokia wants to clearly differentiate itself from the past and focus more on the B2B segment. So they are very clearly saying, we are not interested in consumer products or getting back into the phone business themselves….

What does this mean for HMD’s licensing agreement that expires in 2026? Only time will tell. I was kind of hopeful Nokia will be more involved in the future. Now it seems like it’s very unlikely. I’m not happy seeing Nokia phones delegated to just budget devices mainly with a midrange device showing up once every blue moon. Such a waste of an iconic brand and logo, even though one look at the top-selling phones of 2022 paints a very grim picture about the industry as a whole. Apple has won folks…. I hate it here.

Anyway, what do you guys think about the new devices and the new Nokia Logo? Share your thoughts with me in the comments down below.