Nokia’s Android phone to be announced at Mobile World Congress, no new Windows Phone announcement?

Nokia has been giving subtle hints that it is about to release its first Android phone. First it was the colour green all over its social media profiles for Valentine’s Day; and now it’s this teaser image above for its upcoming Mobile World Congress livestream featuring four arrows that form a green X.

The teaser image does tie in with a recent leak from @evleaks of Nokia’s marketing material for a Nokia X device – which is suspected to be the Android phone codenamed internally as Normandy. The device is reportedly, again from @evleaks, to feature a dual-core Snapdragon 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage with a microSD card slot, a 5-megapixel camera and a 4-inch display. A Vietnamese website has put the phone’s price tag at around AUD$114-$130.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Nokia X will be aimed at the developing markets and will run on a heavily customised version of Android. The Nokia-developed Android OS will adopt a similar approach that Amazon has done with the Kindle Fire – strip out all Google services from Android and replace them with their own apps, and have your own app marketplace. It will also feature a Windows Phone-like user interface, with tiles on the home screen.

No Windows Phone for MWC?

According to Recode, there will be little expected for Windows Phone – on both the software and hardware front. According to their sources, it is unlikely that there will be any new Windows Phone models – which could mean that Nokia’s press conference in Barcelona next week will focus on its Android ambitions and other phones for the developing market.
Microsoft, too, is also holding a media event for Mobile World Congress – but it is not expected to publicly debut Windows Phone 8.1. That is being saved for its Build developer conference in San Francisco in April.
Its new CEO Satya Nadella is said to have put getting things right with Windows Phone as one of his top priorities at Microsoft. So you have to wonder why Microsoft and Nokia are not showing off something Windows Phone at Mobile World Congress given the amount of press that will be there and rumours of rivals planning to launch their devices as well (namely, HTC and Samsung).
Well, we will have to wait and see. Nokia’s press event for Mobile World Congress kicks off on February 24 at 6:30pm Sydney time – or 8:30AM Barcelona time.