At MWC 2018, HMD, the company responsible for keeping the Nokia brand alive, unveiled a slew of new smartphones including the Nokia 7 Plus, Nokia 1, Nokia 8 Sirocco and Nokia 6 2018.
But which of these smartphones will make it on the US market? Given that HMD’s repeatedly stated that the US is not a key market for now, the prospects didn’t seem that great.
Get ready for the Nokia 6 2018
Yet, US customers shouldn’t abandon all home. In an interview with CNET, Nokia’s chief product officer, Juho Sarvikas said the new Nokia 6 will hit the US market in May.
Like it’s the case with the Nokia 6 (currently available at Amazon) and Nokia 3310 3G, the phone won’t be offered through carriers. Instead, you’ll be able to grab it from retail partners like Amazon. Sarvikas didn’t give any more details on the matter.
His statement goes against previous information shared by HMD’s CEO Florian Seiche who also talked to CNET. He said the US market is not a core focus this year, hence the phones unveiled at MWC won’t be offered across the pond (at least not in 2018). Odd…
What about the other new Nokia phones?
A separate source via NPU also claims the Nokia 6 2018 is coming to the US, alongside the Nokia 1 and Nokia 7 Plus. The time frame for the launch is similar to the one shared by Sarvikas, around May-June.
Nokia will have to stop giving the cold shoulder to the US at some point, especially if it wants to achieve its grand ambitions. The company’s CEO revealed Nokia aims to become one of the top 5 smartphone manufacturers within 5 to 3 years.
Anyway, it will probably take a few months (hopefully not an entire year) before the Nokia 6 2018 will land stateside.
In case you missed the announcement, the phone comes boasting an aluminum unibody and includes a fingerprint sensor on the back (no physical home button).
Specs include a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with FHD resolution and a Snapdragon 630 processor clocked at 2.2GHz with 3GB/4GB of RAM and either 32GB/64GB of expandable storage.
On the back, there’s a 16-megapixel main camera with Zeiss optics, phase detection autofocus, dual-tone flash and f/2.0 aperture. It offers the Bothie effect which made a debut on the Nokia 8 which lets you use the front and rear cameras in a split screen. For selfies, users will have to rely on an 8-megapixel front-facing camera with f/2.0.
The Nokia 6 2018 also bundles on a 3,000 mAh battery and runs Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box.
Would you be interested in buying the new Nokia 6 if it comes to the US?