Nokia 5 and 3 go official, special edition Nokia 6 Arte Black joins them

And they’re back! Nokia phones are going global after the initial trial run of the Nokia 6 in China. Also announced today are the Nokia 5 and Nokia 3, both finely-crafted phones running pure Android. All three will come out in Q2 in single and dual-SIM forms.

Nokia 6

There’s almost nothing new here other than the price - the Nokia 6 will cost €230 and will launch in Q2 this year. In fact, all three phones will come out in Q2.

But there was a surprise - the special edition Nokia 6 Arte Black (remember the Artes?). It’s distinguished by a piano black finish and extra memory.

And when we say “extra memory” we mean as much as you would expect - 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, same as the Chinese model. The non-Arte models drop down to 3GB and 32GB, something to keep in mind when choosing a color. Anyway, the Nokia 6 Arte Black will retail for €300.

Nokia 5

A bit lower on the size and price chart is the Nokia 5, which will launch at €190. Cast in a seamless aluminum unibody, this handset opts for a 5.2” HD screen. It promises great visibility with 500nits of brightness and Nokia’s trademark polarizer that cuts down reflections.

The 5 is powered by the same Snapdragon 430 chipset as the 6, but with less RAM and storage - 2GB and 16GB respectively. You may be pleased to hear that it runs pure Android 7.1 Nougat and Nokia made a strong commitment to keep the software up to date. There are few phones in this price range that can offer that (aside from a few middling Android Ones).

The camera department packs a 13MP main camera (f/2.0 lens, 1.12µm pixels) with Phase detection autofocus and a dual-tone flash. On the front is the 8MP 84° selfie camera from the Nokia 6 (with an f/2.0 lens and 1.12µpixels). A Google VP came on stage to say all the Android Nokias will get free Google Drive storage to keep their photos.

The Nokia 5 spec sheet is rounded off with a 3,000mAh battery and three color options: Tempered Blue, Silver, Matte Black, Copper.

Nokia 3

While the Nokia 3 drops down to a €140 price point, it has a body reminiscent of high-end Lumias in their heyday - an aluminum frame filled in with soft, sculpted polycarbonate and topped with Gorilla Glass.

That glass guards a 5” HD display with its own polarizing filter and a promise of 450nits of brightness. Again you’ll get to enjoy Android 7.1 Nougat on that screen, unspoiled with customizations. The model 3 does take a hit in processing power - at its heart is a MediaTek chipset with a quad-core processor. You get the same amount of RAM and storage as the model 5, though - 2GB and 16GB respectively.

The Nokia 3 uses the same 8MP selfie camera as the other two, but its main camera is another 8MP shooter (with f/2.0 aperture and 1.12µm pixels again). It has a single LED flash and you can offload photos to Google Drive.

The phone is powered by a 2,650mAh battery and the same three color options. As a reminder, all three Nokias will launch globally in Q2.

The Nokia 3310 is back!

Just like the rumor-vine predicted, HMD didn't skip on the opportunity to ride the nostalgia wave and reincarnate the legendary Nokia 3310 for a second go on the 2017 mobile scene. We are sure opinions will be polarized on the EUR 49 feature-phone, but that definitely fits into the whole idea.

Whether you find it unsightly, or enjoy its colorful and playful looks, the new 3310 will definitely get fans talking, even if not necessarily buying. Again, as far as design goes, you will just have to judge for yourself. The new 3310 measure only 115.6 x 51 x 12.8 mm and is plastic all around. HMD claims it did the best it can to recreate the original 3310 rounded shape and silhouette. The rounded buttons on the retro keypad definitely hit home. However, the 2.4-inch QVGA display and the curved and polarized layer on top, do look a bit off. So do the buttons on the front.

Still, we have to say the four available color options: Warm Red (Glossy), Dark Blue (Matte), Yellow (Glossy), Grey (Matte), all seem to be so vibrant that they jump off the screen. Other specs on the retro wonder include an undisclosed processor and RAM configuration and 16MB of on-board storage. Mind you, a large portion of that will be taken up by the OS and apps, so you might want to fill up the microSD slot, capable of holding up to 32GB of storage.

Speaking of which, the 3310 is a featurephone and runs on the Nokia Series 30+ OS. HMD has also styled the UI with some throwbacks to the original. You do get an Opera browser out of the box, but you will have to limit your browsing to 2G speeds, since GSM 900/1800 MHz is all the 3310 supports No Wi-Fi. And if that's not enough of a retro blast for you, Snake is back! Well, it has been slightly updated and colored-in for 2017. But other than that, it is classic Snake.

Circling back to specs, since there are a few more to mention, there is a 3.5mm jack on the unit, oddly listed as an "AV connector". We presume it's a mistake, since we don't really see the new 3310 as being capable of outputting a video stream. Still you can connect a headset and listed to the FM radio or MP3. You can also be hip and use the Bluetooth 3.0 radio with SLAM support.

And according to HMD, you should be good for quite some time of music playback, up to 51 hours, to be exact. The removable 1200 mAh battery on the 3310 is also rated for up to 31 days of stand-by, 22 hours of talking and 39 hours of FM radio fun. Last, but not least, there is a 2MP camera on the back, with a single LED flash.

LG G6 is official with Snapdragon 821 chipset

The smartphone star of MWC 2017 has been announced - this is the LG G6. A 'Full-vision' display, water and dust protection plus some careful impact resistant design, cameras aplenty, tried and tested internals - the G6 may no longer be the flagship (the V-series will fly that banner from now on), but it sure sounds like flagships should be wary.

A lot of the G6's novelty stems from its display - a 5.7-inch IPS LCD panel that takes up most of the phone's front - it's why LG calls it FullVision. The screen has an odd 18:9 aspect ratio (or, as math would have it - 2:1) and a resolution of 2,880x1,440px for a pixel density of 565ppi. Consumers want a larger display, yet aren't willing to give up single-hand use - the 2:1 ratio gives the best of both worlds.

The rounded corners aren't just for appearances either - such an LCD panel is more durable to drops. Speaking of durability, the back is made of Gorilla Glass 5, while it's GG3 on top of the display. The frame is made of aluminum and special attention has been paid to the location of plastic inserts to make the whole thing less susceptible to shattering.

Oh, and in a first for a G-series phone, the G6 is water and dust resistant and carries an IP68 rating. That also means that the battery is no longer removable, and as promised there will be no Friends - the G5's modularity experiment didn't exactly catch on.

What's proven quite successful, however, is the dual camera concept, first implemented on the V10's selfie shooter, and then promoted to the rear cam on the G5. Here on the G6, LG has gone for a couple of 13MP cameras, one wide-angle (125° FOV), one 'normal' (71° FOV), instead of the 16MP+8MP setup of the G5 and V20. As before, only the 'normal' one has OIS and autofocus. The front-facing camera is a 5MP 100° FOV unit - LG is big on degrees.

The G6 is powered by the Snapdragon 821 chipset - in part because Samsung is keeping early batches of the latest S835 for the Galaxy S8, in part because LG thinks optimization is more important than raw power. An 'Advanced heat pipe' design with a copper plate on top of the chip has been put in place to quickly dissipate heat.

There are 4GB of RAM on board the G6 and storage will be either 32GB or 64GB, depending on region. Regardless of region - a microSD slot will allow for expansion.

The G6 runs on Android 7.0 Nougat and is the first non-Pixel phone to come with with Google Assistant on board. There is, of course, a custom LG skin on top called Full-screen UX. It's designed to make the best use of the 18:9 aspect and relies heavily on squares - after all, there are effectively two 1:1 squares in a 2:1 display, right?

Other key selling points of the handset include a Quad-DAC, only it's going to be available solely in South Korea. On the topic of regional features - the phone will have an FM radio receiver, just not in Korea, Canada and the US, but the US versions of the G6 will come with wireless charging capability - just the US ones, though. QuickCharge 3.0 comes standard, however, and it will fill the 3,300mAh battery in 96 minutes, and flat to 50% will take 32 minutes.

The G6 measures 148.9 x 71.9 x 7.9mm, meaning its footprint is smaller than the Galaxy S7 edge's. The phone will come in three color schemes - Astro Black, Mystic White and Ice Platinum.