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Daily Roundup: a new Engadget, sex ed on VHS and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Nokia X review: What happens when Nokia makes an Android phone?
For a company now under Microsoft's rule, Nokia has serious grit. The phone maker announced an Android phone called the X just two months before completing its merger with Microsoft. Even more intriguing is the fact that this is no run-of-the-mill Android device: The X comes with a Windows Phone-like launcher, offers Microsoft services and will be sold for around $120 in developing markets. While it may not be a powerful smartphone, it has many unique qualities that help it stand out from the low-end crowd. What's it like, and should Microsoft invest in its success?
Nokia is now officially part of Microsoft
As expected, Nokia's devices and services business has been officially acquired by Microsoft today. The date was set earlier this week, and it seals the deal the two companies entered into last September. Nokia has long been allied with Microsoft, committing fully to Windows Phone, but as explained when the merger was announced, Microsoft's new arm will continue to support feature phones like the Asha and Nokia X ranges, as well as smartphones (we'll have to wait to see what "support" means exactly). The obligatory press releases from both companies don't reveal any grand plans or shift in focus, but each side has issued some closing remarks, if you like. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said: "Today we welcome the Nokia Devices and Services business to our family. The mobile capabilities and assets they bring will advance our transformation. Together with our partners, we remain focused on delivering innovation more rapidly in our mobile-first, cloud-first world."
Weathered old HTC HD2 dresses up like a Nokia X
You may remember the HTC HD2 from posts such as "will it play Tekken 3?" and "wait, it runs Windows RT now?" Despite the handset's age, a stalwart community keeps it relevant by getting anything and everything to run on the developer favorite. It's only fitting, then, that the HD2 be one of the first to don Nokia's heavily skinned version of Android, other than the unreleased X family, of course. That's right: An XDA Developers forum member by the name of gilbert32 has apparently succeeded in porting some form of the Nokia X Android build onto a rather beat-up-looking HD2. We say succeeded, but while it looks the part and plays a booting sound when fired up, "everything else" is admittedly non-functional. Then again, if the goal was to show the HD2 still has legs after all this time, then mission accomplished, sir.
Stephen Elop: Nokia X will bring more consumers to Windows Phone
After Nokia's big announcement of the brand-new X series, we had a chance to sit down with Stephen Elop, the executive VP of Devices for the company. Naturally, the company's decision to crank out an Android device was a matter of great curiosity for us. Most importantly: Did Microsoft agree to this from the beginning, or did Nokia's acquirer go into this idea begrudgingly? According to Elop, it's the former. "Microsoft bought the Mobile Devices division," Elop told us, "so they knew what they were doing." Given the company's focus on a tile-based experience and its emphasis on the Microsoft Cloud, it's beginning to make a lot of sense. Elop went on to state that the X is primarily a stepping stone (a "gateway phone," if you will) for a largely untouched market segment -- emerging markets and developing countries -- to get acclimatized to Microsoft's suite of services and familiar Live Tiles interface. It's an interesting strategy, no doubt, and we're excited to see if it pays off in the long run -- people won't be rushing to a Windows Phone weeks after buying an XL, but it sounds like the idea is to plant a seed within consumers, as well as a reliance on services like Skype, Outlook and OneDrive. Our interview with Stephen in its entirety is below. Steve Dent contributed to this post.
Hands-on with Nokia's X family of Android smartphones (video)
A couple of years ago, we would've said that the day Nokia announced an Android device was the day Hades froze over. The hour has come, however, and it's only slightly chilly this morning. The Nokia X is the company's inaugural Android-based devices -- three of them, in fact -- although it's been tweaked a little bit to fit Microsoft's and Nokia's preferences. The devices are known as the X, X+ (pictured above) and XL (pictured after the break), each of which differed by only a small number of factors; and at a cost of 89 euros ($122) for the X, 99 euros for the X+ and 109 euros for the XL, the family fits roughly in-between the Asha and Lumia series in terms of pricing and functionality. The X will be available immediately in growth markets (sorry, enthusiasts in the US, Korea and Japan, it won't be heading to your neck of the woods through official channels), while the X+ and XL will come later in the second quarter and will come in white, black, cyan, green, red and yellow.
Catch our Nokia MWC 2014 event liveblog Monday at 2:30AM ET!
Now that Nokia is merely one of Microsoft's tentacles, it would be pretty weird if it finally introduced an Android phone, right? Well, that's exactly what's about to happen, according to a spate of leaks. The device is said to be called the Nokia X, and allegedly resembles an Asha handset while running a forked version of Android. That raises a lot of questions, like whether there'll be any Google content and, if not, where the heck your apps will come from. Luckily, we're here at MWC in Barcelona to blog all those answers live, so come back right here for all the news! February 24, 2014 2:30 AM EST
