Nokia bursts back onto the scene with an all-aluminum Android 5.0 tablet

Nokia recently shed its devices and services group in a multi-billion
dollar deal that saw its entire Windows Phone business offloaded to
Microsoft, which will continue to push Windows Phones under the Lumia
brand. While many thought the deal could mean the end of
Nokia'sconsumer business, the company surprised us all this past
summer when it launched its first Android app, the shockingly
innovative Z Launcher appthat will finally public beta on Tuesday.
Where Nokia's efforts with Android are concerned, however, that app
was just the beginning.During the Slush 2014 conference in Finland on
Tuesday, Nokia announced its return to the consumer devices business
with the brand new Nokia N1tablet. While Nokia's deal with Microsoft
prevents it from releasing any new smartphones for a period of time,
tablets are apparently a different story entirely.
The N1 is a complete departure from anything Nokia has released in the
past. In fact, it's the polar opposite of Nokia's most recent phones
and tablets.
First and perhaps most importantly, the N1 runs Android 5.0Lollipop. Z
Launcher was a good indication that the new Nokia is moving away from
Windows Phone, and now we can see exactly where Nokia's consumer
business is headed.
Designed and built by the Nokia Technologies division of Nokia, the N1
tablet's housing is one piece of machined, anodized aluminum. The
device features a 7.9-inch display and an overall size that rivals
Apple's iPad mini lineup, but at 6.9mm, the N1 is even thinner than
Apple's iPad mini 3, which is 7.5mm thick.
Also of note, the device is powered by a 64-bit quad-core Intel Atom
Z3580 processor clocked at 2.4GHz. It also features 2GB of RAM, 32GB
of storage, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing
camera, a universal insertion 2.0 USB C-type port and a 5,300 mAh
battery that Nokia says will provide up to 9 hours of usage time per
charge.
Nokia's Android 5.0 Lollipop installation on the Nokia N1 is basically
stock, but it ships with a special tablet version of the Z Launcher
app that is exclusive to the N1. Buyers can disable it or install
other launcher apps if they choose, but Z Launcher is great to have on
a tablet, where users tend to install even more apps than they do on
smartphones.
I was able to spend a short amount of time with a pre-release version
of the tablet recently, and I can confirm that Nokia's hardware design
team hasn't missed a beat in its brief hiatus following the sale of
Nokia's devices business. The device feels even more premium than
Nokia's recent high-end Lumia phones thanks to the N1′s unibody
aluminum housing, and the size and weight are very comfortable.
Now, for the bad news.
The Nokia N1 tablet will launch this coming February after Chinese New
Year, and it will initially be available only in China. Nokia will
then launch the tablet in Russia and several European markets in the
months that follow, but the company currently has no plans to release
the N1 in the United States.