Normandy

Nokia could finally show off those Android-based “Normandy” smartphones we’ve been seeing surface lately. The company will debut its rumored fork of Android later this month at Mobile World Congress, according to The Wall Street Journal. The event kicks off in two weeks in Barcelona, Spain, and runs through February 27th.

Nokia, whose devices and services division was acquired by Microsoft last fall, had been working on the Android phones ahead of the acquisition, WSJ says. Nokia has been the primary handset maker for Windows Phone OS-based smartphones since dropping its own OS years ago, and even its Android fork borrows heavily from the signature Windows Phone design as seen in recent leaks.
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The story of the Nokia Normandy project to get Android on low cost smartphones got some more real today with yet another leak of the phones, this time with some OS shots on them. If what we’re seeing is legit, and most evleaks are, this one has two SIM card slots and very thick custom overlay.  I can’t wait to see if these are released so I can not buy one. 
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Rumors of Nokia’s fabled-Android device persist and with a new leak the rumor mill will continue to spark. Courtesy of WPDang, the Nokia Normandy looks to run a “forked” version of Android which likely means no direct access to the Play Store. Ultimately, that doesn’t surprise us given that the potential for a Google-approved Nokia device seems like a crap shoot in a post-Microsoft acquisition world.

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Perhaps one of the greatest “what could have been” stories in recent (tech) times is definitively the question of what Nokia would be like today had they gone with Android over Windows Phone? There’s little question Nokia’s fortunes might have changed dramatically and as a result, the fortunes of every other Android OEM not named Samsung.

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