Nokia has just announced that they are launching its first Android handsets. It will be called X, X+ and XL. The phones are built on the open source Android OS forked for Nokia and the X and X+ will feature a 4 inch screen, while the XL, as its name implies will pack a 5 inch IPS display.

The X+ is differentiated from the X by an extra memory and expandable storage. It is not clear at this point just what this means in terms of specs.

Steven Elop explained that users will "benefit from the Android apps and ecosystem, but we have differentiated." Essentially that means that there will plenty of Microsoft and Nokia apps included from the get go.

Skype will be preinstalled and will offer users 1 month of free calls to landlines and mobiles and Nokia's navigation app Here will be in it too.



The phones will also give people access to Microsoft's cloud, and Elop said that the "Nokia X together with Lumia represents a deliberate strategy to leverage Microsoft services." There will be "hundreds of thousands" of apps at launch apparently, which will be available via a Nokia specific app store.

The UI itself looks like a blend of Windows and Android, but there's the familiar Android notification bar across the top and some tweaked folders and widgets that mirror Google's OS.

As for price, Elop pointed out that the X range is designed to be more affordable than the Lumia range. The phone will be "broadly available globally", starting in growth markets, and they'll cost $125 for the X, $135 for the X+, and $150 for the XL.

Will this change Nokia's course for the better?