Is Android One Holding Back Nokia Smartphones in India?

On this episode we talk all things Nokia as Android enthusiast Aditya Shenoy joins host Pranay Parab to discuss the state of the Android One program and the role of Nokia in this. We begin this episode by talking about the history of the Android One program and how it’s evolved to become what it is today. Then we talk about Nokia mobiles and where they’d been all these years before Android One. Next we talk about Nokia returning to Android and how they chose to go the Android One route, and how it affects the company.

This is where we discuss where the Nokia Android One journey is hampering the company and ways in which it can mitigate those limitations. We also mention the quality of software and promise of updates that is so rare in the Android world, and how Nokia is doing a commendable job. However we do question whether that’s good enough to help the company sell smartphones in India.

Then we talk about the Nokia 5.3, which wants to be among the best phones under Rs. 15,000 in India. Nokia 5.3 shows everything that represents modern day Nokia phones. It’s got excellent software, a guarantee of long-term updates, and hardware that’s not great for the price right now. We discuss how Nokia could improve this smartphone and what would make us recommend this device to everyone. This starts as a simple hardware change request, but evolves into some lovely recommendations on how the software could be improved as well.