Nokia’s Android phones 2017: Rumors and news leaks

Nokia is back — and it’s back with a vengeance. The Finnish company finally launched its first Android-powered smartphone, the Nokia 6, but we’re expecting to see a lot more action this year. While these devices won’t be made by Nokia, they will follow the company’s design guidelines and will retain the brand name.

HMD Global will be exclusively manufacturing these devices. Originally, we thought there would be up to four new phones in 2017, but the rumors suggest there will actually be as many as six or seven. The rumors come from Malaysian distributor Avaxx, which said Nokia will aim to launch phones in all price ranges.

Here’s everything we know about Nokia’s 2017 Android phones so far.

Nokia 6

The Nokia 6 is the company’s first Android smartphone, which debuted late last year. It packs some pretty decent specs — including 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and the “latest version of Android.” On top of that, the device boasts a 16MP rear-facing camera, and an 8MP front-facing camera — all for only $245.

Unfortunately, it’s not all good news — the device comes with a somewhat disappointing Qualcomm Snapdragon 430, and it’s only available in China. Evan Blass, also known as @EVleaks, said the company will introduce the Nokia 6 at Mobile World Congress this month for a more global audience.

Nokia 5 and Nokia 3

Blass also said Nokia’s MWC announcement would include three other devices, two of which will be the Nokia 5 and the Nokia 3. Don’t expect flagship specs, though, as the two Android 7.0 Nougat smartphones will have lesser specs than the Nokia 6 to hit lower price points.

HMD Global will launch the Nokia 3, 5 and 6 at MWC, plus a 3310 homage https://t.co/lYHtSoagIt pic.twitter.com/GhZXuB0E5u

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 13, 2017

The Nokia 5 is rumored to have a 5.2-inch screen with a 1,280 x 720-pixel resolution, and it will be powered by the same Snapdragon 430 processor but with 2GB of RAM. The rear camera will pack 12 megapixels, but the rest of the specs are expected to match the Nokia 6. It’s why the device is rumored to cost only 199 euros, or about $211.

The Nokia 3 will be the runt of the litter and will only cost 149 euros, or $158. Detailed specifications for the device were not mentioned by Blass.

Nokia 3310

A feature phone may also be a part of the MWC announcement, according to Blass. It’s rumored to be a modern iteration of the popular Nokia 3310, a phone that was known for its long battery life and indestructible build quality. All we know is that the phone will cost about 60 euros, or about $64.

An Android Lumia 1020? ‘Nokia 8’ surfaces

A YouTuber uploaded footage of alleged Nokia devices powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 and 835. The device was at Qualcomm’s booth at CES 2017 and the chipset manufacturer reportedly asked people not to take videos or photos of the device. The YouTuber, whose account is named Total Tech, didn’t comply.

Before we take a look at the video — it should be noted that we can’t verify this information, and the devices do not have any “Nokia” branding, so we’re casting a heavy dose of skepticism here. The YouTuber says Nokia and Qualcomm “have been working together on the Snapdragon 835 and the 10 nanometer process for the chip with Samsung for a while, according to inside sources, and Nokia has been their hardware reference provider for the 821 and 835.”

More: BlackBerry CEO John Chen and Rudy Giuliani sat down to talk cybersecurity

Again, we can’t verify these insider sources’ claims, and whether or not Nokia has been in partnership with Qualcomm. Total Tech claims the device in his video is an upcoming device named the Nokia 8.

The video shows the difference in camera stabilization between a Snapdragon 821 processor and the Snapdragon 835. Total Tech says both devices are the Nokia 8 with the two processors — the one with the Snapdragon 821 will come with 4GB of RAM, and the Snapdragon 835 variant will have 6GB RAM.

Both allegedly also feature electronic image stabilization, a 5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display, MicroSD card support up to 256GB, 64GB and 128GB internal storage options, dual front-facing speakers, and LED notification lights.

Total Tech also says the Nokia 8 will have a 24-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization, as well as a front-facing camera with 12-megapixels — it’s unclear if this applies to both models.

What’s interesting is the back of the device, which Total Tech briefly shows in the video. There’s a large camera, like the one found on the back of the Lumia 1020 Windows Mobile device. That camera packed 41-megapixels and featured Carl Zeiss optics — it’s quite possible the partnership could come into play again.

Gear up for Mobile World Congress

In a Facebook post, Nokia Mobile teased the already announced Nokia 6 and said more announcements will come on February 26. That date is a day before Mobile World Congress begins in Barcelona — it’s usually the day smartphone manufacturers announce their flagship products for the year.

We’ll have to wait and see what to expect, but if Blass is correct we can expect the Nokia 6, Nokia 5, Nokia 3, as well as the modernized Nokia 3310. Stay tuned.

The Nokia E1 could be on its way

HMD just launched the Nokia 6, but it already looks as though the company is prepping another release. The new E1 was just leaked online, with both specs and photos appearing in a post from Nokia Power User. This could be the rumored Nokia 5 mentioned above, but some of the specs don’t match.

Design-wise, the phone looks pretty different from the Nokia 6, taking a much more rectangular approach that’s similar to some of Sony’s handsets. The only photo we have is blurry, so we’re looking forward to a slightly more detailed look.

Unfortunately, the leak doesn’t show the flagship device we’re all waiting for from Nokia, but rather a more budget-friendly device. Under the hood, the phone will feature a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 425, along with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a 13MP rear-facing camera. It will run Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box.

If accurate, we should expect this device to be priced at around $200 or lower — that’s considering the fact that the Nokia 6 comes in at $245, and features slightly better specs than the E1. While the Nokia 6 is only going on sale in China, it’s not yet known where the E1 will be launched.

Nokia Pixel

It’s highly unlikely the Pixel name will be used on any version actually put on sale, but an unreleased Nokia phone used in a benchmark test has that name attached. Sadly, it’s not the most exciting phone we’ve seen, and definitely occupies the lower end of the smartphone scale.

The Nokia Pixel, as it’s known here, has a basic dual-core Snapdragon 200 processor inside with 1GB of RAM, resulting in a very ordinary performance test on the Geekbench website. The good news is it has one of the newer versions of Google’s operating system, Android 7.0.1, installed. No other specification details are revealed in the test, so the screen size and resolution are a mystery, but don’t expect it to challenge the Galaxy S7 on either.

Earlier leaks have detailed more technically impressive phones, indicating that the company will launch a complete range of smartphones, with models suited to all wallets, and for all markets around the world.

Flagship Nokia phones

According to a report in Nokia Power User, there are two Nokia-branded Android handsets bound for 2017, and alleged images have leaked of both.

“Trusted sources” told the publication that the two handsets, one smaller (5.2 inches) and one larger (5.5 inches), have “sturdy” metal bodies characteristic of Nokia’s historical designs. And one of their rumored features has the potential to break new smartphone ground. The phones’ cameras are being described as the “most sensitive ever” to come to market, and are reportedly the product of a years-long, $1.35 billion graphene development effort. Another reported innovation is a “touch & hover” interaction that might, much like Microsoft’s scrapped McLaren project, use a combination of sensors to respond to finger gestures.

More: Phoenix from the flames: Nokia’s coming back to mobile

Other highlights include water and dust resistance up to IP68, fingerprint sensors, and OLED displays with QHD (2,560 x 1,440 pixels) resolutions. In terms of software, the handsets will reportedly sport an improved version of Nokia’s predictive Z-Launcher — a newer version than the beta available in the Google Play app store, apparently — atop the very latest version of Android, Android Nougat.

Under the hood, both Nokia Android N powered phones will pack the Snapdragon 820 processor. We don’t know details regarding RAM, storage and camera at this point of time, but the leak suggests that sensors on the two phones will be the most sensitive ever and will be based upon Nokia’s extensive research on wonder material “Graphene.”

Built by HMD Global, designed by Nokia

It won’t be Nokia at the helm of the forthcoming devices’ development, technically speaking. HMD Global, a Finnish company co-founded by former Nokia executives Arto Nummela and Florian Seiche, acquired the rights to the company’s mobile brand from Microsoft in May. HMD has a contract with FIH, a subsidiary of iPhone manufacturer Foxconn, and under a strict licensing partnership, follows Nokia’s design and hardware guidelines in exchange for access to the company’s extensive patent library.

More: Nokia may be cooking up a giant 18.4-inch tablet for MWC

In recent years, the company has struggled to gain a foothold in the high-end mobile market. Following the company’s adoption of Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system in 2011 and its acquisition by Microsoft in 2014, sales of its handset suffered — shipments in 2013 alone were down 22 percent year on year, according to Strategy Analytics.

Following Nokia’s divestiture from its parent company earlier this year, things haven’t looked much better. In April, thanks in part to lower-than-expected smartphone shipments, it announced 900 million euros in downsizing measures — a plan which in part involved the layoffs of 1,400 staff members in Germany, 1,300 in Finland, and 400 in France.

Despite the Finnish company’s woes, though, it’s setting its eyes on the future. It teamed up independently with Foxconn to produce the N1, an Android-based tablet. It dipped its toes in virtual reality with the Ozo, a $60,000 professional-grade 360-degree camera. And it acquired French fitness device company Withings last year.

“We have been reinventing ourselves for 150 years using this amazing brand,” Ramzi Haidamus, president of Nokia’s consumer Nokia Technologies division, told Digital Trends in June. “We’re starting to focus on people’s happiness and health in a way that wasn’t possible before because the technology wasn’t possible before. You can expect some really surprising products in the next year or two directly from this company as we turn a new chapter.”

Article originally published in July 2016. Updated on 02-13-2017 by Julian Chokkattu: Added rumors about the Nokia 6, Nokia 5, Nokia 3, and Nokia 3310.

New dating app requires you to share a phone call before sharing anything else

Why it matters to you

Many dating app users are frustrated by the lack of response to their messages, but Hotline attempts to solve that by forcing users into a phone call before allowing text conversations.

If you found sending your Tinder match a noncommittal “hello” anxiety-inducing, you might want to stop reading now.

Here to invade the nightmares of introverts, commitment-phobes, and most communicators of the 21st century is a new dating app called Hotline. It requires you to share a phone call with a match before sharing anything else. Look, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Founded by 27-year-old Sam Ballantyne, the app attempts to solve the problem of conversationless matching by sprinting headfirst in the other direction (some might say, a bit too quickly and perhaps too far). For $9 a month, you can subject yourself to a dating service in which your first conversation must be one that utilizes your voice. In order to even exchange a text message, you have to first have a five-minute phone conversation with your match (but don’t worry — your phone number won’t show up on their caller ID or anything).

More: Haters gonna date: This app finds you love based on your dislikes

Hotline attempts to help its users quickly discern whether a prospective partner is actually interesting enough or interested enough in you to really pursue. In fact, Ballantyne told CNNTech, he came up with the idea for Hotline after he matched with someone on Tinder last year. “She wouldn’t message me [again] until I called her,” Ballantyne said. “The call itself ended up being a good way to break the ice.”

So now, the classical musician turned app developer has taken that concept and turned it into a whole new business. And apparently, it’s one that’s working. Calls happen within the app so that Hotline can keep your number safe and track how long these calls actually last. And thus far, most calls are taking a lot longer than five minutes. In fact, the average call spans 25 minutes, with some users speaking for more than 40 minutes.

Sure, it might not be for everyone, but if you’re tired of messages that seem to go into a black hole, or of endless swiping without any really meeting, then just maybe Hotline is for you. The app is currently available only for iOS and in New York.

Google is being investigated in South Korea for anti-competitive practices

Why it matters to you

If Google has indeed hindered Samsung’s development of another operating system, it could have limited the software options you’ve had access to.

Google is in a bit of hot water in South Korea over yet another anti-competition investigation. In this case, the Fair Trade Commission, or the FTC, is investigating whether or note Google has hindered Samsung’s development of its own operating system.

In 2011, Google and Samsung both signed the Mobile Application Distribution Agreement, which basically states that all of Samsung’s Android smartphones have to use Google as the default search engine. Not only that, but Samsung’s devices also need to have Google apps — like Gmail, YouTube, and the Google Play Store — pre-installed. In addition, an anti-fragmentation agreement was reached, and under that agreement, Samsung can’t develop its own Android-based operating system.

More: Google Fiber, AT&T Fiber turn Kentucky city into gigabit battleground

This isn’t the first time Google has faced antitrust charges in South Korea. The company was also investigated when South Korea’s top search engines, Naver and Daum, claimed Google’s agreement with Samsung violated antitrust laws. Those charges were eventually cleared in 2013.

The bad news for Google is that on top of the newly opened investigation into whether or note the company obstructed Samsung from developing its own mobile operating system, the FTC has also said that it will be reopening the 2013 case, suggesting that since the case was closed, the market has changed.

It could be problematic if Google is found guilty, as the company could face a hefty fine. Of course, this is all par for the course for Google, which was fined $6.75 million in an antitrust case last year by Russian regulators.

It will be interesting to see how this case affects Google and its relationship with Samsung. The South Korean firm has long been trying to reduce its dependence on Google, and has been developing Tizen, its own operating system, for some time now. Is that operating system not on Samsung’s phones because of its agreement with Google? Only time will tell.

The Oculus Rift unofficially supports modern MacOS machines via a new app

Why it matters to you

While the Oculus Rift VR headset is not supported on MacOS, this new app provides a workaround for “modern” MacOS devices.

Developer Cindori released a MacOS app called VR Desktop for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. This app creates a virtual multi-monitor workspace for machines running MacOS 10.11 or higher that is viewed specifically through the Oculus Rift Development Kit v2. A version for the retail release of Facebook’s VR headset isn’t expected to arrive until later in 2017.

Costing $20, the new app enables Mac owners to strap on the Oculus Rift and view their MacOS desktop across up to three virtual displays. The catch is that the app will work on “modern” Macs that include discrete graphics chips. That is quite an amazing feat given the Oculus Rift isn’t officially supported on Mac machines.

More: Oculus Rift replacement accessories are finally available in its online store

Why? Because Macs typically don’t have the graphics chip component required to run the Rift. For example, the 21.5-inch iMac relies on Intel’s integrated graphics while the 27-inch models have an AMD Radeon R9 M300 Series component, which isn’t advertised as VR-ready. The latest MacBook Pros rely on integrated graphics as well and the expensive cylinder-shaped Mac Pro desktops sport dual AMD FirePro D-Series graphics chips, which don’t meet the Rift’s requirements either.

But it seems that Cindori is working around the current limitations. The company said it created a custom “state-of-the-art VR framework” promising a smooth experience on recent Macs with a discrete graphics chip. That rules out all models that rely solely on integrated Intel graphics.

The actual hardware requirements to run the app are unknown. However, here are the minimum and recommended specs needed to use the Oculus Rift:

Minimum
Recommended
Processor:
Intel Core i3-6100
AMD FX 4350
Intel Core i5-4590
Graphics card:
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
AMD Radeon RX 470
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060
AMD Radeon RX 480
Alternative graphics card:
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960
AMD Radeon R9 290
Nvidia GeForce GTX 970
AMD Radeon R9 290
Memory:
8GB
8GB
Video output:
HDMI 1.3 at 297MHz
HDMI 1.3 at 297MHz
USB ports:
1x USB 3.0
2x USB 2.0
3x USB 3.0
1x USB 2.0

Oculus VR placed its plans to support MacOS and Linux on hold a while ago. Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey said in March 2016 that Oculus would resume its efforts to support MacOS again when Apple releases “a good computer.” He clarified by adding that Apple may release a $6,000 Mac Pro with the top of the line AMD FirePro D700 discrete graphics chip but it still doesn’t meet the Rift’s requirements.

“It just boils down to the fact that Apple doesn’t prioritize high-end GPUs,” he said. “If they prioritize higher-end GPUs like they used to for a while back in the day, we’d love to support Mac. But right now, there’s just not a single machine out there that supports it.”

For now, it seems, VR can be enabled on modern Macs with discrete graphics through the new app. Users can play games, watch movies, work on spreadsheets, and more in a VR environment. Support for the HTC Vive headset is planned for sometime in 2017.

Urine luck! Stanford just developed a pee-based, super-efficient battery

Why it matters to you

A new ultra-low cost battery could prove a cheap and efficient means of carrying out grid storage of electricity from renewable energy.

The secret ingredient for developing cheap, effective batteries could turn out to be urine, according to researchers from Stanford University.

In a new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Stanford physicists describe a battery that works efficiently using urea, the central component of urine, after water. The battery is designed to work for grid storage of renewable energy electricity.

Batteries involve three main components: an anode, cathode, and electrolyte. Electron transfer happens around an external circuit between anode and cathode, and the corresponding ions transfer between anode and cathode through the electrolyte, which separates the anode and cathode in space to prevent a short circuit.

More: Belgian scientists just built a solar-powered machine that turns urine into drinkable water

“In this battery, the cathode is a graphite powder bound together using a polymer binder, the anode is aluminum, and the electrolyte is a mixture of urea and aluminum chloride,” Michael Angell, one of the co-authors of the paper, told Digital Trends. “While urea and aluminum chloride are solids at room temperature, when mixed together they produce a mixture of complex ions that is a liquid at room temperature, allowing for the conduction of ions between the anode and cathode. During battery discharge, aluminum metal gives its electrons to the graphite, from which electrons were removed during charging of the battery.”

The battery is pretty darn impressive. Under lab conditions, the prototype the team built reached 1,500 charge cycles. It is also likely to have an extremely long life cycle, based on its 99.7 percent Coulombic efficiency: referring to the amount of charge you get back from the battery, divided by the amount of charge you put in originally. Due to the low cost of urea, it would also be very cheap to produce.

As to what’s next, Angell said the goal is to increase the capacity of the battery, as well as the speed at which it can charge and discharge.

“Commercial viability is high, due to its low cost,” he said. The technology has been licensed by a startup, which is aiming to produce commercial prototypes within the next few years.

We think it’s a golden opportunity!

Blu’s Tank Xtreme 5.0 is built like a tank — but not priced like one

Why it matters to you

It might not look fancy, but Blu’s Tank Xtreme 5.0 was built to take a beating while not breaking the bank.

Having already announced several smartphones in the new year, U.S. manufacturer Blu announced the Tank Xtreme 5.0, the latest in the company’s line of rugged and affordable phones.

Unlike the Vivo XL2, which looks flashy with its rear-panel micro pattern, the Tank Xtreme 5.0 was not built to please the eyes. Instead, the latter was built to take a beating, and its IP65 certification for dust protection and water-resistance help with that billing. More specifically, while the Tank Xtreme 5.0 is completely protected against dust and water jets from any direction. This does not mean you can fully immerse the phone and expect it to survive the ordeal every time, though it should stand up to rain and the occasional drop just fine.

More: Blu unveils its shiny-gold midrange smartphone, the Vivo XL2

Going back to design, the Tank Xtreme 5.0 can only be described as functional. The phone’s looks might not catch the eye, but that rubber frame does a better job with shock absorption than the plastic utilized for its peers. The rubber frame and plastic body house a 5-inch, 1,280 x 720 resolution display, as well as the 5-megapixel selfie and rear cameras.

Under the hood, MediaTek’s 1.3GHz quad-core MT6580 chipset and 1GB RAM power the phone, with the meager 8GB of native storage augmented by up to an additional 64GB through the MicroSD card slot. Blu promises that the phone’s 3,000mAh battery will last two and a half days with “standard usage,” and given the humble specs, we are inclined to believe that metric.

Not as impressive is Blu’s decision to ship the Tank Xtreme 5.0 with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, a disappointment given Nougat’s availability since August 2016.

If you want the latest and greatest from Google, however, it is doubtful you will settle for the Tank Xtreme 5.0. Rather, you’ll want this phone for its rugged and affordable nature. Speaking of the latter, the phone is currently available through Amazon for $130 unlocked, but keep in mind the phone will only work on GSM carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and others.

CPU guru David Kanter talks about AMD’s new Zen and Ryzen processor technology

Why it matters to you

If you’ve been looking for a breakdown of AMD’s new Zen architecture and Ryzen CPUs, you’re in luck.

AMD is releasing its Zen processor architecture soon with the release of the Ryzen line of CPUs. The new line will compete with Intel’s Core processors, in particularly the seventh generation of the Core line, called Kaby Lake.

There are plenty of opinions and a fair amount of controversy brewing over exactly how Ryzen will compare with Kaby Lake, particularly on the high-end and especially among gamers. No matter who you talk to, you will be sure to get an earful from anyone who is involved in assessing the relative performance of today’s CPUs. One of the most reputable opinions about where things stand comes from processor guru David Kanter.

More: AMD isn’t afraid of Intel anymore, and its $490 Ryzen CPU proves it

Kanter wrote a fairly in-depth overview of the Zen architecture and the Ryzen chips in a new microprocessor report post at The Lindley Group’s website. In the report, Kanter engages in a discussion of where AMD’s new architecture compares to Intel’s latest. The report compared Zen and Ryzen to Intel’s sixth-generation Skylake processors but the general discussion of AMD’s newest remains relevant.

Compared to many people talking about CPUs and their relative strengths and weaknesses, Kanter is a better source than most. He has more than a decade of experience in delving into CPU architecture and design and is generally considered an expert in the field. His opinion is worth a little more than most of the opinions you will come across on the internet.

The question of whether Intel or AMD is faster or better or more cost-effective is a complex one and the story is still out on Zen and Ryzen. There is also the question of which kind of processor you’re talking about, desktop, server, notebook, or where in those general categories you’re looking on, the low-end or high-end.

Regardless, if you want a good understanding of AMD’s new architecture and where it has improved and where it remains behind Intel’s best — then Kanter’s report and the video above is a great place to start. You can be fairly certain that at the very least, the information is going to be accurate and reliable, unlike any number of other opinions that you might come across in your research.

Google’s Instant Apps rolling out to some and Wish is first out of the gate

Are we ready for apps that install from a search result? We need to be because they’re here.

Some folks are starting to see Google’s Instant Apps feature roll out to their phones and it seems like Wish is the first company to use them.

Back at Google I/O 2016 Google told us about Instant Apps. The idea is that you would find an app in your Google search results and be able to tap a button and start using it, much the same way you would use a web page. They are “real” apps with a component that installs on your phone and not a web-optimized or HTML5 app that lives completely in the cloud. This should be a great way for companies to expose people to what they have to offer from a native app without having to get us to leave the search and open the Play Store to download it. For us, it means we can get instant access to something like a shopping app instead of using a web page that might not be designed for a small touch-based screen. Everyone wins.

Up until now, everything about Instant Apps has been in a slow testing phase while everyone outside just watches. But we’ve heard several reports from folks saying they can install and use the Wish instant app on their phones with Android 7.0 installed. We’re seeing the same thing here, and our pals at Audroid are, too. This is what the process is like.

• Open your settings and find Google Settings.
• Find the Instant Apps setting and tap the switch to enable it.
• Read the terms and agree.

Now when you’re searching for something (in this case the Wish website) you might see a search result for an Instant App version. If you open it, you’ll be able to install a tiny part of the app and jump right in.

Shopping sites and news websites will be able to benefit from these, and other companies are thinking about how they can leverage giving a user access without taking them away from their search. The idea is pretty cool, and we’re excited to see how companies use it to lure us to them.

Anyone else out there seeing Instant Apps? Give a shout in the comments!

HMD to bring Nokia 6 and three budget Android phones to Europe

The Nokia brand will announce four handsets at Mobile World Congress in a couple weeks.

HMD Global Oy, the Finnish manufacturer marketing phones under Nokia brand, has two Android 7.0 Nougat-powered devices, the Nokia 5 and Nokia 3, coming, as well as the Nokia 6, which was already announced as a China exclusive. You can also expect a “feature phone”, the Nokia 3310. And all this is according to Venture Beat’s Evan Blass.Nokia recently teased it will hold an event on 26 February. While there’s long been rumours of a Nokia P1 flagship device, Blass only mentioned the Nokia 5, Nokia 3, Nokia 6, and Nokia 3310. The Nokia 6, which has yet to release outside of China, features a full HD, 5.5-inch display, Snapdragon 430, 4GB of RAM, and 16-megapixel rear camera.

• Mobile World Congress 2017: Nokia, Sony, Huawei, and more

The Nokia 5 and 3 will be lower spec’d. The Nokia 5, for instance, will feature a 5.2-inch 720p display, 2GB of RAM, and a 12-megapixel main shooter, totaling a €50 difference price difference. The entry-level Nokia 3 will reportedly cost €149. These are clearly budget devices – same with the Nokia 3310, which has a “nearly indestructible build”.

Venture Beat

It’s described by Blass, who has a great track record when it comes to leaking news before it’s official, as a “modern version of a classic workhorse” with plentiful battery life. It’ll cost only €59, naturally.

We’ll know more later this month, as Pocket-lint will be at MWC 2017 to see what HMD has in store for Europe.

Passenger drones will begin flying over Dubai this summer

The single-rider, human-sized quadcopter that whipped CES 2016 into a frenzy could be carrying passengers as early as this summer. As the head of Dubai’s Roads and Transportation Agency announced at the World Government summit today, the Chinese EHang 184 passenger drone will begin “regular operations” around the futuristic city in July of 2017.

In fact, as the Associated Press reports, the EHang 184 has already been zipping around Dubai’s Burj Al-Arab skyscraper, which happens to have a helipad floating a dizzying 689 feet off the ground. “This is not only a model,” Roads and Transportation chief Mattar al-Tayer said. “We have actually experimented with this vehicle flying in Dubai’s skies.”

Since al-Tayer didn’t elaborate, it’s currently unclear whether any of those flights actually carried a real person, but it sounds like the Personal Flying Vehicle’s specs have gotten some slight performance upgrades since we last saw it on the floor in Las Vegas. The AP reports the PFV now has a half-hour flight time with about 31 miles of range, but passenger capacity is still limited to one 260-pound person and single small suitcase. Since the vehicle is autonomous, the passenger only needs to punch in their destination and strap in before take-off. From there, the 184 will communicate via 4G wireless network with a control room on the ground similar to the one EHang showed Engadget late last year.

While the crown jewel of the United Arab Emirates will get to claim bragging rights as the first city to unleash flying passenger drones, officials in Nevada are also seeking the FAA’s approval on the EHang 184 — so we might see EHang back at CES with a real, flying product sooner than expected.

Source: Popular Mechanics/Associated Press