HMD Product Manager says new Nokia flagship is coming on November 11

2021-09-13

HMD Global has had a really tough time with building a Nokia flagship. After the Nokia 9 PureView failed to make an impression on the market, we went through a progression of rumors – about the 9.1, then 9.2 and most recently the 9.3 PureView, each followed by a rumor of a delayed launch. Now even the rumors have stopped.

Now ITHome reports that HMD is preparing a 5G flagship that will be launched in China on November 11 – 11.11, aka Singles" Day, a big shopping event in China. And this is no mere rumor, it comes from a quote by Zhang Yucheng, the Product Manager for HMD in China.

The PM didn’t offer any details about the device and we can’t look at past leaks either, since they cover several years of projects that never came to light. The phone may not even follow the “9.3” naming scheme as HMD has moved on from that.

Zhang Yucheng mentioning the Nokia flagship that is coming on Singles Day
Zhang Yucheng mentioning the Nokia flagship that is coming on Singles Day

It’s all about the X-series now. The Nokia X50 is supposed to bring a 108 MP camera and S775 chipset. Other alleged specs include Zeiss optics for the main, telephoto and ultra wide cameras, a 6.5” 1440p+ display with 120 Hz refresh rate and a 6,000 mAh battery. This sounds much more powerful than anything HMD has launched lately, certainly better than the X20 and X10, but not quite a top shelf flagship.

One recent rumor claims that a Nokia X70 phone will get a custom sensor that is co-designed by Nokia Technology. This possibility is exciting and worrying in equal measure, seeing how the highly-custom PureView camera on the Nokia 9 performed (Light, the maker of the camera even pulled out of the phone business). We’re probably months away from any solid rumors on the actual specs of the Nokia flagship (if it even exists – we’ve been burned before).

Source (in Chinese) | Via