Nokia XL Overview

The Nokia XL is Nokia's first device running Google's Android operating system. However, instead of replacing or competing with Nokia's high-end Lumia devices the XL, and the other X-series models, fit into the mid- to low end bracket of the market.

The XL comes with a 5-inch 800x480 screen, 768MB of RAM, up to 32GB of storage and a microSD slot. It's powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, and has a 5MP autofocus rear and 2MP front camera. The operating system is built on AOSP (Android Open Source Project) but does not use any of Google's popular services. Instead Nokia X-users will find Nokia's HERE Maps, Outlook.com, Microsoft OneDrive and Skype pre-installed on their devices.

Nokia also offers its own app store but since it's all Android it will be easy for developers to make their existing apps available in the Nokia store. The devices also support sideloading of apps in the same way as this can be done on Amazon's Kindle Fire devices that also uses a forked version of Android.

The user interface looks different to what you are used to from Android, too. The X series comes with Fastlane, which is a start-screen that is visually loosely modeled on Windows Phone's tile design.