Just before the MWC event, HMD Global silently unveils an ultra-affordable contender, the Nokia C02. The newcomer is compact and has a vintage design, reminiscing phones from 2016. And we don’t mean Vintage lightly; its features include an unsealed backplate and a removable battery, which is out of place in 2023.
Nokia C02 is a blend of amusing design choices and some bold features to introduce in 2023. Starting with the screen, it has a 5.45-inch IPS LCD with FWVGA+ resolution, which means 480p resolution. The display brings a wider 18:9 aspect ratio, combining the front side with fat black bars on the top and bottom.
In optics, it has a single 5MP shooter as a primary lens on the back, and a simple 2MP front-facing camera placed side to side with the earpiece. It has an all-plastic frame with a matte texture. The back shield pops off to reveal an old-fashioned replaceable 3000mAh battery.
Installing the SIM or MicroSD card also needs removing the back cover. In its ancient features, C02 secures a MicroUSB connector capable of recharging the battery at 5 Watts. At the helm, the new Nokia mobile features a quad-core SoC clocked at 1.4GHz frequency. The SoC model is still a mystery.
In bed with 2GB RAM and 32GB eMMC 5.1 storage, the newcomer brings Android 12 Go right out of the box. Go is the lite version of Android that requires low resources to run. Despite being an unsealed phone, C02 still boasts an IP52 rating. There is no word on the price yet, but dark cyan and charcoal colors will be the two default options with the phone.
