By now, you all know that Nokia did the unthinkable yesterday and announced an Android line-up of devices at Mobile World Congress, after criticizing the platform for years and pushing Windows Phone with their Lumia brand. That launch comes so close to the company’s smartphone division being completely enveloped under Microsoft — end of Q1 2014 should be the final date — that we’re left scratching our head. Despite the huge amount of hands-on videos that have showed us everything we need to know about the X series, we’re left with many unanswered questions. Here they are.

WHY? We’ve heard Elop’s explanation, we’ve read thousands of words as the ink is being consistently spilled in dozens of reports, but still, we can’t help but wonder why did Nokia launch the X series? Why now? Why bother? Why does it matter? Just seriously … why? What will happen to the X series once the Microsoft acquisition is complete? Will Microsoft really launch and sell Android devices? If the point is for the X series to replace the Asha series, and Asha as a brandname is exclusive to Microsoft as part of the acquisition for the next 10 years, will Microsoft sell Asha Android phones? Isn’t that like Pizza Hut selling Dominos Pizza? Will Nokia have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft like all other Android OEMs? That would be, well, hilarious. Where do the cheap Lumias fit now? The Lumia 520, for example, was selling well in emerging markets mainly because it was a Nokia branded device at a cheap price, with good build quality, and with smartphone features. Isn’t that exactly what the X series is? If the X series is supposed to be a stepping stone for consumers to join the Lumia and Microsoft ecosystem, what will happen when a Nokia X owner who got used to Android apps on his phone decides to “upgrade” to a Lumia and doesn’t find those same apps available for Windows Phone? Conspiracy theory time: if Microsoft owns the right to use the Asha and Lumia brandname, and Nokia can’t use their own brand on a smartphone, could the X be (what’s left of) Nokia’s way of later releasing smartphones that aren’t Asha or Lumia or Nokia branded or under the Microsoft umbrella? Would that be a way to stay in the smartphone space without breaking their sale deal? Will people really care about an Android device that doesn’t run Google Apps? Will they know the difference? Or is Nokia banking on people not even being aware what Android is to sell these phones? If you were ever a Nokia fan and user, did your first reaction to the announcement go along the lines of: “Would things be different if Nokia chose this strategy, or even full Android support with Google certification, three years ago?” That was then followed by a small pinch of the heart and a “We will never know, will we?” Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore said one day earlier, during the Windows keynote, that the company isn’t too excited about some of Nokia’s extra-curricular activities. Isn’t it ironic how that turned around overnight to be full-blown support for the X series, with Microsoft offering 10GB of free OneDrive storage and 1 month of free worldwide Skype calls to the device’s buyers? How much will anyone trust buying apps from the Nokia Store, given Nokia’s horrendous track record at opening, managing and then closing application stores? If you buy a Nokia X phone now, is there any guarantee, anywhere, that Microsoft won’t cancel the project by the end of Q1 2014 and you’ll be left with no support, no service center, no app store, no one to complain to, and practically nothing? Will developers really bother to update their apps and submit them for approval to the Nokia Store? Or will they just wait to see what Microsoft will do with this whole side-project? And if developers do submit their apps to the Nokia Store, will they try to keep them up-to-date as they do on the Play Store? Who’s to say that there won’t be year-old versions of apps plaguing the Nokia X? How will Android apps and games that require Google Play Services or Google+ login work? Is it still a few lines of code changes, or will developers have to re-write chunks of the app from scratch? Will the Nokia X series be updated along with AOSP Android, or will it be stuck on Jelly Bean? Should we call Microsoft and ask them about their plans? Will the hacker folks at XDA-Developers find a way to extract those Here Maps and Drive .apk files so we can run the apps on our own Android devices? Here is notorious for its offline navigation feature, and extensive maps that are quite better than Google’s in emerging countries and remote areas. Also for the hackers, we’re crossing our fingers that there would be a way to port Google Apps to those devices, for a blessedly awkward marriage of Nokia hardware, tiled UI, and Google apps. How ironic would that be? Will the CyanogenMod team be able to port CM to the Nokia X series? That would make quite an appealing combination, wouldn’t it? Is it just us, or do you also feel a bit weird seeing Android AOSP and apps running on a Nokia handset, and Nokia news being covered on Android sites? Doesn’t it feel a bit like seeing your divorced parents online dating profile after knowing them only as a married couple for many years? And the most important question – will every over-loyalistic Nokia fanboy/fangirl who proclaimed for years that they wouldn’t ever use Android, that Android apps numbers don’t matter, that Windows Phone has everything they need, that Android apps are ugly, and so on, change their mind now? Oh the fun…

Do you have any other perplexing questions regarding the Nokia X? Share them with us!

Like this post? Share it!