HMD Global Is Likely To Work On A Feature Phone With Android OS

9to5Google has already posted an image that leaks a Nokia feature phone from HMD Global is likely to come with Google’s Android OS. If this information is true, this phone will be the first Android-based feature phone manufactured by the company.

As in the leaked image, the phone without any branding looks pretty like a Nokia 220 but runs on a stripped-down version of Android. This feature phone appears with four directional buttons on the d-pad, T9 keyboard along with a small color display.

From the image, we can take a close glance at the home screen interface as well. Right below the Google Assistant shortcut, there’re other shortcuts within a quick access bar which allow you to opt-in Chrome, YouTube, Camera, and Recents. It also sports a menu button for you to trigger the drawer app.

Though Google offers a watered-down version called Android GO, the company does not offer any Android versions for any feature phone models until now. Android GO is built for devices with low specs such as low-end processors, 1GB of RAM, and similar stuff.

However, some report says that this feature phone is not based on Android. Instead, it’s supposed to be a KaiOS version which was customized. In spite of that, the fact is that Chrome browser is not yet available on KaiOS.

It seems a pinch of salt as the company gives no official announcement about the existence of this device. We may have to wait to confirm the truth but it’s totally interesting for such a feature phone. It's also amazing to see Google heavily working on stuff for feature phones, while it has already been investing a lot of money into KaiOS along with bringing apps to the operating system, and Google Assistant is a visual example.