In this age where smartphones are getting more advanced displays, bigger batteries, and other higher hardware specs, there's one issue that nearly all of them have: They cannot be easily repaired by their owners. HMD Global, the company that makes Android smartphones under the Nokia branding, is trying to make one of their newly announced budget phones an exception to that rule.
Announced today, just ahead of Mobile World Congress 2023, HMD Global revealed the Nokia G22. It's been designed to allow owners to replace certain parts, including its 6.52-inch display, 5,050 mAh battery, and charging port.
HMD Global has partnered with phone repair company iFixit with this new initiative for the Nokia G22. Phone owners can buy repair kits and replacement parts from iFixit. Using these kits, parts, and included manuals will give G22 owners tools the ability to remove and replace the selected parts quickly.
HMD Global says that if owners make their own repairs to these parts with the tools and manuals supplied by iFixit, it will be considered an authorized repair. That means it will not affect the Nokia G22's warranty. The repair kits will only be available for now to Nokia G22 owners in Australia, the UK, and European Union countries.
The other hardware specs of the Nokia G22 include a Unisoc T606 processor, 4 GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage, with a micoSD card that will allow up to 2TB of additional storage to be added. It will also have a 50MB main rear camera, a 2MP depth camera, and a 2MP macro camera, along with an 8MP front-facing camera. Unfortunately, the phone will come with the old Android 12 OS out of the box, but HMD Global is promising it will get two years of OS updates and three years of security updates.
Android Authority says the Nokia G22 will launch on March 8 in the UK for £149.99, or around $179. So far, no plans have been announced to release the phone in the US. Hopefully, this will just be the first in a lineup of Nokia phones that will be owner-repair friendly, and if successful, we could see other smartphone companies join this trend.
Source: HMD Global via Android Authority
17 Comments - Add comment