Nokia N1 tablet – more than an Android iPad mini clone

Looking for an Android slate but would love it to have the same lines as Apple’s iPad mini tablet? Well, Nokia has returned to the devices business with the Nokia N1, which looks pretty much like what you’re after.

Nokia has bounced back in to the game less than seven months after selling its devices and services unit to Microsoft for $7.2 billion.

Nokia has unveiled its N1 Android tablet today and it looks like Nok has been playing with the Apple iPad mini.

The Nokia N1 has the same 7.9-inch screen size and even the same 2048 x 1536 resolution as the little iPad. Nokia has even gone for a single piece of anodized aluminium to cloak it in.

As for the rear and the ports of the N1, well the story stays quite iPad-ish. The camera, buttons, and headphone jack are where you’d find them on the Apple and even the speaker grills seem lifted from the iPad.

Heh, you’d almost expect to see a Lightning port at this rate. Oh, hang on. Is that…? Nope, it’s actually one of the first implementations of the reversible type-C USB connector.

While the Nokia N1 looks like an iPad mini running the Android 5.0 Lollipop OS, the company has actually gone a few steps further in improving Apple’s popular tablet.

Nokia’s N1 display is fully-laminated, unlike the iPad mini 3, and the N1 is just 6.9mm thick and 318 grams in weight, both thinner and lighter than Apple’s offering. Nokia is particularly proud of design details like its camera placement matching the curvature of the camera lens and the tablet’s corner.

You have a choice of “Natural Aluminum” and “Lava Grey” colour schemes as well as what suspiciously looks like an Apple Smart Case.

Other specifications include a 2.4GHz quad-core Intel Atom Z3580 processor, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. Nokia’s N1 also has an 8-megapixel camera at the rear, and a 5-megapixel version at the front.

The company is now planning to launch the Nokia N1 in China for $249 (before taxes) around the time of Chinese New Year (February 19th), and it will roll out to Russia and select European countries after the Chinese release. That’s a really good price when put next to Apple’s $399 for the latest iPad mini 3 or even the $299 price of the iPad mini 2.

Needless to say, Nokia’s pricing will be the pivot point as to how well the device sells.

Check out the video below:
[youtube id=”IwJmthxJV5Q”]