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Comment by Theodores | Hacker News Reader

The 'Nokia' in this article is a brand, licensed and stuck on some phones made by some other people.

So this is not 'real Nokia' in my opinion. However, an Apple product or a Google product that is actually made by an OEM (Foxconn/HTC/LG etc.) is 'real Apple' or 'real Google'.

The problem with badge engineering is the badge.

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Those other people are HMD Gobal. They are in essence Nokia's former employees who worked in the Mobile phone division. When Nokia sold the mobile division to Microsoft most of those employees, management, sales, marketing, design and engineering went to Microsoft. Subsequently when Microsoft shutdown the old Nokia mobile division those now ex Nokia, ex Microsoft staff started HMD. It's literally based across the road from their original office's in the Nokia HQ. For the most part it is Nokia, just with a different name and different ownership but same design and engineering principles.

HMD Gobal. Building 2, Nokia Campus, Karaportti, 02610 Espoo, Finland.

HMDGlobal deal is Nokia's way to keep the consumer brand recognition without risk or investment. Nokia still owns the brand, licenses technology and patents, has one member in the board and gets royalties. Anything they cook up in Nokia Technologies / Bell Labs can appear in these phones.

Money comes from Foxconn and Foxconn also manufactures the phones.

If HMDGlobal continues to progress (in sales, tech, etc.) I wouldn't be surprised to see Nokia just purchase them. Or in an AT&T/SBC/Cingular scenario, see HMDGlobal purchase Nokia and become "the new Nokia".

It's HMD, another Finnish company with some managers ex-Nokia, so there is certain continuity. However, manufacturing is done in China and no they don't own any factories.

Is there any evidence these are low quality though?

I bought a Lumia 720 which I used for 3 years and still works perfectly another 3 or 4 years later, although the Windows OS was lacking in many ways, the phone itself is engineered extremely well, drop resistant, and doesn't even require a case.

I've broken more Samsungs than I can count in extremely short periods of time.

If the Nokia quality is still there I would love to go back to Nokia.

The Lumia phones were build by Nokia. The Android ones are build by HMD global

The quality is still there though, its definitely a phone you can rock with a minimal case, and if you don't mind it getting a little dinged up, no case is also fine.

The Nokia quality is very much still there, jerryrigeverything recommends the Nokia phones, since they are built like a tank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5aXkW0EFRI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvh3v1BkJ-A

Teardowns seem to indicate the build quality is definitely still there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M3Budnl3aI&feature=youtu.be...

From wikipedia:

HMD is headquartered in Espoo, opposite Nokia's head office, and the company is largely staffed by former Nokia executives.

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