Nokia X Android smartphone set to launch in India on March 10

Nokia has sent media invites for an event scheduled for 10 March 2014 in New Delhi, where the Finnish giant is expected to unveil its first Android smartphone, the Nokia X.

The invite (below) says, "Nokia India cordially invites you to Xperience a new beginning!" where the 'X' letter has been highlighted, suggesting that the company might reveal the pricing and availability details of the Nokia X Android smartphone.

The invite further informs that Nokia India's VP and MD, P. Balaji will be attending the event. As of now, no other details related to the event have been revealed.

We expect that the company might also announce availability details of the Nokia X+ and Nokia XL, which was launched alongside Nokia X at the MWC 2014.

On Wednesday, Nokia's first Android smartphone, the Nokia X, was spotted at an online retailer in India, with a price of Rs. 8,500. The retailer claimed that the Nokia X smartphone would be available from 15 March 2014.

However, since the online retailer is a third-party store, one cannot be certain if this would be the official launch price when the phone is announced for India.

The Nokia X is based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), and is powered by Microsoft and Nokia services. The highlight of the Nokia X is the highly customised version of Android, with the Metro-inspired UI and access to Nokia's own app store. While there's no access to Google's Play Store, users can side-load Android apps from any third-party source. Nokia has used the AOSP version corresponding to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean as the baseline for its operating system.

The Nokia X offers dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) support with dual standby. The first Android phone from Nokia features a 4-inch IPS LCD display with a 480x800 pixel resolution, translating to a pixel density of 233ppi.

The smartphone is powered by 1GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, alongside 512MB of RAM. It sports a 3-megapixel rear camera. The Nokia X handset comes with 4GB of in-built storage, and can be expanded up to 32GB via microSD card.

The Nokia X supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, AGPS, EDGE, GPRS and 3G connectivity options. It is backed by a 1500mAh battery, which can deliver up to 13 hours of talktime and up to 672 hours of standby time on 2G network.