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Canceled Nokia 400 Android feature phone appears in hands-on video

By Ewdison Then/

Android can be found almost anywhere, especially in unofficial ports and sometimes strange places. It's still primarily an operating designed for smartphones, particularly ones that have a minimum set of hardware capabilities to be considered "smart." There was a time, however, when it seemed that Google was working on bringing Android further down the mobile food chain, running on something that's considered a "feature phone" by today's standards. That never came to pass, but a new video shows what could have been had the Nokia 400 launched with Android for Feature Phones running inside.

This Nokia-branded Android feature phone first surfaced in 2019 and was finally given an unofficial name months after. It will probably remain a mystery why HMD Global canceled the so-called Nokia 400, especially considering how it seemed to be production-ready. More than a year later, a video has suddenly popped up out of the blue, showcasing how "Google Android for Feature Phones" or GAFP was supposed to work.

Unlike even the cheapest of smartphones, feature phones are often identified by their lack of a touch screen. As such, GAFP was designed around D-Pad navigation and interaction with Google Assistant. The latter, which is clearly seen on the bootup screen, is the first telltale sign that the chunky Nokia 400 is an Android device.

Of course, the Settings app provides the more definite confirmation, showing that the phone is running GAFP based on Android 8.1 Oreo. It also reveals that the device only has 512MB of RAM, meeting the requirements of Android Oreo Go Edition back in 2019. Considering Android Go already supported Lite versions of Google's mainstream apps, the fact that GAFP could also do so shouldn't come as a surprise.

Calyx Hikari, who provided the video, also shared the out-of-the-box experience for the Nokia 400, revealing that the phone's primary target market was India. It's still unknown why HMD Global suddenly pulled the plug, but with many entry-level Android phones and Nokia-branded feature phones already in the market, its presence probably wouldn't have made much of a difference.

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