Apparently Nokia’s developing an Android phone set for early next year

So word on the street has it that Nokia’s developing an Android smartphone — a first for the Finnish tech giant. According to the all-so-famous evleaks and a couple of other sources, the project has been codenamed “Normandy” and the smartphone is meant to be targeted as a lower-end device set for 2014.

If The Verge has its facts straight, unknown sources claim that Nokia is planning on releasing it early next year is going “full steam ahead” with the project. The Verge has also noted in Septmeber that it’s meant to be a low-end device aimed at emerging markets similar to the Finnish company’s current Asha range. If that’s the case, Android would make a good fit.

Android 4.4 KitKat has been developed to encompass more devices including ones with low-end specs. It’s meant to help developers create memory-efficient applications for “entry-level devices”. For instance, KitKat is meant to run comfortably on devices with 512MB RAM. However, it’s unlikely that this device will run KitKat perse but rather a mere version of Android.

The Verge’s sources suggest that Normandy would carry a branched-off version of Android much like what Amazon does with its Kindle Fire. This basically means that Nokia’s copying Android’s source code and then modifying it to suite different needs and looks.

A real Asha. Or Lumia? The Nokia Normandy. pic.twitter.com/Q4jpPNte1l

— @evleaks (@evleaks) November 25, 2013

Nokia currently holds about 80% of the Windows Phone market share and in September this year, word came out that Microsoft is set to buy Nokia’s hardware division and that the deal will be finalized early 2014.

It’s known that once the transaction has been closed, Nokia will be restricted from licensing the Nokia brand to sell its own mobile device for 30 months and from using the Nokia brand on Nokia’s own mobile devices until the end of 2015. Microsoft will own the Asha and Lumia brands once the deal is finalized early next year

This story is quite a stretch but if the sources are to believed, this could be ground-breaking and Normandy will see the light of day sometime “early next year”.