The latest Nokia phone to receive Android 12 is a long-forgotten 5G mid-ranger
There used to be a time (not that long ago) when HMD Global was starting to look like a serious threat for the world's largest smartphone vendors with its rapidly growing portfolio of competitively priced Nokia-branded devices whose software support was at one point pretty much unrivaled.
It's perhaps needless to say that's not the case anymore, with Samsung absolutely crushing every other Android handset maker out there when it comes to the speed and number of major OS updates officially rolled out around the world nowadays.
That being said, HMD can still bid for a place on an imaginary Android software support podium, reportedly delivering the latest OS version to the Nokia 8.3 5G as we speak after doing the same for the XR20, G50, and X20 5G in recent months.
Yes, boys and girls, this upper mid-end 6.81-inch device commercially released back in the fall of 2020 with Android 10 pre-installed following a spring 2020 announcement can now run Android 12 in its stable form... at least in Finland.
Unconfirmed by Nokia's exclusive global brand licensee at the time of publication, this over-the-air deployment is likely to spread its wings to other countries in the next few hours, days, and weeks, undoubtedly reaching the US at some point as well. Stateside, mind you, the Snapdragon 765-powered Nokia 8.3 5G no longer appears to be officially available from any major retailers, which means today's happy news will only put a smile on the faces of existing users.
These should look forward to receiving sweet add-ons and important enhancements like a new Privacy Dashboard providing a 24-hour overview of when your apps access your phone's location, camera, and microphone, various accessibility improvements, Conversation Widgets, and Google's April 2022 security patches.
Despite retiring from a long-lost flagship race, this kind of support for a mid-ranger forgotten by everyone but its faithful owners and ultra-low-cost launches like the C200 with Android 12 out the box could eventually help HMD exploit the full potential of the Nokia brand... again.
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