First Nokia-branded Android smartphone to be released exclusively in China

It is sad, but I don't think it was the Microsoft deal that did Nokia in.

Nokia had already been left behind when they finally realized that Symbian wasn't going to cut it against iOS and Android. I think they made a calculated decision: they could try and create an Android device to compete against the likes of Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and LG with basically no differentiation -OR- they could take Microsoft's money and put their hopes on Windows Phone.

If they had gone the Android route, it doesn't seem like they would have gotten a better result. Samsung can make its own displays and chips and that advantage has ground a lot of the competition to dust. LG makes its own displays. Facing this, HTC (who had a nice Android business) has really struggled. Motorola struggled and then got bounced around and still doesn't really make money. Nokia would likely have struggled as well.

Let's look at the Lumia 800 flagship launched in November 2011. The Galaxy S2 was launched in May 2011 with a dual-core processor (as opposed to the single-core Lumia), 1GB of RAM (rather than 512MB), a 4.3" display (rather than 3.7" - and people want larger screens), a 3-colors-per-pixel AMOLED Plus display (rather than the 2-color-per-pixel PenTile on the Lumia), a microSD card slot (while the Lumia had no expandable storage), a front camera the Lumia lacked entirely, and a larger battery. A Lumia 800 Android phone wouldn't have sold well. It was way worse (hardware wise) than a Samsung phone introduced 6 months prior.

Not to go on too much of a tangent, but in a way it was like the Palm Pre. Palm introduced it, but it had a smaller display than the iPhone, underclocked processor, half the storage, 40% thicker, creaky build quality, and the same price tag. Sure, it had the niche feature of the keyboard, but in most ways the hardware was simply inferior. It was easy to write off the Palm Pre as a device that could have been great if not for an OS that wasn't popular enough. If it had run iOS, it would have tanked against an iPhone that was simply superior.

It's very easy to critically acclaim something when one sees one specific flaw that's a dealbreaker. In that case, all other flaws tend to go unnoticed or just get attributed to the dealbreaker. If the Lumia 800 ran Android, it would have been crappy compared to Android phones of the day.

Nokia did a couple cool things like the 41MP Lumia 1020 (or PureView 808). But a camera just isn't enough, especially when wedded to a bulky, underpowered phone with a crappy display. Nokia's hardware was simply poorly matched against what you could get from competitors.

It's always sad to see a brand that once meant so much end up the way it did. But it wasn't Microsoft that did Nokia in. Like many others, they failed to notice how important the iPhone was going to be. Even those that saw the iPhone for what it was (like HTC) weren't spared. Nokia wouldn't have done much better if they'd released their devices as Android phones. They would have been underpowered and overpriced. Sure, some would have bought it for the Nokia name, but not enough. The market was flooded with better hardware. Nokia would have introduced Android phones that would have been mediocre with a premium price. A lot of us remember Nokia fondly and would have rooted for Nokia to introduce something without the dealbreaker of Windows Phone, but we would have been disappointed when we compared a Nokia Android against other options in the market. Maybe it's best that we can just write off Nokia's failure as due to Windows Phone rather than noting that most of their smartphone devices also just weren't great hardware.

As former employee, I doubt it would made any difference.

Symbian was a pain to develop for, went through multiple stack changes that pissed off developers.

Then there were the internal fights between the Symbian and Maemo units.

Things were already bad before Microsoft joined in.

I don't think you have ever used a Lumia 800.

While inferior to SII on paper, it was significantly better in actual use. It sold okay, but was abandoned by Microsoft and never updated past 8.3

Disagree. It's likely that Nokia, like many manufacturers, used the minimum specs possible to get a certain experience level. It could be that WP7 required lower specs to get the same smoothness that Android could achieve. That wouldn't be hard to believe, as Android wasn't even focusing on feeling "smooth" until long after the Galaxy S2 had come out. Nokia isn't somehow incapable of sourcing competitive parts aside from Samsung's AMOLED.

I dislike the "Windows Phone or become a commodity Android OEM" argument because it holds no substance. First of all, if Nokia is successful at executing WP, then other manufacturers will license WP and Microsoft sure as hell won't let an OEM customize WP, so how does your argument hold weight? Nokia would only be able to compete in build quality, which it can do regardless of OS, so why not jump in with the popular, entrenched option?

As for differentiating as an Android OEM, if they had gone that route, that common argument always seems to ignore the fact that every single manufacturer has had no issue making their own skin. In fact, one popular OEM's schtick is that they provide a near-stock experience. Shit, if Nokia had done that coupled with their reputation for good build quality (something that aforementioned popular OEM lacks), then they would be doing better than most of the guys on the market now. At the very least, they'd be doing better than how they actually did.

I LOVED Nokia at the time, so I followed news of their phones closely. No one will ever be able to convince me that it was a good idea to pick a dead end OS (it was obvious even at that time) over a popular juggernaut, publicly destroying their current OSes before even implementing their dead OS properly, destroying the N9 which had pretty much only great reviews, and then undoing all of that in the span of a few years. I hated it when it happened and I hate it now.

HMD is made of ex-Nokia employees. If it's all the good ones, then there's a chance, however slim, that maybe the new phones will be good.