The Nokia N1 is an iPad Mini-esque Android tablet from the original Nokia company

Since Nokia sold its devices and services unit to Microsoft earlier this year we haven’t heard much from the company. Now, at the same time that Microsoft is ditching the Nokia brand on its smartphones, Nokia has re-entered the world of mobile devices. Its first one? The Nokia N1, it’s an Android tablet that looks remarkably like an iPad Mini.

That’s not a light comparison either since the N1 has the same 7.9-inch display and 2048 x 1536 resolution, and is made from a single piece of anodised aluminium. That’s not all, because the camera, microphone, headphone jack, and speakers are also in the same place. There’s even what looks to be a lightning port, but is in fact a new reversible Type-C micro USB port.

But it looks like Nokia isn’t content with mimicking the design, and has made a few improvements of its own. For starters the screen is fully laminated and the N1 is lighter and thinner than Apple’s offering, being 6.9mm thick and weighing 318 grams. Of course there’s no home button either, because this is Android.

Other specs include a 2.4 GHZ quad-core Intel Z3580 processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a 5,300 mAh battery. Sadly there’s no mention of microSD expansion, and if it does have it then Nokia clearly didn’t think it was work mentioning. The N1 has a bonus of running on a stock version of Android Lollipop just in case the Nexus 9 wasn’t your thing. You’ll have to make do with Nokia’s Z launcher on top of it, but considering it allows you scribble to search through your apps from the home screen I’d say that’s a useful feature to have.

The Nokia N1 is set to be released in China sometime around Chinese New Year (February 19th) and will cost around £159 before taxes. After the initial Chinese release it’ll start rolling out to Russia and select European countries. Which European countries has not been specified, but hopefully we’ll see the N1 come to our shores.