A new Nokia phone looks set to land at MWC 2020, with a Marvel movie twist

The Nokia 5.1
The Nokia 5.1, possibly the predecessor to this new phone (Image credit: Future)

Annual smartphone event Mobile World Congress 2020 (or MWC, as it's more commonly known) is nearly here, and we're expecting a big collection of phones to be announced at it – one of these could be a new Nokia phone, as a leak suggests.

This information comes from popular tech leaker Evan Blass (whose Twitter is locked, but we'll share a screenshot below). Apparently Blass got the phone details from a tip, and there are some hands-on pictures shared too.

The first intriguing piece of information here is that the phone has the code-name 'Captain America', likely named after the Marvel character of the same name. We're not too sure what this actually means for the phone – perhaps it has a special tough design, or a blue, white and red color scheme, or maybe this is just a fairly meaningless code-name.

In brackets, Blass adds that this could be the Nokia 5.2, the successor to the Nokia 5.1 from early 2019. That would make it a low to mid-range device, perhaps with bigger and more interesting smartphones set to debut alongside it.

The phone is said to have 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, and that would largely line up with most budget Nokia phones. The 6GB of RAM might make for a fairly fast experience, but 64GB of storage is what you'd find in most affordable smartphones.

According to Blass' leak, the phone will cost $180 (roughly £135, AU$270) upon release, which is why we say it's a budget phone. That's a low price, and in fitting with the suggestion of the phone being a Nokia 5.2.

Finally, it's said the release date for the phone is March 4. Since we know Nokia is hosting an MWC 2020 event on February 23, the timings line up perfectly to suggest the Nokia 5.2, or Captain America phone if you prefer, could be launched at the event, and then put on sale a week and a half later.

Pictures of the Captain America phone

(Image credit: Evan Blass)

Along with the above information we've got two pictures of the Nokia phone that show us a little about it.

One picture, showing the rear of the phone, lets us know there's a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor as well as a camera bump that houses a whopping four snappers, along with a flash module. 

That's a lot of rear cameras for the successor to a phone that only had one, but because the lenses look pretty small, and typically high-res sensors are paired with larger lenses, we wouldn't expect any of the Nokia phones' cameras to be particularly powerful. It seems Nokia is going with quantity over quality here.

On the front of the phone we see a teardrop notch, a stock Android operating system running on the phone, and a fairly wide chin at the bottom with the Nokia logo, which is another sign of the budget status of the phone. It also doesn't look like a huge phone compared to the hand holding it.

Generally, in terms of design, the Nokia 5.2 'Captain America' looks quite a lot like any other Nokia phone, but the company's devices rarely win any design awards anyway.

We don't know the rest of the specs just yet, but we'd expect it to have a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon or Mediatek Helio chipset, fairly solid battery life, and okay cameras, all of which is based on our previous experience with mid-range Nokia phones.

We'll find out more (hopefully) at the Nokia conference at MWC. TechRadar will be on the ground for the whole of the event, reporting on every phone conference and launch, so stay tuned over the second half of February for all of our analysis, news and reviews.

Tom Bedford
Contributor

Tom Bedford was deputy phones editor on TechRadar until late 2022, having worked his way up from staff writer. Though he specialized in phones and tablets, he also took on other tech like electric scooters, smartwatches, fitness, mobile gaming and more. He is based in London, UK and now works for the entertainment site What To Watch.

He graduated in American Literature and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Prior to working on TechRadar, he freelanced in tech, gaming and entertainment, and also spent many years working as a mixologist.