There will never be another Nokia smartphone

A long, strange trip comes to a close

by Nilay Patel

Source Nokia

Sep 3, 2013, 6:51 AM UTC

Nokia stock

Part Of

Microsoft buys Nokia’s phone division as Steve Ballmer plans his exit

see all updates

Nilay Patel is editor-in-chief of The Verge, host of the Decoder podcast, and co-host of The Vergecast.

The Nokia brand name, one of the most storied marks in mobile, will never grace another smartphone.

Under the terms of Microsoft’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services division, the “Asha” and “Lumia” trademarks will transfer to Redmond, but the “Nokia” mark will remain property of the Finnish company, and may only be used on featurephones running the basic Series 30 and Series 40 operating systems under a 10-year license agreement. (Nokia itself is barred from using the Nokia brand on any mobile devices at all until December 31st, 2015.) That means any future Windows Phones built by the newest division of Microsoft will be Microsoft-branded — and that Nokia has said its goodbyes to a smartphone market it once helped to create.

'Lumia' and 'Asha' belong to Microsoft now

That’s a quiet exit for what was once a powerhouse of smartphone innovation. Let’s take a moment by gazing at some of Nokia’s wildest smartphone designs.

1/23Although it was by no means the first phone from Nokia — to go way back, you can take a look at the fantastic Nokia Museum — the 1011 was a very important handset. Released in 1992, It was Nokia’s first to run on a GSM network, and so can be seen as the first “modern” phone from the company.

Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.