What is the point of Nokia Normandy?

[KrisJoeEll]

Nokia Normandy, the first android nokia smartphone has made its retail debut appearance in a Vietnamese site.
Nokia Normandy - Smartphone Android | Thegioididong.com

Looking at its specs provided, its a weaker Lumia 520 clone running Android OS. So am assuming it aims to cater the lower smartphone division and sell a lot of them in its attractive budget friendly price.
http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-normandy-shows-up-at-vietnamese-retailer-claims-google-play-access/

Also if you take a look at the UI, its more similar to WP8's metro than Android's normal Interface and has the exclusive Here and Mixradio apps from Nokia. So Nokia is going at full thrust for its support on this new line up.

But at the eve to transferring their smartphone division to Microsoft, why is Nokia trying to promote an android device with Lumia exclusive apps to the lower spectrum? They may sell a lot of them but wouldn't people who use this normally get accustomed to Android OS and think about upgrading to a fully fledged Andriod device rather than Nokia's own Lumia lineup?

So what is Nokia upto? Is this a silent protest of some Nokia employees against the Microsoft transfer? And why is Microsoft actively ignoring this?

 

[MrWhiteman]

It's obviously an illegal clone. Much like the Chinese ePads and eyePhones

 

[jedpatrickdatu]

I have several theories about the purpose of the Normandy:

1. Nokia Normandy is supposed bridge the specs gap between Lumias and Ashas. Right now, the Ashas are extremely low-end(only 64MB RAM), while the Lumias are high-end(1GB RAM and above). There is no in-between. The Normandy, however, will fill this gap with 512MB RAM.

2. Nokia just got desperate. Even though Lumia sales are improving every quarter, it's still not enough to sustain the companies' losses, so they decided to go with Android to survive. It just so happened that Microsoft approached them for an acquisition in the middle of the Android project, and Nokia thought it would be a waste to just scrap it.

3. The Normandy might not run on Android after all, but an improved version of the Asha OS. This way, Microsoft won't have to kill Normandy. I haven't heard evleaks say that the Normandy will run on Android, and he is one of the most reliable sources.