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There will never be another Nokia smartphone

There will never be another Nokia smartphone

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A long, strange trip comes to a close

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Nokia stock

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.

Nokia: a visual history

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Although 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.