HMD Global, the company behind the rebirth of Nokia smartphones, has announced its first Android smartphone, the Nokia 6, which we'd expected to launch at Mobile World Congress 2017.

In a surprise move, the company has launched the Nokia 6, giving us a good insight into what the new Nokia will see as important. HMD goes to some lengths to tell us that the body takes 55 minutes to machine from a block of 6000 series aluminium, that it's double anodised and polished five times.

It's obvious that the focus is on craftsmanship, but the specs of this metal-bodied phone aren't quite flagship. It has a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution display and it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset, seeing the Nokia 6 slip into a sub-flagship space. The 4GB RAM and 64GB storage are generous, however.

There's even been a promo video unearthed on YouTube thanks to MyNokiaBlog.

The phone launches on Android 7 Nougat, but HMD has given no insight into other software customisations, other than to say that it offers a custom camera app, for the 16-megapixel, F/2.0, phase detection AF camera on the rear and 8-megapixel F/2.0 camera on the front. 

There is, however, a play to audio with the mention of Dolby Atmos, and although the Nokia 6 comes equipped with twin amplifiers, we don't see how it could create a Dolby Atmos effect with any great competency.

So the Nokia 6 looks like it's going to offer compelling design and quality of build, some unique features, but a hardware loadout that's not at flagship level. Although this phone has been announced, that's all we have on it, raising more questions than answers.

Putting this into context, it appears to be the handset that was previously being called the Nokia D1C, as these confirmed specs match many of the rumours that we previous saw, and the design fits that of the leaks too.

That does at least leave us with the Nokia P1, which was claimed to be the flagship device.

The catch, sadly, is that HMD Global is launching this phone as an exclusive to JD.com in China, with no word on plans for the rest of the world. 

There's still a lot we don't know about this phone - so we'll keep our eyes peeled.