Will you buy Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone? [poll]
Today, Microsoft Store started taking pre-orders for the Lumia 900, Nokia's flagship Windows Phone. There's a $25 reservere for the handset, which, according to my local shop will be available some time in March. Microsoft Store had no official launch date to give.
My question: Will you buy the Lumia 900? Nobody is saying how much the smartphone will cost. That $25 is blind faith the final price will be reasonable enough. Who knows? Given Microsoft's and its partners' marketing commitment, the faithful might see a serious discount for their leap to pre-order. Will you be among them? You can answer the question(s) and give your reasons why or why not in comments below and answer the poll below. Lumia 900 will be available in the United States on AT&T.
Windows Phone can't save Nokia
All those analysts predicting Windows Phone as No. 2 smartphone OS in 2015, lifted by Nokia magic, need a reality check. Put away the crystal balls and peer into the present. Today, IDC released fourth-quarter smartphone shipment data, whoa, is the data chart scary.
Shocker is Nokia's smartphone death spiral, which no Windows Phone has yet lifted. The once mighty Finnish handset maker ended the quarter with 12.4 percent market share, down from 27.6 percent, and plunging from first place a year earlier to fourth at end of 2011. This is the same quarter Nokia launched its first Windows Phones, the Lumia 710 and 800. Right now, looks like Windows Phone can't save Nokia, which cuts the other way, too: Nokia can't save Windows Phone.
Apple claims smartphone crown from Nokia, Samsung
iPhone's remarkable fourth-quarter surge -- 37 million units -- lifted the handset ahead of the two previous smartphone leaders, according to Canalys. For full year 2011, Apple shipped 93.1 million smartphones, compared to Samsung's 91.9 million and Nokia's 77.3 million. Nokia, the company that invented the smartphone, has bled share since iPhone launched nearly 5 years ago, but artery versus vein since announcing the switch to Windows Phone from Symbian in February 2011.
Apple's climb to the top followed October's iPhone 4S launch and availability of older 3GS and 4 models for free and $99, respectively. Samsung shipped 35.3 million smartphones in Q4, behind Apple, while Nokia shipped 19.6 million -- a stunning 31 percent decline. By comparison, iPhone shipments surged 128.1 percent for the quarter and 96 percent for the year.
Microsoft invests $1 billion to sell a million Nokia Windows Phones
At face value, Nokia's results for Windows Phone are solid. One million Lumia devices sold in just its first quarter of availability. The sales add a bright spot to an otherwise gloomy Nokia calendar fourth-quarter earnings report, where smartphone sales slid 31 percent amid a 21 percent year-over-year drop in revenues.
The real story here though is the cost to Microsoft to ensure that success. Microsoft agreed to pay Nokia $1 billion to abandon Symbian as primary operating system for Windows Phone, according to reports soon after the deal was announced in February 2011. The Redmond, Wash.-based company paid Nokia $250 million in the fourth quarter for "platform support payments", meaning each device cost Microsoft about $250 before any royalty payments received. That's a run rate of a billion dollars per year. So just how much is Nokia giving back to Microsoft?
Hands-on: Nokia Lumia 900, THE Windows Phone [video]
At the International Consumer Electronics Show 2012 in Las Vegas this week, Finnish mobile phone leader Nokia debuted the Lumia 900, its first smartphone designed specifically for the United States market. We got to play with it quite a bit, and here's a runthrough of the device's strong points.
The Lumia 900 follows the same design ethic as the N9 and Lumia 800, with a single piece polycarbonate body, gently rounded sides and blunted top and bottom edges. Nokia has equipped the device with all the features that U.S. media and consumers complained were missing in the N9 and 800: 4G LTE connectivity, larger screen size, and a forward-facing camera.
Nokia unveils Lumia 900 LTE Windows Phone for AT&T
Nokia's big announcement for CES was all about the United States. Specifically, the Finnish mobile phone company announced the first Nokia Windows Phone designed for the United States: the Nokia Lumia 900.
The Lumia 900 is nearly a clone of the Lumia 800, but with a couple of the features that Americans had complained were missing, a forward-facing camera, and 4G LTE connectivity.It has the same one-piece carbon polymer case (optionally in bright cyan), the same Carl Zeiss optics, and the same Windows Phone 7.5 operating system.It's powered by a 1.4 GHz applications processor, and has an 1800 mAh battery.
Nokia Lumia 710 Windows Phone comes to T-Mobile USA
T-Mobile is the first stop in the United States for Nokia's Windows Phone line, as a Federal Communications Commission filing and an invite sent to the media confirm the nation's fourth largest carrier plans to bring the Lumia 710 to its network. The FCC filing can be seen here.
The 710 sports a 3.7-inch screen and 1.4 GHz Qualcomm processor with 512MB of RAM. It has 8GB of on-board storage and integrated 5-megapixel digital camera. Nokia produces GSM and WCDMA models, running Windows Phone 7.5.
I really want to get excited about Lumia 800 Windows Phone, but...
Nokia makes it damn hard. No US distribution this year. (Europe? With the Euro zone in state of collapse?) No front-facing camera -- long a standard feature on Nokia handsets -- and, hells bells, Microsoft now owns Skype. Surely that makes front-facing camera selling in Europe, Nokia's and Skype's home turf, required equipment. The phone maker announced the Lumia 800, and lower-cost Lumia 710, today at Nokia World.
I'm a longstanding Nokia enthusiast -- a rare-breed in the United States and particularly among journalists, many of whom trumpet for iPhone. I've owned two different N95s, E71, N79, N97 and N900, among other Nokia handsets -- and loved them all, even with their quirks. But in January 2011, I opined: "Confessions of a former Nokia enthusiast", writing "I love Nokia, but Nokia doesn't love me". I'm still not feeling the love, and perhaps I set expectations too high. A few weeks back I thought of writing a post titled something like: "Will the hottest phone this holiday come from Nokia and not Apple". Good thing, I didn't.
Up close with Nokia-exclusive Windows Phone apps: Drive and Maps [video]
Along with Nokia's new Lumia line of Windows Phones, the Finnish mobile phone maker also debuted a handful of new applications that it will have that other Windows Phones will not have: Drive, Maps, and Music.
We didn't get to see Music today because of unspecified "licensing issues," but we did get to look at the impressive Drive turn by turn navigation mode and Maps location, positioning and mapping service.
Hands-on with Nokia's first Windows Phones [slideshow]
Nokia World's low-key United States branch event was held on Wednesday morning in a hotel overlooking downtown Manhattan, and the main attractions were the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, Nokia's first devices powered by Windows Phone, which were announced earlier in the morning in London.
The Lumia 800 will be Nokia's premium smartphone for the U.S. market, and the 710 will be the "mainstream" device. Though the two are very similar in terms of internal specs (they differ only in storage capacity and camera quality,) the main difference between the two is in their bodies.
Nokia debuts its first Windows Phones, Lumia 710 and 800
At the annual Nokia World conference in London Wednesday, Finnish mobile phone company Nokia officially unveiled its first two smartphones that will run the Windows Phone mobile operating system: the Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710. These will be the first smartphones Nokia will sell in the United States since it partnered with Microsoft earlier this year.
The Lumia 800 is the device that was known as "Sea Ray" in leaks back in June, and it offers a 3.7" AMOLED curved glass display, a 1.4 GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 processor with 512MB of RAM, 16GB of onboard storage, and an 8 megapixel camera. The software it runs is Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango" and it will be available internationally in both GSM and WCDMA varieties.
Nokia debuts MeeGo-powered N9: perfect timing?
Nokia officially launched the N9 today, the Finnish mobile phone maker's first (and potentially only) smartphone to be powered by mobile Linux distribution MeeGo.
The slick N9 impressed us quite a bit when it was announced back in July: 3.9" (854 x 480) AMOLED display with convex Gorilla Glass, a 1 GHz TI OMAP3630 processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 or 64GB of storage, an 8 Megapixel flash camera, and front-facing chat cam, and global wireless support. It will be available in 20 countries for €480 (16GB) or €560 (64GB).
Nokia delisted from top 50 European stock index after massive drop
Finnish mobile phone company Nokia has been deleted from the Stoxx Europe 50 index, a benchmark index owned by Deutsche Börse and the SIX Swiss Exchange Group that tallies the top 50 largest European corporations.
Late in August, Stoxx announced that Nokia would be delisted from the Stoxx 50 index, along with three banks: Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit from Italy, and GRP Societe Generale from France. Meaning the former powerhouse mobile phone maker is no longer big enough to be considered one of Europe's biggest corporations.
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