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Lumia 900: Proof that competing directly against the iPhone is a bad idea?

13 points by mrsebastian 15y ago

freehunter 15y ago
The actual headline: Lumia 900: Redefining the smartphone? Your headline: Lumia 900: Proof that competing directly against the iPhone is a bad idea? Also, I'll reiterate that Extreme Tech has worse journalism than Gizmodo.
babarock 15y ago
I really don't like that article. I mean 766 words, just to say "The Lumia is cheaper than the iPhone, thus it targets a different market". Go straight to the point. If that amounts to a low word count, than maybe that's not worth a whole article to begin with. On the other hand, I find it amusing picturing Nokia trying to conquer the "low-end" market. Not so long ago, it was still making the high-end phones, with LG and Samsung (of all companies!) trying to attack lower ranges...
- jaysonelliot 15y ago
  If this were anyone but Nokia, I'd give them a fighting chance. I've worked with Nokia in the past, though, on their various attempts at an app market and trying to convince people that their Symbian OS and Maemo OS were going to take over the mobile market. They build great hardware and terrible software, but that's not their biggest problem. Their biggest problem is a Sony-like inability to get out of their own way. Every project they did had competing managers with competing agendas, and each initiative changed course so often that we gave up trying to predict or even understand where our next objectives would be. Nokia is driven by committees and bean counters. There's no vision at the top. They spend all of their time and energy in search of market segments, and never get around to just building great products.
bad_user 15y ago
There are many Android phones that are a lot cheaper than the Galaxy Nexus / iPhone, like Motorola Defy Mini, HTC Wildfire S, HTC Cha Cha, Samsung Galaxy Ace, Motorola Motoluxe, LG Optimus, etc ... and btw, I just checked the price of these phones and my carrier is selling them for under $50 on cheap contracts. These phones aren't that great, but are cheap smartphones that are appealing to the feature-phone market. Lumia 900 in terms of hardware and price is somewhere in the middle, and IMHO that's not a good place to be in, especially since these budget Android phones may be crappier, but are Androids nonetheless.
- mrsebastian 15y ago
  Yea, I think the main difference is that cheap Android phones aren't a whole lot of fun to use, while WP7 was designed to run on circa-2010 hardware. But yeah, I'd be interested to hear some mom-and-pop experiences with cheap Android phones.
AndrewDucker 15y ago
Interesting that they compare to the price of the Lumia ($450) of a Galaxy Nexus ($600), when you can actually pick up a Nexus for $470 on Amazon.com right now.
- mrsebastian 15y ago
  Yep, but imagine how low the Lumia will (presumably) drop to, after a few months on the market. The Nexus (according to Amazon) has an RRP of $800.
- dhawalhs 15y ago
  GSM version of Galaxy Nexus isn't officially available in US. The ones on Amazon is imported from Europe or some other countries and do not have a US warranty.
m0skit0 15y ago
Windows Phone will fail because it's not open/configurable enough for Android users/hackers, and it's as closed (or more) as iOS, so you just choose an iPhone because it's a proven value, even if older models. WP is doomed to failure if it doesn't found its niche, and fast. Also having the "Windows" on it doesn't help at all for a big set of consumers that doesn't consider Windows to be a good enough OS.
- freehunter 15y ago
  as closed (or more) as iOS Except you can get a license to side-load your own WP7 apps without paying the developer fee. It's a compromise, sure, but on the other hand, it's a compromise. The team who made a jailbreak for WP7 was actually hired by Microsoft as "openness engineers", showing that Microsoft is at least willing to consider being more open than Apple. The biggest hurdle to WP7 has been, in my experience, the salesmen. When I bought my Windows phone, the AT&T guy was so adamant that I was making the wrong choice that I had to call the manager to let me buy one. That particular AT&T store didn't even have a WP7 display on the floor (though others do). With Nokia now paying salesmen to push Windows Phone, that might change.
  - vibrunazo 15y ago
    > The biggest hurdle to WP7 has been, in my experience, the salesmen. When I bought my Windows phone, the AT&T guy was so adamant that I was making the wrong choice that I had to call the manager to let me buy one. Why does that happen in the first place?
    - freehunter 15y ago
      The consensus from the tech pundits is that carriers make more money from Android and iOS sales (as well as Android letting the carriers install their own software). WP7 kickbacks to the carriers were much, much less. Nokia is trying to change that. Makes sense, a good salesman is going to steer customers to maximize profits. This was taking it a bit too far, though. For the record, I've rarely reconsidered my purchase, and when I do my opinion is usually reversed when I load up the Zune app.
brudgers 15y ago
>"Other tech sites are calling the Lumia 900 a flagship phone, and thus comparing it to other flagships like the iPhone 4S — but that’s like comparing the latest Hyundai with a Ferrari." It's more like comparing a well optioned Toyota Camry to a base BMW 5 series.
- freehunter 15y ago
  Yeah, I'm not sure we have a smartphone that could be called a Ferrari. There's really nothing on the extreme high-end, all we're seeing is marginal improvements year-over-year. While the tech is moving fast, everyone is moving at the same speed. The Galaxy SII, the Lumia 900, and the iPhone 4S are, when it all breaks down, the same phone with different OSes. Same function, very similar speed in real-world use, and enough polish to make a side-by-side comparison. There has to be a market for a Ferrari-like phone, so where is it?
  - brudgers 15y ago
    Right now it's a feature phone can survive at the bottom of a swimming pool...after being dropped from a second story balcony and bouncing off the concrete pool deck on its way in.

13 points by mrsebastian 15y ago

The actual headline: Lumia 900: Redefining the smartphone? Your headline: Lumia 900: Proof that competing directly against the iPhone is a bad idea? Also, I'll reiterate that Extreme Tech has worse journalism than Gizmodo.

babarock 15y ago

I really don't like that article. I mean 766 words, just to say "The Lumia is cheaper than the iPhone, thus it targets a different market". Go straight to the point. If that amounts to a low word count, than maybe that's not worth a whole article to begin with. On the other hand, I find it amusing picturing Nokia trying to conquer the "low-end" market. Not so long ago, it was still making the high-end phones, with LG and Samsung (of all companies!) trying to attack lower ranges...

jaysonelliot 15y ago
If this were anyone but Nokia, I'd give them a fighting chance. I've worked with Nokia in the past, though, on their various attempts at an app market and trying to convince people that their Symbian OS and Maemo OS were going to take over the mobile market. They build great hardware and terrible software, but that's not their biggest problem. Their biggest problem is a Sony-like inability to get out of their own way. Every project they did had competing managers with competing agendas, and each initiative changed course so often that we gave up trying to predict or even understand where our next objectives would be. Nokia is driven by committees and bean counters. There's no vision at the top. They spend all of their time and energy in search of market segments, and never get around to just building great products.

bad_user 15y ago

There are many Android phones that are a lot cheaper than the Galaxy Nexus / iPhone, like Motorola Defy Mini, HTC Wildfire S, HTC Cha Cha, Samsung Galaxy Ace, Motorola Motoluxe, LG Optimus, etc ... and btw, I just checked the price of these phones and my carrier is selling them for under $50 on cheap contracts. These phones aren't that great, but are cheap smartphones that are appealing to the feature-phone market. Lumia 900 in terms of hardware and price is somewhere in the middle, and IMHO that's not a good place to be in, especially since these budget Android phones may be crappier, but are Androids nonetheless.

mrsebastian 15y ago
Yea, I think the main difference is that cheap Android phones aren't a whole lot of fun to use, while WP7 was designed to run on circa-2010 hardware. But yeah, I'd be interested to hear some mom-and-pop experiences with cheap Android phones.

AndrewDucker 15y ago

Interesting that they compare to the price of the Lumia ($450) of a Galaxy Nexus ($600), when you can actually pick up a Nexus for $470 on Amazon.com right now.

mrsebastian 15y ago
Yep, but imagine how low the Lumia will (presumably) drop to, after a few months on the market. The Nexus (according to Amazon) has an RRP of $800.
dhawalhs 15y ago
GSM version of Galaxy Nexus isn't officially available in US. The ones on Amazon is imported from Europe or some other countries and do not have a US warranty.

m0skit0 15y ago

Windows Phone will fail because it's not open/configurable enough for Android users/hackers, and it's as closed (or more) as iOS, so you just choose an iPhone because it's a proven value, even if older models. WP is doomed to failure if it doesn't found its niche, and fast. Also having the "Windows" on it doesn't help at all for a big set of consumers that doesn't consider Windows to be a good enough OS.

freehunter 15y ago
as closed (or more) as iOS Except you can get a license to side-load your own WP7 apps without paying the developer fee. It's a compromise, sure, but on the other hand, it's a compromise. The team who made a jailbreak for WP7 was actually hired by Microsoft as "openness engineers", showing that Microsoft is at least willing to consider being more open than Apple. The biggest hurdle to WP7 has been, in my experience, the salesmen. When I bought my Windows phone, the AT&T guy was so adamant that I was making the wrong choice that I had to call the manager to let me buy one. That particular AT&T store didn't even have a WP7 display on the floor (though others do). With Nokia now paying salesmen to push Windows Phone, that might change.
- vibrunazo 15y ago
  > The biggest hurdle to WP7 has been, in my experience, the salesmen. When I bought my Windows phone, the AT&T guy was so adamant that I was making the wrong choice that I had to call the manager to let me buy one. Why does that happen in the first place?
  - freehunter 15y ago
    The consensus from the tech pundits is that carriers make more money from Android and iOS sales (as well as Android letting the carriers install their own software). WP7 kickbacks to the carriers were much, much less. Nokia is trying to change that. Makes sense, a good salesman is going to steer customers to maximize profits. This was taking it a bit too far, though. For the record, I've rarely reconsidered my purchase, and when I do my opinion is usually reversed when I load up the Zune app.

brudgers 15y ago

>"Other tech sites are calling the Lumia 900 a flagship phone, and thus comparing it to other flagships like the iPhone 4S — but that’s like comparing the latest Hyundai with a Ferrari." It's more like comparing a well optioned Toyota Camry to a base BMW 5 series.

freehunter 15y ago
Yeah, I'm not sure we have a smartphone that could be called a Ferrari. There's really nothing on the extreme high-end, all we're seeing is marginal improvements year-over-year. While the tech is moving fast, everyone is moving at the same speed. The Galaxy SII, the Lumia 900, and the iPhone 4S are, when it all breaks down, the same phone with different OSes. Same function, very similar speed in real-world use, and enough polish to make a side-by-side comparison. There has to be a market for a Ferrari-like phone, so where is it?
- brudgers 15y ago
  Right now it's a feature phone can survive at the bottom of a swimming pool...after being dropped from a second story balcony and bouncing off the concrete pool deck on its way in.