Symbian phones like these dominated the market once.
I also believe this runs Symbian and therefore is a smartphone.
Just that they don't have touchscreens.
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Why was Nokia reluctant to adopt Android?
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Symbian phones like these dominated the market once.
I also believe this runs Symbian and therefore is a smartphone.
Just that they don't have touchscreens.
Exactly. People usually opt to post about the problems they are experiencing than to outright praise their device.
That in a "normal" world makes sense but I have been a regular here and on avsforum.com (a television site) for years. I always hear this canard about "only/mostly people who have problems post" but I have never found this to be the case. Be it cell phones, televisions, etc, for all those posting "complaints" I see a plethora of people posting that "I have no problems and it is... faulty device/user error..."
I used to have one, which is what I'm basing my opinion on. I hated it. It lasted only two months before I traded it away.
There's just something about Metro UI that I can't get into. Judging by sales, apparently I'm not the only one.
I really wanted to get the Nokia 920. I spent months on wpcentral. For the life of me, I just cannot understand the glacial pace of development re WP8. Yes, I fully understand that WP8 was a rewrite from the ground up but with the massive resources of Microsoft and the acknowledgement (belated) of the huge importance of it why does it seem so moribund?
Some might say because the market is already saturated by iOS, and Android. But I believe that Windows Phone is really just a bad mobile OS. And yes, Metro UI is really that bad! Surface RT reviews have been abysmal, as well as HTC 8X, and Lumia 920(other than the excellent camera). I think it all starts with the UI. Live Tiles, and everything else that comes with it, is just no good!
I agree.
Windows Phone is just awful. The reason for it's failure, is it being awful and nothing more.
The UI is absolutely horrible and it has much less features than either iOS or Android, is more restricted and has less third party software available. WP has absolute no redeeming features.
If the places were reversed and it was iOS that came the same time as WP did, by now it would've easily overtaken WP.
I also believe this runs Symbian and therefore is a smartphone.
Just that they don't have touchscreens.
Wrong, that runs Nokia's S40 OS which is actually a basic dumbphone system.
Nokia was very slow to respond to iOS and Android regardless of how prevalent Symbian was before those though. Symbian was very primitive compared to iOS and Android so once they hit the scene and Nokia spent the next few years after still making crappy Symbian phones, they did indeed lose out on marketshare in smartphone markets, and for good reason.
Wrong.
Symbian is actually very advanced and function rich OS. There were couple of problems though. It was hard to code for and the UI is just HORRIBLE!
However, there is no denying, the first smartphone was made by Nokia, it was the N95. When it came out it, it just blew away everything and had absolutely no competition, there was nothing like that before it, it was advertised as a computer in your pocket. It also had technologies in it that were no present in phones before, like a GPS chip.
Nokia's problem was that, in 2007, a certain company that revolutionized and basically invented the home computing industry got interested and got into the smartphone game. This was not Siemens, Phillips or even Samsung that Nokia could deal with, this was a true visionary leader and a big player.
Nokia was totally unprepared and not ready, they got caught HARD by the touchscreen revolution, they refused to believe it and kept going with their previous plan of releasing dual slider phones, in 2008 they released the N85 and the N96.
In 2009, when the iPhone and now Android started to pick up they scrambled, quickly "adapted" Symbian, which was not touch friendly at all and released a touchscreen failure known as the N97 and a cameraphone dual slider N86 8MP, which was actually a very good phone and contained all the improvements and fixes from the N95, N85, N82 and N96. N86 is the last, best dual slider phone.
They still fully did not believe in touchscreen; not only was the N97 absolutely horrible on specs, with a bad camera and a HORRIBLE OS but the screen was resistive, instead of capacitive.
In 2010, they learned some more lessons and released a camera centric phone, with now a capacitive screen - the Nokia N8, which again, came with Symbian, albeit a bit improved, however still a far cry from iOS and Android and relatively weak specs, especially the RAM, which there was not enough of. The only saving grace of that phone was a superb camera, which to this day is still probably(maybe the S4 finally beats it) a #2 camera after the 808 PureView.
You pretty much should know the rest... couple of years ago, a prototype leaked on to the web through an ebay sale, of what was supposed to be the N98, a dual slider phone with a 12MP camera and a xenon flash... the same one as on the N8. Which goes to show you just how unprepared Nokia was for the touchscreen, they had plans to keep releasing dual slider phones all the way up to 2010, and maybe if not for Apple, we'd still be using dual sliders.
The next is Symbian. Nokia was never good with software, and as I mentioned before, Nokia could get away with Siemens, Philips and others but with Apple and Google, they simply could not compete on software and even hardware. Nokia's software team could be described as simply terrible. It may sound harsh, but if you've ever used Symbian on a touchscreen, you'll agree. Though functionally(not UI, just what the OS can do), Symbian had more functions than iOS and Android all the way up to probably 2010, even today, it has some functions that are absent in iOS and it's very well optimized for battery life and has low power requirements to work pretty smoothly. But again... Nokia is just atrocious in handling of software and user experience.
They tried their hand at Meego, that OS showed a great potential. The fundamentals were REALLY good and much better than WP garbage. But in a typical Nokia fashion, they made mess of it too and killed the project.
So, the bottom line is that Nokia is a dinosaur and it's going extinct. It's a very badly managed and run company. They made a bad decision after a bad decision and it reflects in them losing billion after billion each quarter, not to mention the non-existent market share.
It's a phone company, that's all they do, their bread and butter, and instead of diversifying and trying their hand at multiple OSes, to at least get an idea what people want and will buy, they put all their eggs into a hydraulic press called Microsoft. They have(had) fiercely loyal customers and they don't know them at all... they should've known that Symbian users would not move to a locked down garbage like WP, but they would move to Android, cause had the functionality, openness and customization.
Fans: Nokia, we love you, give us Android.
Nokia: Well, you asked for it, you got it, here's WP.
Samsung: Here's Android superphone with even more functionality than Symbian.
Result = bye, bye Nokia.
The only good things Nokia have got going for them is: Design - still good, cameras - still good, maps - lagging in features compared to TomTom, NAVIGON and others, but it's free, offline and it's still decent.
Cod3rror, I never disputed Symbian was advanced, only that it was primitive when compared to modern competition.
I used to have Symbian phones, even as far back as the 6600, and they were brilliant at the time, truly must haves. I even went and got a 5800, the first touchscreen Symbian phone (no, it wasn't the N97, that came after the 5800) when it first came out at the beginning of 2008, but I sold it on very quickly because it was utterly terrible compared to the phones around at the time. And it still came with a stylus! Not a fancy modern one for drawing like what Samsung have, but an old school one for navigating the menus because it still had a resistive touchscreen!
Nokia's mistake was the same as RIM's, which could be misconstrued as arrogance. After all, they were at the top of the game and they assumed that was going to be the case forever and their vision of the future was the one true way. This meant they failed to adapt in the face of revolution and when they finally did, they were very sloppy doing it.
But I think there's more to it than that.
Samsung and HTC were better equipped for the revolution in mobile by their very nature since they already made touchscreen Windows Mobile devices (I remember having both Samsung and HTC Windows Mobile devices which even back then had TouchWiz and Sense). These two adapted fast because they had a foundation to build touchscreen phones using third party operating systems, they took no risk doing so as it was already their business, and finally because of luck - Google had Android ready and waiting to go.
Nokia and RIM on the other hand used their own proprietary OS's (Nokia was basically the only company that used Symbian and they bought them outright a few years ago so I consider Symbian to be Nokia's OS) and they used the more traditional "phone with buttons and a non-touchscreen" design, so they saw no reason to adapt to their competitors' way of doing things at that time.
Back then, there was no indication Apple's way of doing things was the right way. Apple was still merely a small computer company, popular among enthusiasts but still small. They sure wowed people but if you sat as the CEO of Nokia or RIM you could very well be forgiven for dismissing them. After all, you're selling millions of phones the way you're doing it now, your competitors already make touchscreen phones but you're still on top. Why should you change tact all of a sudden? And personally I don't think RIM was wrong when they said phones with physical keyboards were important. There are still a lot of people who hate typing on touchscreens.
That said, they should have created more modern operating systems quicker than they did. There was no excuse for RIM to keep using the antique BlackBerry OS 5, 6, and 7 all the way until 2012. BB10 should have been released years ago. And likewise, Nokia should have either doubled down on Symbian or got a new OS far sooner than they did.
I think if that had happened, we'd have a lot more strong competition in the marketplace today, which would only be good for us as consumers. I for one am excited for the new Q10 and R10 from BlackBerry because finally there are decent smartphones with keyboards. It's about damn time, it should have happened years ago.
That's my 2c anyway.
I used to have Symbian phones, even as far back as the 6600, and they were brilliant at the time, truly must haves. I even went and got a 5800, the first touchscreen Symbian phone (no, it wasn't the N97, that came after the 5800) when it first came out at the beginning of 2008, but I sold it on very quickly because it was utterly terrible compared to the phones around at the time. And it still came with a stylus! Not a fancy modern one for drawing like what Samsung have, but an old school one for navigating the menus because it still had a resistive touchscreen!
Nokia's mistake was the same as RIM's, which could be misconstrued as arrogance. After all, they were at the top of the game and they assumed that was going to be the case forever and their vision of the future was the one true way. This meant they failed to adapt in the face of revolution and when they finally did, they were very sloppy doing it.
But I think there's more to it than that.
Samsung and HTC were better equipped for the revolution in mobile by their very nature since they already made touchscreen Windows Mobile devices (I remember having both Samsung and HTC Windows Mobile devices which even back then had TouchWiz and Sense). These two adapted fast because they had a foundation to build touchscreen phones using third party operating systems, they took no risk doing so as it was already their business, and finally because of luck - Google had Android ready and waiting to go.
Nokia and RIM on the other hand used their own proprietary OS's (Nokia was basically the only company that used Symbian and they bought them outright a few years ago so I consider Symbian to be Nokia's OS) and they used the more traditional "phone with buttons and a non-touchscreen" design, so they saw no reason to adapt to their competitors' way of doing things at that time.
Back then, there was no indication Apple's way of doing things was the right way. Apple was still merely a small computer company, popular among enthusiasts but still small. They sure wowed people but if you sat as the CEO of Nokia or RIM you could very well be forgiven for dismissing them. After all, you're selling millions of phones the way you're doing it now, your competitors already make touchscreen phones but you're still on top. Why should you change tact all of a sudden? And personally I don't think RIM was wrong when they said phones with physical keyboards were important. There are still a lot of people who hate typing on touchscreens.
That said, they should have created more modern operating systems quicker than they did. There was no excuse for RIM to keep using the antique BlackBerry OS 5, 6, and 7 all the way until 2012. BB10 should have been released years ago. And likewise, Nokia should have either doubled down on Symbian or got a new OS far sooner than they did.
I think if that had happened, we'd have a lot more strong competition in the marketplace today, which would only be good for us as consumers. I for one am excited for the new Q10 and R10 from BlackBerry because finally there are decent smartphones with keyboards. It's about damn time, it should have happened years ago.
That's my 2c anyway.
if they were going to ditch their "burning platform" they should have went android or even both ms & android.
Nokia still had a reputaion for making quality handsets. They also had a huge history and practically anyone over the age of 30 would have owned a nokia phone.
poeple are nostalgic when it comes to nokia if they had released a good android phone it would have sold massively. Wouldnt surprise me if they would give samsung a run for their money and be right up there in sales terms for an android phone.
but they they took the money and got locked in to windows. if they made an android phone i'd be all over it.
Nokia still had a reputaion for making quality handsets. They also had a huge history and practically anyone over the age of 30 would have owned a nokia phone.
poeple are nostalgic when it comes to nokia if they had released a good android phone it would have sold massively. Wouldnt surprise me if they would give samsung a run for their money and be right up there in sales terms for an android phone.
but they they took the money and got locked in to windows. if they made an android phone i'd be all over it.
If they released a luxurious premium smartphone, similar in build quality to the iPhone 4/4S, with top-notch specs, a cracking camera and Android o/s....it would sell in droves. Even Apple are loosening their grip on build quality as the bean counters take over. Nokia still has a big name, they've just basically disappeared off everyone's radar but there is nothing stopping them from making a grand reappearance.
Aside from having sold off their handset department and manufacturing parts, right? :|
Nokia are returning next year with a range of Android handsets, go figure, but I am not sure if they or an OEM manufacturer is making them.
It will be interesting to see what they design.
Nokia made plenty of phones before the N95 with the same features, the N95 is not the first smartphone they made.
They're likely going to go the route of when they recently "made an Android tablet". That is to say they designed a tablet and Foxconn made it.
Well let's hope they make more of an effort then they did with their Android tablet as that looks like they put the iPad Mini on a photocopier! The Windows tablet they did looked cool.
The 2520, which I'm assuming you're talking about, was made by the team Microsoft bought. I doubt they're going to be making an Android tablet.
