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Nokia Losing its Cell Phone Dominance
supersandra writes "The Boston Globe is reporting that Nokia is struggling to offer features, such as cameras and flip-phones, that are luring customers away to phones by other brands such as Motorola, Samsung, and Siemens. While Nokia used to account for 1 in every 3 phones sold worldwide, they are down to 28.9 percent. Nokia plans to bring 35 new phone models to market this year to win back more users."
The features that are "luring customers away from Nokia" are the reasons I stick with Nokia. I never liked clamshell phones, more because no one seems to do it quite right than any other reason. AND I hate the idea of a camera phone. On so many levels.
:)
I've had three Nokias, a Motorola, and a Samsung in my cell phone career, and the Nokias have all been the best. Well, except for the first one, but that was at the birth of cell phone popularity, so I don't really pin it on Nokia. It was the best at the time
on the other hand, clamshells break regularly - and the popular motorolla line of clamshells i've seen has an antena that ops off regularly, and breaks at the hinge periodically. on the other hand, i've checked my nokia non-flip phone 50 feet, bounced it off a brick wall and a car (all in one go) and the replacable plastic case was a bit scratched, but no actual damage to the phone.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
Then....
This model looks kinda goofy, but anyway... S90 will have full support for mp3, AAC and so on.
Bot Assisted Blogging
I wanted a phone with
color screen, GPRS and polyphonic sounds
3 phones fitted the above options and and were equally priced
Nokia 3200
Sony Ericsson T 210
Samsung SGH-C100
Used each phone for 10 mins and the user friendliness of Nokia was outstanding
Striving to be common...
You don't have to unlock the keyboard to answer a call. Whenever your phone is locked, and rings, a few keys will be enabled: answer, abort, and ignore (for the phones having it - great feature: makes the phone stop ringing, but not for your correspondant, who thinks you didn't hear the ring :-)).
blah
Python isn't.
GSM in Europe works well due to a combination of popualtion density and build-out.
Techwise, though, GSM doesn't hold a candle to CDMA. GSM is just TDMA with a slightly different equalizer training period (in the middle of the symbol, rather than the beginning). CDMA, on the otherhand, is uber-cool technology and the future of wireless communications (everything is going to WCDMA or CDMA2000 eventually). The cool thing about CDMA, BTW, is that it can theoretically support unlimited (yes, unlimited!) calls per cell if we can perfect the power-control on the transmitters such that the received power at the receiver is the same from every transmitter (and provide enough mod/demod functions, but providing unlimited mod/demod-functions isn't that hard)
For me, though, my low-tech TDMA phone works just fine in New Jersey and I have no plans on switching until something services my area better. Verizon CDMA is good, but more expensive and GSM just blows around around here...
Tim
1. i am not surprised that they will be relasing a lot of models this year. probably it will be a model something like xx10 xx15 xx20 xx25 xx30. all featuring the same system with different casings, or different software features. the problem with this is that it is difficult to choose phones with only one feature compared to a competitor with feature rich phones. for example, you either choose a colored screen, one with flashlight, one with fm radio, one with camera, one with bluetooth.
2. nokia phones are expensive and devalue quickly. in our country, turn over for phones are very quick (i've been using 4 different mobile phones for the last 2 years and plan on upgrading to sonyericsson p910 - i've used p800 and using p900 now.) the problem is that nokia phones are sold at a high price initially but quickly goes down. the phone cannot be sold at a reasonable price. compare this with sonyericsson t68 that lost just around 60% of its face value years ago (probably around 3 at least.) with nokia phones, the prices go down at around 50% in just a few months (not talking about half a year here!) people get pissed and they just buy other phones. i am not afraid of selling my existing p900 at a huge loss.
3. quality of phones. the old ones are good but i think the new ones are not of good quality. nokia phones sold in our country had problems with the lcd screens in different models. the solution is to change the screen which is quite expensive (considering the price of the phone has been devalued.) many new phones are of better quality. take for example my previous p800 where it is full of scratches as it fell and fell. the same with my p900 - hasn't failed me yet. i'm quite impressed with how they handle falls (as in around > 1 meter from the ground that is hard.) being a smartphone with a big and touch sensitive screen , i haven't had problems. compare this with my old nokia that i have to replace the lcd around twice already.
4. lastly, i think that the competitors just release better phones (both features and design.) back when nokia was dominant, they was no design and feature for other mobile phones that was even close. all were yucky (bulky, expensive and featureless.) but now, the others have innovated and introduced lots of new features and nokia didn't quite catch up. now this is a problem for them. as a sidenote, i watched in discovery channel about a documentary of samsung. i'm amazed on how they design mobile phones including their turn over time for design to market in only 6 months (they claim it is half of their nearest competitors!)
anyway, this is a problem with nokia and may only be limited to them. other manufacturers are enjoying growth. it's now quite interesting to see the market on who will dominate (but i guess it will be samsung overtaking them in a year's time.) i'll be waiting for the mobile phone wars. probably new features and designs will be accelerated and, of course, consumers will be able to benefit. though japan is enjoying the cool features, i can't wait for my phone to have wifi capabilities for seamless roaming and camera of at least 2 megapixels. :)
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