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Nokia 900 Being Given Away Due To Software Glitch
joemite writes "On early Wednesday, Nokia said it had found a software bug in the new Lumia 900 smartphone, its big hope to take on Apple's iPhone, and was effectively giving the model away until it is fixed. It is offering anyone who has bought a Lumia 900 phone, or who buys one by April 21, a $100 US credit to their AT&T bill. The operator sells the phone for $99.99 with a two-year contract. Both Microsoft and Nokia still have big hopes for this phone. The bug apparently causes a random data connection drop. Nokia plans to push a patch the phone later in April."
Shock!!!
My related links shows: "Google Earns $2 Per Handset; Apple, $575" and apparently, "Nokia, $-0.01"
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
"Sign a contract to pay money every month and we'll give you a device for free which currently does not work and you have not guarantee, will ever work!"
Clearly smart phone users have dealt with far more and gotten far less. Anyone see this as a thinly veiled attempt at flooding the market with windows phones?
I mean a free phone for a connectivity glitch? Fixed with a software update? That only shows up on 1 in 3 phones, but anyone is eligible... Come on...
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
The operator sells the phone for $99.99 with a two-year contract.
Emphasis mine. Why don't you 'buy' that phone and then break your contract? I think you'll find out how 'free' those phones that come with two year contracts really are ...
My work here is dung.
... the newest Nokia ads claiming the "Smartphone Beta Test" is over with the Lumia 900. I hate to kick a dying dog but *point and laugh @ Nokia*
DO NOT TAUNT THE OCTOPUS
Didn't I see a Windows phone ad recently that claimed other smart phones were treating their customers as beta testers? Talk about tempting fate.
Nokia has TWO "900" phones -- the n900, and the Lumia 900. I was excited that Nokia was giving away n900s, the most open phone to date...
Would it be foolish to buy one hoping to be able to put android on it?
This is the big difference between the front runner in a market and the lagging competition. When Apple is confronted with claims of dropped calls via "the grip of death" they responded with things like "you're holding it wrong." Only after the problem persisted they provided everyone with free bumpers (still somehow without admitting there's an actual problem).
MS and Nokia, with their drastically lower and non-dominating marketshare, are not in a position to make such claims, and they immediately respond by comping the price of the phone and signaling exactly when the fix will be available.
No matter what your feelings toward WP7 are, you should be able to recognize its presence has a positive affect in overall market quality.
Some will say that this is a good way to admit fault and do right by customers, even though they haven't done this before with previous faults. Others will say that Microkia is giving phones away to gain market share because they cannot get people to buy their hyped up and top of the line phone for $100.
Who is right?
Have fun with your five 2-year cell phone contracts which will probably cost you over $7000 over their course.
The summary is rather inflamitory. There are no "free" cell phones, they only look free if you ignore the contract component.
"The bug apparently causes a random data connection drop." That's actually by AT&T design, duh!
Wait, why is it not a "real" smartphone? It's a really nice peice of tech, really, and as such my guess is that you haven't seen the 900 in action, in person or, for that matter, in a review. A definitive step forward for Nokia.
disclaimer: android user here
While I agree with your point, the summary isn't inflammatory.
I still don't want one.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Won't be buying one but I have had a go on one and it's actually a pretty slick piece of kit. Don't hate when there's no need.
If the lumia can be rooted, dual boot to debian, feature an usb to vga cable and a real keyboard, then it's a real smartphone. Else it's a toy, just like iphones and the average android.
Toy is not a derogatory term. Definition of toy: thing with limited functionality and/or safeguards to prevent unintended actions by the "untrusted by default" users.
Uh-huh. So let me make sure I understand your naming approach: if it doesn't have an incredibly specific feature that a rounding-error number of people would use, it's not a real smartphone? Your perspective is somewhat... off.
... effectively giving the model away until it is fixed.
According to Ars Technica, all new phones sold, even with the $100 credit, have the fix already installed.
Customers not wanting to wait can have their phones swapped for updated versions in AT&T stores.
Since when do we use the Toronto Sun as a reputable source for technical stuff?
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
considering the phone isn't much good without some sort of carrier arrangement.
It's slightly misleading, in that the phones are probably about 500 dollars off contract, and they're certainly not giving those away for free. But people around here should be smart enough to read beyond the first line to figure that out rather than driving to an AT&T store hoping to get their free lumia 900.
"...Nokia said .... its big hope to take on Apple's iPhone..."
Didn't that ship sail long ago? I mean MS can get in the water, but Android is #1 and Apple is at what - 25% market share (and has held steadily) with RIM still holding on but losing out to Android.
Nokia is not going to displace the iPhone. If it wants to compete it will have to compete with Android where it can steal from a less loyal user base. That means becoming a commodity piece - which means pennies per phone instead of $$ per phone.
-CF
If they would "give" me a Nokia 900 without a 2 year contract, then I'd be interested. Heck, if I had to pay for a Nokia 900 without a 2 year contract, I'd be interested.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I can't find it in a quick search online, but didn't Nokia (or some group pseudo-supported by Nokia) commit to allowing all of their Windows phones to be flashable to Maemo and/or one of its successors (Harmatten, MeeGo, Tizen)?
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
A definitive step forward for Nokia.
Well, if you ignore the random data connection drops and the general unsalable nature of the things, sure!
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I would say the difference is that no one is giving you a free car but makes you sign a 2 year contract that you will purchase $500 worth of gas a month giving you a total of 50 gallons of gas. You are not allowed to gas up at any competitors gas station and if you use your 50 gallons of gas, each additional gallon you purchase will be at the rate of $60 per gallon.
vi +
So, by definition, my car is a toy because it has a limiter that kicks in at around 150mph to prevent the engine from blowing itself up if, say, you accidentally wedged the pedal down.
Yeah, an Android user would think so. ;)
Pardon us embittered Maemo fans who think a handheld computer should have the same software capabilities as a desktop computer. (Though I suppose MS is indirectly going for the same concept, by crippling the desktop to match. Hi-o Metro!)
I won't say it's not a smartphone, but if one were to confuse it with the good ol' N900 as the GP suggests, they'd be very disappointed (regardless of which one they preferred).
You had me there for a second... thought they were giving away N900 phones, and I'd have to jump on it. It's the first phone that I will probably replace with another of the same model.
Instead, they're giving away the skeleton of the N9, running a mashup of Harmattan, Gnome, and Ubuntu's Unity interface, with gestures lifted (and flipped) straight from WebOS. Don't take that the wrong way -- I think WinPhone7 mostly took the *good* bits from those other OS's; I just think msft ought to acknowledge that WP7 (and now Windows 8's Metro i/f) is highly derivative of open-source software.
And I still want an *actual* keyboard, not the smudgy hot mess in the hands of most iPhone (and Lumia 900) users.
Feh.
I think not...(*poof*)
More like 24 * 80 = $1960. Yup, doesn't look "free" to me.
I don't have a sig.
People are used to software bugs. Just wait and push the update as soon as possible.
Giving people $100 only makes the situation worse ("Nokia is the dumb company who has buggy phones and gives cash away, no wonder it's dying")
none
Not new by a long shot. Look at N9.
2 year lock in is not a give a way costs over $1K with a 2 year voice + data plan + $10 a GIG for data over the basic plan use.
They actually were for a couple of weeks at Microsoft stores. now they are giving away $25 gift certificates.
http://slickdeals.net/f/4120241-FREE-25-GC-to-Microsoft-Store-if-you-own-a-working-Smartphone-Android-Blackberry-iPhone-PalmOS-WebOS-some-Symbian-B-M-Only-Smoked-by-Windows-Phone-thru-April-12-2012
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
And it's still overpriced.
Wait, why is it not a "real" smartphone? It's a really nice peice of tech, really, and as such my guess is that you haven't seen the 900 in action, in person or, for that matter, in a review. A definitive step forward for Nokia.
It's an epic-making disaster. Microsoft...Windows...Smartphone...? Really?
Nokia shareholders, sue your CEO.
The only bright spot is that this is an industry, unlike finance, where awful decisions by management actually can cause a company to go bankrupt.
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Actually, Android and iOS are in a virtual tie with Android at 47% and iOS at 43%. But, Android has been falling while iOS has been climbing.
Not new by a long shot. Look at N9.
Right, that is so six months old.
And now it's been improved by software that works faster on more modest, and therefore cheaper, hardware.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
The biggest problem I see with competing with Apple is the annual refresh cycle that Apple is achieving. Everyone's been used to Microsoft taking about three years between operating system releases (Starting with Windows 95, five newer versions of Windows for the desktop have been released in 14 years). Even IBM with its IBM i operating system for servers has released 11 new versions since 1995, not quite as fast as Apple but a lot faster than Microsoft.
So we have 10 kinds of companies writing software and devloping hardware: Those who can keep up with an annual release cycle and those who will still take three years to give birth to the elephant.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
My workplace has public wi-fi, I have a wifi router at home, the local cafes have their own wi-fi zones, my phone has Skype as well as everybody else I know, even friends abroad. The only SIM card that I have is PAYG.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Well Nokia as a maker of the handset is probably looking to nudge into the iPhone's top spot as the most popular phone, not Android/iOS in the most popular smartphone operating system.
Good point
Wait, why is it not a "real" smartphone? It's a really nice peice of tech, really, and as such my guess is that you haven't seen the 900 in action, in person or, for that matter, in a review. A definitive step forward for Nokia.
disclaimer: android user here
because it has less programmable features than series40 phones(some of which do ship with 1ghz cpu's), which in general tech reporting are referred always as feature phones - phones which have more features than your old nokia from '99 but aren't as extensible as smartphones.
windows phone gets that rep because by 2002's smartphone vs. featurephone standards it would be a featurephone and NOT a smartphone. 7650 was released in 2002, it ran doom, a mame port, automatic wallpaper change sw, on device call answering sw, automatic profile changing sw(based on cellid, time etc), sms spam filter sw, caller blacklist sw, trans-application copypaste, bluetooth file and app sharing, SCREEN SCRAPING TEXT TO SPEECH for blind folk sw and the list just goes on and on - this despite that on that first s60 model you had whopping 3.6mbytes of space for your apps and the development tools sucked bigtime.
and wtf do tech magazines nowadays get riled about? if it gets a friggin angry birds in space port or not! wtf?
hell, even bada os fits late 2002's smartphone definitions better than windows phone. some people will like it though, but those aren't the guys asking wtf where is my wifi sharing on/off livetile? where's my call recording app? where's my location based reminders? where's my automatic bluetooth garage opener? none of that matters because you can check your time of the day and a simple web query by turning the phone on and opening the lockscreen? whoopidoo! for doing things that just catch some info from the web and displays it in a simple ui it's pretty nice though. as an extensible smartphone platform though.. it doesn't let you do shit.
disclaimer: mobile app developer and on/off mobile nerd here.. and americans should really get a clue about how much they're getting screwed over by operators for their mobiles. it ain't free, nokia gets it's money from it and at&t gets it's money from the customers two year shackle. that you can't buy a contract where you weren't paying at least an empty premium had you the phone or not is not an excuse really.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Look, I know this is /. alright. I get it. But... go to the store and hold one. Yes, the display is somewhat lacking compared to my Nexus. Yes, the software is buggy (which goes hand-in-hand with the call drops - Nokia is doing a decent job maintaining its sliver of marketshare, being relatively transparant with their problem regarding memory mismanagement). Yes, you're right, it's probably not going to take a third of the smartphone marketshare by itself.
But if you think this is a step backwards from the huge percentage of phones being sold currently, still running android from 2 years ago (for basically the same price as one of those - hear, hear, Droid 3, Droid X2, Droid wtf-ever), you're way the hell off base.
It is mandatory in any /. discussion of cellphones that crusaders from the Obvious League of America swoop in and meticulously and pedantically point out that you have to pay for service in addition to the cost of the phones.
The cost is actually $350 after rebate. No contract. Not free
Still this is an amazing price for a top of the line smart phone.Similar phones typically sell for upwards of $550 at launch.
There are no "free" cell phones, they only look free if you ignore the contract component
Given that most people are going to sign a contract anyway, is that really unreasonable?
wouldn't it be just as good if Nokia had stuck Android on its phones? Windows isn't really adding any value to the market.
I wonder how much of this was a planned marketing stunt.
"Take the phone for free. It has a minor glitch but we guarantee it will be fixed in a few days and be as good as new."
How many people I wonder will just see that it is FREE and rush to buy it accordingly. Artificially inflating WP sales figures and making it look like it's gaining traction.
Ryans Tutorials - A collection of technology tutorials.
It's $450 without a contract.
The only thing that's way the hell off base is talking about Windows Mobile in 2012 without a laugh track.
Say it with me: Dead. Letter.
This might be a wonderful phone made by sweet people... though, in fact, it's a mediocre phone made by a convicted monopolist and purveyor of notoriously terrible closed-source platforms and a cell phone maker so many years behind the times they're lucky they have RIM to make them look good. Regardless, it needed to come out 5 years ago. As it happens I have used one. It's a hilarious failure at imitating Android or iOS. The industrial design and UI trim are adequate. But even if it wasn't buggy enough that it had to be given away for free, it offers nothing compelling enough to assail an established, dominant OS - a difficult problem which Microsoft of all companies should be familiar with. :)
Hold it in your hands all you want. For that matter, whine like the WebOS guys after the stores don't have them anymore. That will increase my amusement.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Nothing to see here, guys. Just another once-great company that's partnered with Microsoft. Some may care to stay to watch as the parasite devours it from inside.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
If you can remove the limiter from your car without 'bricking' it, you've got a car. If you can't, you've got a toy. /modify/ it to have them. The N900 can be hacked into doing anything possible with the hardware. The Lumia 900, well, show me you can even replace the kernel with a non-signed one and I'll be amazed.
It's not whether a device has certain settings or abilities stock that matters, it's whether you can
Yeah, and even then it's too small. Needs to be scaled up a bit, and made even thicker IMHO.
I'm really impressed by these prices. I live in Argentina, and a Nokia N9 still costs around 1.3kUSD here.
I'd go beyond the annual software refresh and look at the annual hardware refresh.
Apple makes a killing release ONE new phone a year, whereas Nokia is used to releasing a dozen or so new phones a year.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
A definitive step forward for Nokia.
More like another stumble in the general direction of the cliff.
Toldya so.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
A phone is not worthless without a contract. I find my smartphone quite useful paying $3/month and using wi-fi for data.
This space intentionally left blank
If you can remove the limiter from your car without 'bricking' it, you've got a car. If you can't, you've got a toy. /modify/ it to have them. The N900 can be hacked into doing anything possible with the hardware.
It's not whether a device has certain settings or abilities stock that matters, it's whether you can
You can't replace cellular modem firmware in an N900 without turning it into a non-cellular device.
But I understand why do you like this particular toy.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
would have been better if they stayed with symbian. The number of real show-stopper bugs in symbian was quite low, and most things worked as well under it as under other os. But to first deprecate it (and continue to sell it for over three years after that), then throw away meego/linux, for which experiences on real hw are already available in the company, collected on early adopter phones, and switch to windows....
Every major switch of the SW environment will introduce bugs; dont try such a thing on your mainstream device. (and if you try it, test it fairly before release).
So... Where are you finding a cellular service provider who doesn't charge you for the service?
Oh, wait. That's your $1960.
(Yes, some fraction of that $1960 consists of the phone cost beyond the initial payment of $99, but not *all* of it by any stretch of the imagination.)
So try one of our smartphone contracts in Finland. For mine, the basic service costs euro0.66/month (yes, less than one euro). It includes true unlimited internet which costs an extra euro5/month (but there are no usage caps whatsoever). In combination with calls and text messages, it's a rare month when the total bill for this service exceeds euro10, including the unlimited internet.
So, over 24 months, this service would cost about euro240. Of course, you have to buy your phone separately, so spending about euro500 for a nice smartphone would bring the total to roughly euro740, which is US$970 today according to OANDA. In other words, at US$1960 you're overpaying by just about US$1000, even including the cost of the phone.
BTW, in some countries, you can get a rather better phone for rather less money - more pixels, more memory, similar size. For some reason, that particular Nokia phone is not for sale in the US or UK or Japan (or Germany, but is apparently a hot seller there, imported from vendors in Switzerland).
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Not new by a long shot. Look at N9.
Right, that is so six months old. And now it's been improved by software that works faster on more modest, and therefore cheaper, hardware.
FYI, Lumia is running at 1.4GHz while N9 is running at 1GHz.
And the N9 has more pixels (854x480 vs 800x480). And is available with 64GB memory.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Fellas... we were talking about phone's design in terms of beauty. I.e. outer features, not internals.
Fragmentation FTW!
Seriously, we don't need yet another Android handset. At this point, any new Android handset just invokes a "me-too". There is no differentiation, other than the ridiculous screen-size war.
actually you're quoting a timezone when iphone4s came available. the marketshare story isn't quite like "android has been falling and ios has been climbing" now.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
And I still want an *actual* keyboard, not the smudgy hot mess in the hands of most iPhone (and Lumia 900) users.
Feh.
I can understand if you desire a physical keyboard because you want physical keys, but to dismiss touchscreens because they're smudgy is silly.
On a touchscreen you can easily wipe the smudge away. Chances are it's done frequently, even if there's an oleo-phobic coating, because smudge obviously interferes with screen clarity. Clean it easily with antiseptic wipes if you want.
With a physical keyboard? You have no idea what's on it, or when it was last cleaned. You'll only think it's "icky" if it's obviously oily. Out of sight, out of mind. And cleaning can't be as thorough--instead of clearing everything off a single flat surface, germs will likely remain on the sides of the keys.
then there's nothing special about the Lumia, you just think a Windows handset is what matters. Make your mind up then - is it the OS or is it the handset?
If its the OS then why weren't any of the other handset releases with Windows on it good enough?
So Nokia produces its first Microsoft Windows phone, and it's already found to be buggy. On top of that Nokia are now an empty shell with a brand name, so the value of the company will be eroded with its reputation. Microsoft picking up Nokia for pennies draws closer, possibly around the time Nokia's customers have beta tested enough for them to get their OS stable.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
It is mandatory in any /. discussion of cellphones that crusaders from the Obvious League of America swoop in and meticulously and pedantically point out that you have to pay for service in addition to the cost of the phones.
You seem to be missing the point, so it probably is not obvious. One does not buy the phone and then buy service. (That would be obvious.) One makes a down payment on the phone, buys service, and pays for the phone on the installment plan.
The summary states that they are "effectively giving the [phone] away". In reality they are giving a $100 discount on a $450 phone. That is a huge difference.
You seem to be missing the point, so it probably is not obvious. One does not buy the phone and then buy service. (That would be obvious.)
False, as I know one person who did just that. Of course, he later said that he would never bother doing that again, but that is beside the point.
Most people buy the subsidized phones, rather than unlocked phones on Amazon or elsewhere, but most is not all.
Yeah, and I don't understand that. Before the iPhone, I could see releasing a phone that was primarily for texting, another one for watching sports, etc. But the iPhone's concept is to have just one phone that does everything, although perhaps not as well as the specialized phones.
Still, the underlying operating system didn't change any year and Apple has changed that as well.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Well, here we are almost a week later, and they're not in the top 100 phones & accessories anymore.
The Black is down to #3 in phones with plans, and the Cyan has dropped to #8. The next best selling WP7.x is the HTC Titan II at #40.
In Unlocked phones, the Lumia 900 isn't in the top 100, and the highest ranked WP7.x is a Samsung Focus I917 at #89, the only WP in the top 100.
And that's with the $100 bill credit making them effectively free with 2yr contract, and no major new phone announcements or introductions pushing them down.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Yep - didn't last long.
Nokia's stock isn't doing so great either!