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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!"
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...
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.
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.
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?
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?
with Microsoft involved this is exactly what I was thinking too. Purchasing market share is not beyond them and the Windows Phone phones are still in single digit market share after more than a year on the market.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
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 +
Um. Estimates 100k units in the US in 2 weeks is not exactly a stunning success. Not when new iPhone and Android models are selling 500k+ on the first day, and millions the first weekend. So, no, it's not too early.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
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).
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
And it's still overpriced.
Actually, the Lumia 900 black and cyan models are both in the Amazon "Cell phones & accessories" top 100 best sellers (accessories includes cheap plastic skinns, etc), which from previous phone releases is indicative of 1M/mo sales rate, assuming it's for real (not just Microsoft/Nokia buying).
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
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.
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.
Wow! Top 100? Really? Top 100 excluding iPhone? That could be anywhere from 0.01% to 3% of the market at one seller!
In all seriousness, they're currently ranked #1 & #2 at Amazon, and that's very good. But this is also in the first 3 days it's been available. Let's see where it is next week.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
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.
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