Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Drops Price on Nokia's 41-Megapixel Phone
TechRadar reports today the first major public-facing move that Microsoft has made with its newly acquired Nokia devices business: "The headline-making Nokia Lumia 1020 smartphone-cum-camera is now available for $100 less in the United States, potentially a sign that Microsoft is already ringing the changes at Nokia.
The Microsoft Store stateside is now selling the 41-megapixel Windows Phone 8 handset for $199 (around £127, AU$216) on a two-year contract, compared with Nokia's lofty $299 (around £191, AU$325) launch price.
The price is being matched by the AT&T network, but Microsoft is going one better (for a limited time) and chucking in the camera grip accessory for everyone who picks up the device.
Early indications are that the heavily-hyped Lumia 1020 hasn't been flying off the shelves, so perhaps this price cut can offer Microsoft a boost in the early stages of its Nokia stewardship."
Microsoft doesn't own the Nokia devices division yet. How can people post stuff like this - it has to go through some regulatory reviews and will close in several months. Not today.
"The headline-making Nokia Lumia 1020 smartphone-cum-camera ..."
The porn industry always loves it when a cum camera gets cheaper.
Not quite sure what a "cum camera" is but please keep it away from me.
the 41-megapixel Windows Phone 8 handset
I hate to say this but what they really need to do is hire someone with marketing experience.
Here is a Nokia phone with the same camera. Only running Symbian Belle:
http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-808-PureView-Factory-Unlocked/dp/B003U8EN7A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378647969&sr=8-1&keywords=n808
* Carthago Delenda Est *
again trying to buy a market.
After all, Elop has always worked for MS benefit.
It also might be a sign that MS has the fix in for any regulatory reviews...
Why don't they throw in a free Surface, as well?
That would make the offer interesting . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Can they also offer it without Windows Phone 8 on it? Then I might buy.
They could give it for free for all I care. Or with a free copy of virtual Gates+Ballmer dancing on the screen. I wouldnt touch them.
All the price drop in the world can't fix the fact that it's Windows Phone. They could offer a free Lamborghini with each phone and that still wouldn't fix it.
Cringely has some interesting theories about the Nokia deal:
1. Effective price is cheap - MS, Apple and other US corporations looking for ways of spending offshore tax-sheltered dollars
2. MS will probably sell off Nokia's manufacturing plants (w/ thousands of employees) to the Chinese
3. Elop won't be MS CEO
4. MS might still be looking at big acquisitions in this space (Blackberry, Qualcomm)
6 years ago Apple came in and re-invented what a smartphone was. As a result, RIM is all but dead and we now have Android and Windows Phone 8 that are high quality smartphone offerings. Your comment adds nothing to the discussion - what is its point? You want Windows Phone 8 to die so consumers have less choice?
I'm a big tall mofo.
Saying it's $100 with a two-year contract is misleading. What's the real US price? TFA indicates £599, which would be about $936.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
The last 4 phones I've had were: iPhone 3G (AT&T), iPhone 4 (Verizon), iPhone 4s (Verizon), Nokia Lumia 928 (Verizon). The Windows Phone 8 phone is the best phone I have ever owned.
The primary way it is better is that the screen is so much bigger. This is easy to dismiss, but it makes a ton of UI hacks done for the iPhone needless. For example, the fact that the address bar isn't on the screen all the time is a hack to compensate for the small screen. Then that leads to a need for the hack where you click the top of the screen in the browser to rapidly scroll to the top. Sometimes that's a nice feature, but only if your screen is so small that they can't always display the address bar unless you've scrolled all the way to the top. Sometimes it's the most annoying thing in the world - like when you've scrolled past 7 pages of information reading in the browser and then accidentally click the rapid scroll-up button. There is no rapid scroll-down button to undo that.
How about moving an icon from one screen to another on the iPhone? What a pain. I would always have to use the very tip of my finger and then try to move the icon all the way to the left or the right and then most of them it would re-shuffle my icons in all kinds of unintended and undesirable ways.
The integration to Skydrive is much better than iCloud as well. My Lumia 928 has 32 GB of storage but with SkyDrive I get an additional 125 GB (of which 25 GB was free). I can seamlessly access pictures, video and music right from it as long as I have a signal.
The Nokia maps are the best maps application I ever used. Much better than either Google Maps or Apple Maps. Speaking of signal - the maps application have online and offline capabilities. So if I have no signal whatsoever there is a local copy of map data on my phone so I can still get directions.
I could go on all day. But for every way that matters to me, the Lumia 928 is superior to every iPhone I've ever owned. iPhones just haven't improved significantly in the last several years. Sure there's Siri - who I once dictated the text message "OK I'll take a look" which got translated to "OK I'll fuck". I didn't find much use for that and my Lumia 928 has much better voice recognition.
I'm a big tall mofo.
All Nokia had to do was offer Android and they easily could've competed with Samsung or even possibly owned the market. The build quality is fantastic but Windows Phone OS sucks.
I feel really sorry for all Nokia employees, Balmer said we buy them, well what will happen in the future:
1.) they will lay off Nokia devellopers and other employees (@Nokia-Employees, sorry guys but look at Motorolla's mass lay offs)
2.) they will stop producing phones (HTC, Samsung, etc.. can install Windows Phonn(e/y) too)
3.) they will have a brand name with a nice ring, patents at hand to be a pain in googles ass (not that I like to see the we stopped being good guys with itchsing between the buttocks)
4.) Finland will have a fond memory of what was once the most successfull & best develloper/producer for cell phones in the world
Lesson Learned:
Do not let trojan horses wether enter your computer nor your company !
Btw. if you ask the horse if it is trojan and it answers no, burn it !
(The story, that Elop was a trojan horse and so one, was predicted by many others (even here on /.) when he joined Nokia)
Microsoft is not yet the owner of Nokia mobile phone operation. They cannot decide shit - yet.
I'm starting to see the genius of the Nokia acquisition. Microsoft sold Xbox consoles at a loss for years to seed the market and build the ecosystem. Now they can do that with smartphone hardware.
LOL; I know people who have it and they hate it. I also wouldnt touch it. It is just a evolution of Win CE by another name and I threw the one I had out of the Window of my car just because I loved it so much; and also the best joy they could give me some years ago was to steal my Nokia phone, so no go at all.
I've never met somebody who was so opposed to a particular electronic gadget. That's really weird.
I don't respond to AC's.
Its the best mobile OS on the market right now.
Even if what you say is true, at this point Windows Phone 8 is still likely to join the ranks of technologies like Betamax and BeOS: "Better" solutions that just never gained critical mass.
Is there a point and shoot with this or a similar camera without the phone?
Microsoft won't own Nokia until sometime next year
Not to that particular one, but several. I even dislike my current android, but it is not the point. The point is me, and take note of this, I am not alone in this- I have spent at least a decade and half to find viable alternatives that I really enjoyed using to the rubbish MS passes as products, and I sure as hell am not going back to use any of their products. And lets not get started on the marketing failures and they strategy of not innovating but killing the competition. If people were so demanding with the quality of computers and software as they are with cars, Microsoft would have been out of business long, long time ago.
The adoption rate of Windows Phone is actually growing at a faster rate than Android (and certainly Apple), right now. It'll be on par with Android and iOS in another year in most parts of the world.
I don't respond to AC's.
If MSFT / NOK want to make any headway in the US market they need to stop only releasing on ATT. If they release the 1050 or whatever the next phone is on the four majors they would likely see greater uptake in the handsets. Heck, I have an IP5, and I would probably considering the 1020 if it existed on VZW.
Your loss. Its the best mobile OS on the market right now. If you don't know if anybody that owns one, you should try reading a review or two.
Except its not. Android is the most advanced OS by a large margin although that might change (completely?) with iOS 7. Windows Phone 7 was limited at launch and lacked features both the OS it was meant to replace symbian and windows mobile. The internet responded by creating famous lists like this one http://my-symbian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44034 . It did get a free pass by reviewers by with reservations...two years after launch http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/3/2921472/lumia-900-review the reviewers stopped http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/3/2921472/lumia-900-review . Then Microsoft threw its userbase away with Windows 8 two years after Windows Phone 7, but people have stopped caring.
The main problem with windows phone is you. Windows Phone has had some success right at the bottom end of the market, because of Nokias hardware...and price with realistic expectations. At the top end its a different story...from the latest RMC rebort "Nokia's latest Lumia 928 and 925 appear to be "compromise devices", whose specs don't measure up to Samsung's flagship Galaxy S4 and HTC's One. Another problem Nokia is facing, according to RBC, is higher than normal return rates for its Lumia devices."
If MSFT / NOK want to make any headway in the US market...
Thinking of the US market is what got Nokia *cough* Microsoft into trouble in the first place. The bottom line is of the 238 million smartphones shipped worldwide only 33Million were in the US, and that is ignoring the fact that they probably would have more success in markets they were successful in before...the larger, and faster growing markets like China and India...Something even Apple are desperate to do and will have announcements for Sept 11th.
Microsoft won't own Nokia until sometime next year
Microsoft have already financed Nokia for 2Billion. Its unlikely that they can change there mind. Although really why it being Microsoft or Nokia changes anything.
, it still makes sense for them to do it. We don't have to like it, but it still makes sense for them.
Actually it makes makes more sense to properly support Android and iOS for its current hostages on Windows. Windows Phone has been unsuccessful for 3 years now. Perhaps they need a different strategy.
Microsoft is not yet the owner of Nokia mobile phone operation. They cannot decide shit - yet.
http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/06/nokia-how-about-2-billion-now-microsoft-ok/ Microsoft have already given $2Billion advance. Its happening. Implying Nokia is making decisions without Microsoft's approval, is simply a strange thing to say especially as the man in charge...is going to be the same!
but if I told my non-Linux-geek friends that the iPhone or Windows Phone was junk, they'd laugh at me and stop taking anything I say seriously.
Then your friends do not represent the Worldwide view. Android is 80% Market share, People are simply choosing not to buy Windows Phone/iPhone in anything like the same numbers.
The bottom line is Linux is for everyone and its Android varient hot 1Billion activations this month.
Apparently, Nokia agrees with you.
They think the future of their Windows Phones is so bright, they got out of the phone business altogether.
Can't speak for others, but I've been bamboozled by Microsoft a couple of times. No more.
My Windows Mobile phone straight up sucked to the point of being almost unusable. It wasn't stable and had a tendency to crash when a call came in. The bundled software (it even had Word and Excel) was really crappy. It was a horrid phone experience, and one that got abandoned by Microsoft a few weeks after I bought it.
I have been looking at a Windows Phone 7 device right before it became clear that one would be abandoned too. I decided to not get a Microsoft device ever again as they can't be trusted with their support.
Dude, I have a opportunity with that GPS, and that darn thing had the USB castrated to work only in Windows.
Nokia is gone for me after Microsoft deal.
When my last old Nokia kicks the bucket, I am not going to buy a new one. Fuck you Microsoft and fuck you Nokia, for selling out!
Personally I had a Windows Mobile phone for work. Hated it. So did all my coworkers. Several coworkers bought their own Blackberrys and iPhones to bring into the network rather than use Windows Mobile. I didn't because I didn't use it enough and could go weeks without turning it on. Others who had to all the time felt so strongly enough to buy their own. Now that's a level a fail when people turn down a free phone and buy their own.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The adoption rate of Windows Phone is actually growing at a faster rate than Android (and certainly Apple), right now.
...but growing slower, that is simply how maths works. In fact the reason for the quick Microsoft sale is because of shrinking Windows Phone Sales this quarter, as indicated in this article, and its limited success has been at the bottom end whatever you think of that.
Who wants 41 megapixels taken by a shitty sensor? There's little point in pumping the pixel density up that high when the read noise and lens aren't good enough to distinguish it.
Well if you start at a low number, any change is a large growth rate. It's not really indicative of the overall performance. So WP8 went from 0 to 4% over the last several years. That's 400% growth but it really doesn't mean much. However, I remember reading Samsung's Bada outselling WP8. Ouch.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
When you have no presence in a market, and most of your customers are about to enter an upgrade cycle to "your new product", sure, the growth rate is high. There again, iOS and Android have a huge market, close to saturated, yet still growing.
This is akin to saying "my herb garden expanding at a faster rate than a continent filled with forest".
...load CyanogenMod on it?
Yeah OK. Here's what Android looked like before the iPhone.
http://blog.steventroughtonsmith.com/2012/05/2007s-pre-m3-version-of-android-google.html Google has lots of prototypes including the full screen Sooner. In fact the iPhone is based unashamedly on this Sony prototype http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbuchanan/the-original-iphone-4-design-prototype-from-2006 .
The bottom line is Android had full screen phones before the iPhone launch, and it was hardly alone.
The Surface Pro can run Linux: http://www.geek.com/microsoft/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-the-surface-pro-1539262/
For how long? Microsoft is moving to a future where only software from Microsoft can be installed on its not your devices. Its not even being subtle about it. I suspect my next GNU/Linux will a converted chromebook
I'm pretty OP knows how to use Google but that would defeat the purpose of having forums like these. Some of us like to have conversations and the like through forums and having backup answers is always good for future searches. Don't be a dick.
I agree that the whole megapixel thing is marketing hype but I own one and it does take amazing photos.
You'll have to pry my Nokia 808 with Symbian from my cold, dead hands. I am seriously thinking about buying a 2nd one as backup, as I doubt I will be able to buy such a great phone ever again. Amazing camera, GPS, battery, actually getting a signal and crystal clear audio in places where my HTC HD had zero bars. In many ways, Nokia's phone story is like the story of the Commodore Amiga. Superior tech, but a desire to be more like the commoditized "PC business" and a corrupt CEO looking after his own personal interests rather than those of the company, was what killed them in the end. My only hope is that they somehow support and eventually buy back Jolla, and re-enter the handsets business later on.
Please do your research and read up on the tech behind the 41mp PureView. It's not hype. The camera essentially oversamples the scene to improve image quality.
Dear Coward, thank you for your helpful response. Having read that and several others, the point of the 41 MP is to gain sharpness through pixel averaging and downsizing the image to 5MP. This appears to work as advertised. There is also general agreement that shot-to-shot and startup times are slow and that color accuracy is poor. There is also consistent criticism of the included camera software, but that has nothing to do with the 41 MP sensor.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Well, this just confirms what my friends that were unfortunate to buy one say I understand your friends, I used my Macbook at work one year,just to avoid windows, until they actually give MacBooks to my entire team.
To go from 0 to 4% is actually an infinite growth rate, which demonstrates that growth rate is a poor metric to use.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Yes, Windows Mobile was pretty bad. I used it, but only recommended it to tech-savvy friends, and even then with reservations.
Windows Phone, OTOH, is a big breath of fresh air, as far as the UI is concerned. Needs some iteration and added features, but it's a good product with good potential, simply put. Hopefully MS doesn't give up on it.
The Nokia does have a larger sensor than most camera phones, so it's not nearly as ridiculous as it seems. But. when compared to real cameras, the 808 falls short. I'm sure the 1020 is similar.
I think the parent is referring to a diffraction limited optical system. There's only so much you can do with sensors or software if the optics is inadequate.
There is also the issue of sensor noise and the resulting S/N ratio of such a small aperture.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes, but can it make calls?
Have gnu, will travel.
That its not really a smartphone.
I use android, and recently, aquired a lumia 520 running the latest windows OS. Basic things like file rename, send file as attachment in an email is not possible.
If you use an app to open a file from web, if you delete that app, all files related to that app go away.
So its kind of like a featurephone.
With here maps, its wonderful for the 520. You get an amazing GPS featurephone with great touch etc.,
However, as you spend more, you can get a smartphone so high end win os phones will never fly off the shelves.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Windows Phone/Nokia is actually pretty quite well outside the US.
Worldwide Windows Phones has reached the dizzying heights of 3.8% I wouldn't put too much truck in Kantar Worldpanel here is an earlier report http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/global/News/news-articles/Apple-achieves-its-highest-ever-Smartphone-share-in-US it claims that Apple overtook Android over Christmas in the US. It turned out to be a load of nonsense.
The adoption rate of Windows Phone is actually growing at a faster rate than Android (and certainly Apple), right now. It'll be on par with Android and iOS in another year in most parts of the world.
I have a million dollars. You have one dollar.
I earn 250,000, which saw my wealth rise by 25%. You earn a dollar! Wow! Your wealth has increase by 100%!!!
No wow. This is why developing world economies can have double-digit GDP growth rates for years yet still be shitting in holes. It's way easier to have high rates of growth when your base is low. To go back to my earlier example, you might find 8 dollars in the street, and increase your wealth to 1000%. Even if I find 16 dollars, which is double what you found, it'll be little more than a rounding error in my growth.
If this phone were running Windows 3.1 I think I'd still buy it.
The camera on this thing is amazing.
From all the friends who I knew that had WP7/8 (and didn't work for MS), their main complaint was the lack of apps and the lack of quality of apps. Yes they had some app that Android and iOS had but it didn't have the same features as other platforms. Personally I dislike the style of WP8 and the thin text. It's just a preference for me.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Any more memory would just sit there wasted.
REALLY wish nokia would've stuck with that meego/harmattan UI they did with the n9
Do you realise tech-savvy people are the ones less likely to buy it, right?
Step 1: Say "Thank you very much for your time and devotion to Nokia. You're not needed anymore".
Step 2: Make nVidia or Qualcomm design the ultimate reference phone design for Microsoft
Step 3: Hire a set of industrial designers who are more about design than industry. Nokia doesn't have any.. don't look there
Step 4: Make a frigging awesome phone.
Step 5: Ship just one model a year. Nokia's "of course we support our customers when they buy a phone from us. We start designing their next phone for them immediately." attitude. Make one damn phone and quit this crap about being a phone company. Be a solution company.
Step 6: Fire Elop, Fire Elop, Fire Elop... DO NOT LET HIM AND STEVE BALLMER SIT ON A STAGE WEARING SUITS AND ROLLING IN THEIR OWN WRINKLED ASSES TALKING ABOUT HOW COOL THE NEW PHONE IS!!! Seriously... would you want to base your version of cool on what those losers think is cool? You do? Go get a damn job kissing some middle managers ass at PwC and say words like Synergize a lot. GET THOSE BASTARDS OFF THE STAGE!!! They're ruining everything!
Step 7: Fix the damn store!!! There are 900 apps in the top 10 category for getting half naked pictures of russian house wives. There's no films in the store outside of America. FIX IT!!!
What do you do whan a product isn't selling well and you have a lot of excess stock?
Firesale
Nokia was just going through the same pain as Microsoft for a platform that wasn't selling well.
The second show, if its allowed in their country will be a tax write off.. just like Microsoft.
It rather had to be annouced in this "order" by Nokia because of how it would have looked if Nokia had announced a $900 Million write off before Microsoft. It owuld ahve given new meaning to the phrase "burning platform".. then Elop would have looked like the "burning man"
If he is being groomed for the new CEO position at Microsoft.. that would not have looked good.
So Steve Ballmer and Elop probably had discussions and decided this was the best order in which to release the news.
Wouldn't surprise me if this wasn't the tipping point in the board room for Steve.
I can see a boardroom meeting in which Steve says. "Nokia has annouced they're taking a write off and planning to release an Android version of their phone regardless of what we say.. oh.. an we're going to have to take a 1 Billion write off.."
The end result was.. no we're not going to take a 1000 Million write off.. we're going to take a 900 Million write off and e think its time you considered retirement.
Microsoft should make 100% free smartphones that only work with Windows & Office.