Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nokia to Make WP7 Phones?

unwiredview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–27 of 27 posts

Re: Nokia to Make WP7 Phones?

#21

Post by Supermighty »

nextparadigms wrote: post #20
bad_user wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then have users bitching about not being able to install a bare-bones Android on it? :-) I don't think going with Android is good. How could they offer anything more compelling than HTC or Samsung or Motorola, which are small players compared to Nokia? I also think going with WM7 is suicide, but YMMV.

The phones would be very compelling if offered with stock Android, since no one seems to do it outside of Google, anyway. Huge market potential there, but too bad no one is willing to take advantage of it. Imagine if Nokia became #1 provider of stock Android phones...most Android fans would be swayed immediately. Oh and of course they'd also need to be on the cutting edge of technology. They don't seem to be doing th…

I feel that we are gradually going in the direction of stock android on phones. Motorola has rolled back it's Motoblur to just blur, Samsung has been catching a ton of heat for the lack of updates to old BeholdII phones and the slow pace of updates for Galaxy S phones.

If the Nexus S is commercially successful (and I hope it is as I own one) then I see more handset manufactures moving in that direction.

Re: Nokia to Make WP7 Phones?

#22

Post by Supermighty »

bad_user wrote: post #19
Supermighty wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't they choose Android over WP7. I would think Android would offer them more control over the user experience and Nokia branding.

And then have users bitching about not being able to install a bare-bones Android on it? :-) I don't think going with Android is good. How could they offer anything more compelling than HTC or Samsung or Motorola, which are small players compared to Nokia? I also think going with WM7 is suicide, but YMMV.

The only users bitching for bare-bones Android are a very small market segment. Only nerds like us really know the difference.

I personally think that Nokia adopting an OS other than one they control would be foolish. Their hardware is decent, but they need more control to create a compelling user experience.

Re: Nokia to Make WP7 Phones?

#23

Post by madmaze »

This seems like a very odd move for Nokia. I was hoping MeeGo would become there predominant platform. I guess anything is better than Symbian at this point.

Maemo was/is nice, but it needs some more work to really work well in all situations, looking forward to the n900 successor

Re: Nokia to Make WP7 Phones?

#24

Post by metageek »

mseebach wrote: post #13
blub wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what makes you think that Android would be better? Everyone's already doing Android and the models are becoming very similar to each other.

Nokia has a lot of hardware-tricks up their sleeves. One thing they could do to Android is to make the models stop being so similar to each other. I think, for an example, that an E72 running Android could go a long way in luring away BlackBerry users who are reluctant to give up a HW keyboard. There's currently only one Android device in that space (Desire Z), and it's pretty expensive.

There's also the Droid 2 Pro.

Re: Nokia to Make WP7 Phones?

#25

Post by blub »

nextparadigms wrote: post #15
blub wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what makes you think that Android would be better? Everyone's already doing Android and the models are becoming very similar to each other.

The WP7 phones are much more similar to each other though, both in software and hardware (same chip). Plus, Nokia will have NO control over the OS. And they wouldn't benefit from Android's huge momentum. Even late entrants like LG are selling millions of Android phone units. I thought they wanted to make their own OS so they don't get commoditized and distinguished only by hardware. How is WP7 helping them doing that…

The Android UI tweaks are almost irrelevant and universally despised, so not much of an advantage there. Neither Android nor WP7 would help much here.

I wonder how much of Android's momentum is actually just the fact that the phones look cool. Do most of the customers know that they're running Android like they do with iPhone? What would Nokia's differentiators be?

Re: Nokia to Make WP7 Phones?

#26

Post by blub »

mseebach wrote: post #13
blub wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what makes you think that Android would be better? Everyone's already doing Android and the models are becoming very similar to each other.

Nokia has a lot of hardware-tricks up their sleeves. One thing they could do to Android is to make the models stop being so similar to each other. I think, for an example, that an E72 running Android could go a long way in luring away BlackBerry users who are reluctant to give up a HW keyboard. There's currently only one Android device in that space (Desire Z), and it's pretty expensive.

They could, except it seems that Motorola beat them to it. :) Hardware can't be much of a differentiator - I am thoroughly unimpressed with the recent avalanche of Android phones. They all look the same, with geeky differences such as dual-core, 1MP larger camera, trackball.

All these things are exciting to Engadget and r/Android but are almost irrelevant to consumers and confusing to boot. If I had to pick an Android phone today, I would have no idea how to do it. So I stick to my current phone and wait for real game-changers to appear.

Re: Nokia to Make WP7 Phones?

#27

Post by mseebach »

blub wrote: post #26
mseebach wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia has a lot of hardware-tricks up their sleeves. One thing they could do to Android is to make the models stop being so similar to each other. I think, for an example, that an E72 running Android could go a long way in luring away BlackBerry users who are reluctant to give up a HW keyboard. There's currently only one Android device in that space (Desire Z), and it's pretty expensive.

They could, except it seems that Motorola beat them to it. :) Hardware can't be much of a differentiator - I am thoroughly unimpressed with the recent avalanche of Android phones. They all look the same, with geeky differences such as dual-core, 1MP larger camera, trackball. All these things are exciting to Engadget and r/Android but are almost irrelevant to consumers and confusing to boot. If I had to pick an Androi…

I completely missed the Droid Pro, which does dilute my argument a bit.

But: your statement that all Android phones look the same would support the idea that hardware could be a differentiator. Nokia has a long history of shipping many different kinds of hardware to many different customer segments. Android devices seem to have some trouble breaking out of the high-end segments where they are competing pretty directly with iPhone. The lower end Android devices also feel cheap. A lower-end Nokia never felt cheap.

Post reply on HN