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Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

engadget.com

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Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#54

Post by ulfw »

Noughmad wrote: post #24
ulfw wrote: post #22

Such a pointless release that will only lead to customer confusion. I bet those will be cancelled as soon as the MSFT purchase (finally) closes. Just goes to show why Nokia has been sold off. Sad.

It may be a negotiating tactic. You know, you need us more than we need you.

Negotiate with whom?

Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#55

Post by eq- »

Aoyagi wrote: post #27
akumen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I counted four. Feature phone OS (ODM), Asha, Windows Phone and Nokia X Platform as they are calling it.

The "featurephone" OS is S40 and it's in both "classic" phones (e.g. 515) and Ashas.... unless there is something I've missed completely. And come to think of it, I haven't heard any confirmation of closing the production of S40 phones, so I guess that'd make it 3.

The OS in the most basic of Nokia phones is commonly referred to as S30. It doesn't really need much active maintenance, though, because they mostly only change graphics and included games (and utilities) between those phones.

Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#56

Post by indy »

slowmotiony wrote: post #38

512MB ram? My year old android handset has 1GB and is slow as all hell. It hangs, reboots itself, shows weird errors ("Activity Phone is not responding" when somebody is calling) and takes 30 seconds to open firefox. I don't know what Nokia is thinking.

Android 4.4 is targeted to run on low memory (i.e 512MB) devices unlike some of the previous Android releases.

Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#58

Post by dspillett »

igravious wrote: post #5

So Microsoft has a Linux distro. Interesting. Anybody care to hazard a guess what the future holds? My take is that this was well in development before the MS/Nokia deal went through (it has gone through, hasn't it?) and Microsoft were not (have not been) able to get it canned. Or, shock, horror, maybe Microsoft are testing the waters - they already make a bunch from Linux patents, maybe they want to see how much the…

> How will Microsoft not be able to develop Mobile Office for Android?

Easily. My first thought on seeing the specs on those devices is that they are trying to position the Android offering as the cheap option: something for peopel who can't afford a proper phone. Want Office and the other big boy's toys? Then buy one of our Windows based devices instead.

> How are Microsoft going to be able to maintain two mobile OSs?

They already do: while it looks like the Symbian based OS is officially dead, as are other alternatives like meego, "feature phones" from Nokia (such as the Asha range) are still being released based around the old S40 OS. Perhaps they are looking to retire this and see Android as an inexpensive way forward, that way someone else is developing the core OS and they just need to provide drivers and device specific tweaks (and an app store & such if not licensing Google's parts). There is certainly a project out there working on smoothly running apps targeting the S40 on Linux based devices (IIRC not funcded by Nokia, but the existence of the project indicatesit is possible) which would smooth the replacement.

They have to have a cheaper alternative to the WP devices unless they can release a WP device that can compete price-wise in those markets without diminishing the appearance of the more expensive kit or they lose the "chep-nokia-to-expensive-nokia upgrade path: people with another cheap Andoird device won't have any Nokia brand loyalty so they would be competing entirely directly with high-end Android and iOS devices in that instance and they need something to try make the move to WP more attractive than a move to iOS at that point because the public perception of WP8 is far behind that of Apple (and depending on who you talk to, high-end Android).

> Are Nokia going to see this through?

That is the big question, though the answer probably doesn't really matter to smartphone users. If my guesses about the positioning thing and S40 replacement are right then they'll need to keep it going a while at least, but with the other competition around in the Android market it'll only ever fool the stupid anyway. And from the point of view of "feature phones", that is business as usual.

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