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Communications Handhelds Wireless Networking Hardware

Nokia Losing its Cell Phone Dominance 303

Posted by CowboyNeal from the fighting-to-keep-up dept.
supersandra writes "The Boston Globe is reporting that Nokia is struggling to offer features, such as cameras and flip-phones, that are luring customers away to phones by other brands such as Motorola, Samsung, and Siemens. While Nokia used to account for 1 in every 3 phones sold worldwide, they are down to 28.9 percent. Nokia plans to bring 35 new phone models to market this year to win back more users."
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Nokia Losing its Cell Phone Dominance More

Nokia Losing its Cell Phone Dominance

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  • 1/3 is still just 33% (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wankledot ( 712148 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:12PM (#9725531)
    While Nokia used to account for 1 in every 3 phones sold worldwide, they are down to 28.9 percent. Holy Cow, they lost a whole 4.4%?! That's a really interesting way to make it sound like a big loss, when it's really not.

    • Re:1/3 is still just 33% (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stecoop ( 759508 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:18PM (#9725568) Journal
      No, they are down 4.4 percentage points but take (33 - 28.9) / 33 the orignal is the way to find the percentage change which is down 12.42%.

    • Re:1/3 is still just 33% (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      nope .. their production went down 13% which is a lot

      > echo "4.4/33.33*100" | bc -l
      13.2

      • Re:1/3 is still just 33% (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        nope .. their production went down 13% which is a lot

        Only if the size of the overall market remained constant.

      • one thing I'm waiting for (Score:5, Interesting)

        by fyonn ( 115426 ) <dave@fyonn.net> on Saturday July 17, 2004 @03:29PM (#9726469) Homepage
        is a mobile phone that takes 2 sim cards and can use both at the same time.

        I have a mobile phone of my own, up to now I've not taken a work phone as I don't want to take 2 phones with me everywhere. surely it can't be too difficult to have 2 sims in a phone, both acive so that you can get calls on either number (each having it's own contract and possibly, different operator) and the phone call tell you who it's from and what number it's going to, so you can see at a glance what the situation is. ideally you could maintain 2 seperate address books too, ie a work and a home one (possibly a field in a single address book maybe)

        yes, you can get dualo sim adapters for phones, but thats crap as it's an "either or" situation. you can only have 1 active at once which isn't good enough. I have my home phone on my desk at work and no-one minds if I get personal calls on it.

        dave

    • Re:1/3 is still just 33% (Score:5, Insightful)

      by angst7 ( 62954 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:23PM (#9725599) Homepage
      It's 4% of the total market, but it represents a 12% loss within their customer base. Further the Cell phone market base is increasing at a fairly brisk pace, so it represents quite alot in terms of revenue $$$.

      Secondly, if you're an investor in a company that was the big player, and you see declines like this, you start thinking of other investment opportunities.

      It's a pretty big deal.
      • It's 4% of the total market, but it represents a 12% loss within their customer base. Further the Cell phone market base is increasing at a fairly brisk pace, so it represents quite alot in terms of revenue $$$.

        Is the cell phone market base increasing at such a brisk pace that the number may not represent a loss for Nokia, but a gain for the other cellular companies? In other words, does this mean that Nokia's numbers are flat in a growing market rather than declining in a flat market?
    • Well, one percent of that is from people switching to Mozilla.
    • Especially since 1 in every 3 phones is not significantly different from 28.9%.

      In other words, Nokia has gone from accounting for 1 in every 3 phones to accounting for 1 in every 3 phones.

  • Man... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aptenergy ( 688428 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:14PM (#9725542)
    Is it really worth it to have 35 new phone models?

    • Re:Man... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by micolous ( 757089 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:17PM (#9725563)
      What happened to mobile (cell) phones that just make phone calls and send SMS? They're turning rather rapidly into PDAs.

      • Re:Man... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:23PM (#9725598)
        yeah and what happened to PCs that just let you add numbers and print dot matrix? They're turning rather rapidly into complete work and entertainment centres.

        d'uh, it's called progress. my mobile has calendar, email, internet, mp3 and lots more and that's the way I like it.

        • Re:Man... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by hendridm ( 302246 ) * on Saturday July 17, 2004 @01:26PM (#9725910) Homepage
          d'uh, it's called progress. my mobile has calendar, email, internet, mp3 and lots more and that's the way I like it.

          Progress is in the eye of the beholder. Someone like me who is interested more in battery life and not getting my phone banned from certain buildings because it has a camera on it might not agree. Not to mention I like my phone to have a simple-to-navigate phonebook, which I use extensively, rather than a complex menu for games, utilities, overpriced slow Internet, settings, etc.

          My two biggest desires in cell phones I buy are a) battery life and b) simple to use interface. Also, I want my ringer to sound like a telephone ring, not Flight of the Bumblebee or the theme from Cheers. I've always thought that the selection of ring-tones that actually sound like a telephone ringer are quite lousy on some phones, but thank god they offer a cheesy MIDI version of In Da Hood by 50 Cent.

          • Re:Man... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @02:14PM (#9726104)
            I have a Sony Ericsson P900. the battery takes ~3 hours to fully charge then lasts for 4 days typical use. it has a huge touchscreen and stylus handwriting input (plus the usual T9, virtual keyboard), plus a very well designed 5-way jog wheel. so you can't get any easier input than that.

            as for ringtones, since it can play mp3s you can have anything you want, including old-fashioned ring. it also comes with a PC sync/dock and loads of internal memory (plus flash cards) so getting a new ring tone means drag and drop from PC file manager, not phoning some crappy company that will charge you $5/min for a barely recognisable sequence of beeps.

            smartphones are fantastic. people who bitch about wanting "simple" things are either ignorant of how well-designed phones like the P900 are, or are just too poor to afford them.

            • Re:Man... (Score:3, Insightful)

              by fyonn ( 115426 )
              smartphones are fantastic. people who bitch about wanting "simple" things are either ignorant of how well-designed phones like the P900 are, or are just too poor to afford them.

              perhaps they have different needs from a mobile phone that you do? while I'm sure the p900 is great, it's not for everyone. I for example could easily have afforded a P900 but plain didn't want a phone that big in my pocket that I have to carry around all day. it's just too damn big for me. I ended up with an SE t630 (nearly held o
      • Nokia's most popular phone in many UK retailers is the Nokia 1100 - just makes calls and SMS, the only bonus feature being a built in flashlight (kind of useful). It retails prepaid in the UK as low as £30...
    • 35 models... Which one should I choose? Maybe this one? No. Maybe this? No. Maybe... I think I'll choose Siemens, then.

    • When it take just one model .. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by apankrat ( 314147 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @02:12PM (#9726093) Homepage
      .. that can make phone calls and NOT take pictures (Ah!), NOT allow changing a faceplate in under 5 seconds (Oh!) and NOT do something else as usefull as baking a cake or running an embedded Java (why not Perl, BTW ? ;)).

      Seriously, I've been looking for a new phone with no extra features - just wanted GSM phone, which is light and small to carry in a pocket. It also must look good, but that's subjective. Something like this [nokia.com] (Nokia 8910), but triband or at least Canada-compatible.

      And guess what - I'm still looking :-/

    • Re:Man... (Score:2)

      by Tet ( 2721 ) *
      Is it really worth it to have 35 new phone models?

      No, particularly when the article is complete crap anyway. Unless you have hugely different models in the US, then most Nokia phones already come with a camera (in fact, most phones come with a camera, Nokia or otherwise). Not only that, but the camera is significantly better quality than those found on phones from rival manufacturers. Couldn't comment about clam shell phones. I can't understand why anyone would want one, so it's not something I've looked

  • 35 new models? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rgoldste ( 213339 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:15PM (#9725547)
    The article says that Nokia's problem is not having features that consumers want, like clam-shell phones. Yet their solution is not to include those features in their new phones, but to offer consumers 35 different models this year (only 6 of those are clam-shell). I'm all about consumer choice, but does this make sense to anyone?

    • Re:35 new models? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sjwt ( 161428 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:18PM (#9725565)
      What i think the oohone market shoudl look at moving to is custom phones, or at lest semi custom.

      Order body X, featuers Y,ZA and C.

      I put off geting a new phone becase i couldnt get what i wanted, in the end i finaly had to get a compromise, but thats life i guess.

    • Re:35 new models? (Score:5, Informative)

      by crackshoe ( 751995 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:21PM (#9725588)
      on the other hand, clamshells break regularly - and the popular motorolla line of clamshells i've seen has an antena that ops off regularly, and breaks at the hinge periodically. on the other hand, i've checked my nokia non-flip phone 50 feet, bounced it off a brick wall and a car (all in one go) and the replacable plastic case was a bit scratched, but no actual damage to the phone.

      • Re:35 new models? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Reverberant ( 303566 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @01:46PM (#9725984) Homepage
        on the other hand, clamshells break regularly

        I know the reputation that clamshells have (and it's at least partially deserved) but having owned a variety of phones (flip phones and otherwise) IMO clamshells absolutely cannot be beat for convenience.

        One big issue I have is that I do a lot of travel, and depend on my cell phone for client communications. That means being able to answer the phone quickly when a client or contact calls (frequently I find that if I miss a call, it may be *days* before I can contact that client again).

        The thing I like about flip phones is that you open it to take a call, and close it to finish the calls. With non-flip phones, you can leave the keyboard unlocked to take calls, but then you have to deal with accidently dialing people when the phone is in your pocket or bag. Or, you can lock the keyboard, but that gets in the way when you want to make a call, or want to receive a call and you can't forget the unlock combination or the "quick key" to answer the call.

        My next phone will most definitely be a flip phone.

        • Or, you can lock the keyboard, but that gets in the way when you want to make a call, or want to receive a call and you can't forget the unlock combination or the "quick key" to answer the call.
          ----

          On both my phones (Nokia 5190 and SE t310) I didn't have to unlock the phone to answer it, I just had to push the answer button.
        • I agree with you that clamshells are really convenient (I've owned 3 different Samsung US models), but not every non-clamshell has those problems.

          For example, I have two different Sony Ericsson phones (the T3something and the T610, one for Europe and one for the USA), and if a call is coming through, then the keypad unlocks enough for me to say "yes, I want to take the call." Then when the call is going on, the keypad is fully unlocked, and then right when the call ends, it goes back to being locked.

          So

        • Re:35 new models? (Score:3, Informative)

          by colinleroy ( 592025 )
          You don't have to unlock the keyboard to answer a call. Whenever your phone is locked, and rings, a few keys will be enabled: answer, abort, and ignore (for the phones having it - great feature: makes the phone stop ringing, but not for your correspondant, who thinks you didn't hear the ring :-)).

      • Re:35 new models? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by fermion ( 181285 )
        What apes break these phones. I am the most ruthless mobile device owner I know. I have broken portable computers, PDA, Walkmans, MP3 players, mostly within the first year or two. Most of my working equipment has nicks all over it where I have dropped the device.

        OTOH, my startac, maybe three years old, is mechanically in very good condition. I had to replace my original because it got water in it and rusted the electronics. It may be that new phones are not as durable, but that is true across the boa

    • Re:35 new models? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BasilBrush ( 643681 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:38PM (#9725665)
      The article also says they are having trouble doing camera phones, which is pretty clueless given that Nokia were the first outside Japan to offer cameraphones, and they are the biggest force pushing MMS.

      Having said that Nokia have been very arrogant in the last couple of years in thinking that their designs were sensible when everyone that didn't work for Nokia was taking one look at then and saying "What is THAT?". People actually like to have a rectangular numeric keypad layout with the speaker above, and the point where the user thinks the microphone is below it. It's not just the NGage that got that wrong.

    • Re:35 new models? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by perlchild ( 582235 )
      It doesn't make sense to me, since the whole Nokia dominance thing came up with Nokia having more store space than almost every other company, and their phones being the most included with plans in the beginning. Having that many models means some of them will not be in all stores, which means no matter how much choice Nokia offers, the consumers won't see all of them.
      So Nokia will pay R&D and marketing, but it will not reach potential users.
      Anyone else sees this as a "Nokia can't get so and so feature
    • Don't knock Nokia... their strategy has been very conservative from an engineering perspective: 2 or 3 OS versions (Series 40, 60 and 80 (?)) and a limited set of phone "platforms" that get "skinned" for a particular market segment. E.g. their 7210 and 6610 phones are practically identical at the hardware and software level, but have very different looks and marketed to different segments. So "35 phones" are really 35 combinations of OS, phone hardware and "skin"; not too bad from an engineering perspecti
    • It does when one of those choices is the 6255 [mobileburn.com]. To quote the meat of the link

      Nokia released its most advanced CDMA handset, the 6255, at the recent CTIA show in Atlanta. Unusually for Nokia, the 6255 is a clamshell phone and introduces many features previously unseen in any of their phones. Dual color screens, MMC memory card support, a camera with flash and digital zoom, video player, streaming media capability, an MP3/AAC player and FM radio are among the features that make the 6255 one of the most powe
    • however nokia needs to be careful not to jump onto what maybe a trend that has peaked. Quite a number of work places have banned cell phones w/ cameras and you wonder how many more will follow suit or place restrictions.

      IMHO the market for 'pda' like cell phones is fairly limited- ubergeeks and severely stressed lawyers and similar. Most people won't use those features.

      What would be a great feature, and perhaps its already available, would be a direction finder; - give it your location and where you want
    • If one of those 35 is an improved version of the classic 8810/8850-style metallic slider, then this move by Nokia might make sense to me. Slimmer, yet lighter and with a low-power oled display for improved battery life..., and of course tri-band too, that's all I need. Just the phone, but one that is an ergonomic piece of modern art. Sometimes evolution is more attractive (and practical) than revolution.

      I suppose they also need to offer clam-shells as those seem to suit the video/camera-phones which require

  • Design Problems (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Smitty825 ( 114634 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:15PM (#9725551) Homepage Journal
    Nokia's phones have recently been designed really poorly, IMHO. They are either too big or have a weird, non-standard design that doesn't always improve functionality.

    That being said, for the most part, their GSM phones work better than most of their competitors for call quality and reception, but their competitors are quickly catching up!
    • Not just designed pooly usage-wise, but engineering-wise as well.

      I just wanted a simple phone, and that's what I got from Nokia, but it's the biggest peice of crap. Sometimes it gets into this funky state where everything echos when I answer the phone, and I have to hang up and turn it off and back on. And sometimes when it rings, it doesn't stop vibrating, even after I answer. Interesting way to hold a phone conversation.

      Perhaps it's quality, and not functionality, that is making them lose market shar
    • Nokia's phones have recently been designed really poorly, IMHO. They are either too big or have a weird, non-standard design that doesn't always improve functionality.

      Indeed. I hate Nokia phones largely because they focus on making their keypads as arty as possible when they should be making conservative, usable keypads.

      That's the one thing I like about my Sony Ericsson T226--the key layout is perfect. If only it was capable of keeping a connection without cutting me off...

  • Is it Nokia, or their service partners? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mad_ian ( 28771 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:15PM (#9725554) Homepage
    I know I'm leaving Sprint, which sells and promotes tons of Nokia phones, because T-Mobile offers camera phones and (most importantly) BLUETOOTH.

    Every other major cell phone service provider has had bluetooth compatible phones for a while, but not Sprint. If people are leaving the providers that Nokia sells the majority of their phones thought, they will definatly be losing marketshare.

    ~Donald
    • What is the main advantage to having a bluetooth enaabled phone? I guess when I shop I look for reasonable price, tri-band (Not a lot of digital coverage in the rural West of USA), and maybe a good selection of features from the service provider such as internet.

      As I understand it, Bluetooth allows two different electronic devices to interact, but what would a bluetooth cell phone do? Interact with a PDA/Laptop? I've searched around on Google, and mainly it's the typical sales sites without any real inf
      • well, once you and your mates have bluejacked each other (to see how it's done), then you'll turn bluetooth functionality off and go back to using IR.

        eg. Bluejack [bluejackaddict.co.uk]
        How to [bluejackq.com]
        how to [bluejacked.com]

        Bluetooth generally is used for communicating with a headset. (which interferes with the wired telephones in our office BTW, really strange).

        I can't think of any other use for it, that you'd actually use.
        • One use I've heard of is using a Bluetooth mobile phone as like a mobile internet access device. Laptops with a Bluetooth interface can use an internet-capable bluetooth phone like a wireless go-anywhere modem.

          If the phone acts as a PDA, the PDA information can be synched with a laptop or desktop.

          Right now, I just use Bluetooth as an HID system. I wanted a wireless mouse that didn't need a potentially fragile USB dongle to work. My laptop happens to have a bluetooth module avalable for it. Now I have
        • After wireless handsfree, I use Bluetooth to synchronise my calendar/contacts/tasks with my PC, to transfer contacts, pictures etc with other users (much more convenient than trying to keep them pointed at each other with IR, to connect via the PC to the Internet without having to use GPRS and also to completely control the phone using a desktop program that gives me full access to the phone functions.

          I could also use it to control the Sony Ericsson Bluetooth RC car if I had one.

          Of course, I use a P900, w
      • Hands free systems seem to be one of the more popular uses. There are wireless headsets you can buy that communicate with your phone via Bluetooth. Alot of new cars also come equipped with Bluetooth hands free systems built in.

      • > As I understand it, Bluetooth allows two different electronic devices to interact, but what would a bluetooth cell phone do?

        You can send data between bluetooth phones without going through SMS (slow, costs, requires giving out a phone #). Open a connection via any bluetooth laptop, and you can surf the net over GPRS (about 56K). My favorite is bluetooth headsets. I put the thing on my ear (it weighs next to nothing), press the button on it, and just speak to voice dial. Of course, I can also answe
      • Well I built a form based Pocket Access app for my dads business that uses bluetooth to fax the form to their order entry person, the alternative was custom apps written for Palm OS that used the expensive Palm wireless service and a proprietary service with yet another monthly cost. The other thing the app does is weekly download an updated product database through GPRS.
      • Basically, it comes down to a question from me: Should I look for a bluetooth enabled phone for my next cell phone?

        It depends. It's very convenient for synching with your computer or other devices.

        I've found it invaluable for communicating with equipment that I leave out in the field for sound measurements. Rather then needing direct access to the locked case to check on sound levels (which often interferes with the measurement), I can walk to within ~30ft of my monitor, whip out my Sony-Ericsson T61

    • For a while, you had no choice but to get a camera with your t-Mobile phone. I ended up with a T610 because of the Bluetooth.

      But there are people that don't *want* all of that crap - they just want a simple, easy to use phone that has decent call quality.

      Now I have a camera phone, but have absolutely *zero* coverage at my apartment. In Walnut Creek, CA. We have a friggin Tiffany's and an Apple Store, but cell coverage just sucks sometimes. (Just to illustrate that I'm not in BFE)

    • Re:Is it Nokia, or their service partners? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Vlad_the_Inhaler ( 32958 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:44PM (#9725692)
      My Nokia 7650 is 18 months old. It has a camera and Bluetooth. I am in Europe so I am not sure if there was a version which ran in the US. The model is obsolete now anyway.

      Now to what is wrong with it: It runs out of power after 5 days. For the last 36 hours or so of those 5 days, if you actually want to telephone with it then it powers down. You can power it back up again and send messages, take photos, whatever, just phoning takes too much power. This thing is supposed to be a telephone. What use is a shrinking violet phone which hides whenever someone calls it?

      When I originally got it, it was set up so one of the two main buttons went into camera mode and the other one went into some Internet function. Hey guys, this is supposed to be a telephone. Calling (or messaging someone) needed 5 or 6 separate inputs and some positioning with a trackball. It was only when I found out how to reconfigure the beast that it actually became useable. Apparently a lot of phones do not allow reconfiguring.

      Having said that, my next phone will probably be a Nokia as well, friends have Siemens phones - I will never go there - another friend has a Sony. The menus in both cases are simply too cryptic.
      Whatever it is, it won't be a 7610 [nokia.com]. The keyboard layout is simply insane.

      The advantage of a Nokia used to be that they were good phones which were really easy to use. Some of the more recent models are poorly designed toys, overloaded with too many useless functions which just added unnecessary complexity.
      • Now to what is wrong with it: It runs out of power after 5 days. For the last 36 hours or so of those 5 days, if you actually want to telephone with it then it powers down. You can power it back up again and send messages, take photos, whatever, just phoning takes too much power. This thing is supposed to be a telephone. What use is a shrinking violet phone which hides whenever someone calls it?

        It's a weird thing but despite all the gizmos that come with our phones these days, making and receiving calls a

  • 35 New Phones? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by atlasheavy ( 169115 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:18PM (#9725566) Homepage

    This seems a bit overkill to me. I feel like this is more of a knee-jerk reaction than a solid business move for some reason. Perhaps the real question is not "how far can we boost our market share with these 35 new phones," but instead should be "what's wrong with our existing phones?"

    Realistically, you shouldn't have to add this many different products to your line to snag the coveted clamshell and camera buyers.

    I bought a Motorola MPX200 a little under a year ago because I could write software for the damned thing, but before that I had always been a Nokia owner. Clearly, this is not a standard line of reasoning for most buyers. Nevertheless, perhaps Nokia should make it a little more obvious where their SDKs live for their phones and hold student developer contests or something.

    • Re:35 New Phones? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by KillerCow ( 213458 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:39PM (#9725667)
      This seems a bit overkill to me. I feel like this is more of a knee-jerk reaction than a solid business move for some reason. Perhaps the real question is not "how far can we boost our market share with these 35 new phones," but instead should be "what's wrong with our existing phones?"

      Realistically, you shouldn't have to add this many different products to your line to snag the coveted clamshell and camera buyers.

      This is what happens when the marketing group takes over an engineering company. Rather than develop a new product to fix the real reason for the slide (which takes time and money), they go for the quick fix of a new marketing push. This works in the short term (single quarter) as the old technology is not too far behind, but as this is reapplied over and over again, the products that they are pushing fall further and further behind.

      This is what happened to Palm when the guy from Pepsi took over. Rather than sink money into R&D (which made the tech company a success in the first place) they focussed on marketing and branding (that is how you sell sugar-water, after all). Then a couple of years later, palm was all marketing and hadn't improved their products while the PocketPCs had marched forward, caught up technically, and then kept going to leave Palm in the dust. Once they realised what was going on, Palm ousted the Pepsi dude and started playing catch-up.

      Just my opinion... hopefully I remember the facts correctly.
    • The first thing that I thought when I read that was that it just might be marketing spin on an engineering issue. For example, one scenario would be that many product development groups were being held up by one engineering group being late with a component to all of them. So an initially planned phased release of phones started piling up together. Too few new models, market share goes down a bit, and then they can respond with "but next year we are going to pick up the pace" and start releasing the product

    • I bought a Motorola MPX200 a little under a year ago because I could write software for the damned thing, but before that I had always been a Nokia owner. Clearly, this is not a standard line of reasoning for most buyers. Nevertheless, perhaps Nokia should make it a little more obvious where their SDKs live for their phones and hold student developer contests or something.

      Errr... you have heard of Java MIDP? Almost all Nokia phones support it - even going back to the 6310i. It's by far the most common

  • Ngage! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr. Vandemar ( 797798 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:19PM (#9725582) Homepage
    How could they possibly be doing poorly when they invented the wonder of sidetalking [sidetalking.com]?

  • Nokia - synonomous with unstylish IMO (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gotr00t ( 563828 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:20PM (#9725585) Journal
    I was never really a huge fan of Nokia becuase of the fact that all of their phones were comparitavely bulky to the newer generation flip phones from Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc. It always irritated me that every single one of their devices was essentially an elongated rectangular prism (some models like NGage being the exception), often being heavier than the competetion. Of the many models that I've tried out, I always found the buttons to be somewhat hard to press, with the "keypad lock" feature to prevent accedental pressing of buttons while in a pocket/bag absolutely unbearable compared to the relative ease of just flipping a phone open.

    I, for one, don't care about "interchangable faceplates" when the devices themselves are of somewhat dated design.

  • Funny.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bobman1235 ( 191138 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:20PM (#9725586) Homepage
    The features that are "luring customers away from Nokia" are the reasons I stick with Nokia. I never liked clamshell phones, more because no one seems to do it quite right than any other reason. AND I hate the idea of a camera phone. On so many levels.

    I've had three Nokias, a Motorola, and a Samsung in my cell phone career, and the Nokias have all been the best. Well, except for the first one, but that was at the birth of cell phone popularity, so I don't really pin it on Nokia. It was the best at the time :)

    • I've considered getting a camera phone, but never for the reasons that they seem to show in the commercials. Where I can imagine it coming in useful is when my wife sends me to the store for some insufficiently described item. Right now, I can call and say "did you mean the one in the purple box or the turquoise one.", to which I get a non-responsive answer like "its not really a box so much as a plastic wrapping.." and the frustration on both sides builds from there with each subsequent question and resp

  • P910 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zeth ( 452280 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:22PM (#9725593) Homepage Journal
    Who would ever need a Nokia when SonyEricsson has the P910 [sonyericsson.com]!
    The _perfect_ phone/PDA.

  • Able to leverage their brand this way. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stubtify ( 610318 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:26PM (#9725612)
    Everyone seems to be complaining that 35 phone models seem to be far too many. However Nokia has to offer phones for different providers to be able to compete. They've always offered one or two CDMA phones and they continue to do so, an increase here would likely account for the high number of new phones.

    However, Nokia is a smart company. What do they care if they have 35 models? The average (not anyone reading slashdot) Cell phone user cares about two things: One, the phone looks good to them, and right now this means flip phones. And two, the phone has the features they want. That second request is going to be different for every person.

    It is this diversity that can help nokia. A soccer mom who calls a max of 10 minutes a day and a corporate executive who needs a high capacity battery are two totally different segments of the market. However the Nokia brand can keep both by releasing phones taylored for each.

    Lastly, you'd be surpirsed how many millions of people hate learning a "new" phone. I personally can't stand nokia phones, they're bulky, have features I never need, and I can't seem to get used to the menus. But I hear from everyone i know with one that "they're so easy to use." And if you know how to use one nokia, you know how to use them all. That's their best kept secret.

  • Nokia get the basics wrong (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:26PM (#9725613) Homepage Journal
    The user interface of a pushbutton telephone is such a simple thing, yet almost every Nokia phone breaks the rules, or bends it so far it hurts.

    4 rows of 3 numbers (plus # and *), equally sized. Is that really too much to ask for?

    If Nokia could stick to this simple rule, I'd have bought another one. I now have a Sony Ericsson phone.
    • Actually Nokia has done a lot of research in to the keyboard layout of a phone. Then have found that the old standard of 4 rows of 3 equally-sized buttons is not optimal for one-thumb dialing.

      Despite all the different-looking layouts from Nokia, they are all actually the same basic layout, which is optimized for use with one hand.

      Nokia has also been able to standardize the basic phone case design, allowing mass-production of low-priced basic phones. I personally hate this idea of digital convergence. J
      • "Nokia has done a lot of research in to the keyboard layout of a phone"

        N-gage. Enough said?

        "they are all actually the same basic layout, which is optimized for use with one hand"

        I suggest you go look at their phones.

        5 buttons in a column on one side of the screen and 5 in another on the other side (the 7600) isn't the same as 6 toggle switches with 2 numbers each (the 3200) isn't the same as buttons in 3 groups of triangles (3650), isn't the same as the conventional layout but with the middle column
    • > 4 rows of 3 numbers (plus # and *), equally sized. Is that really too much to ask for?

      The Nokia 6600 is like this. The buttons are really crammed together tho, so it's not for the fat-fingered. I kind of wanted an ericsson myself (also of the "no clamshells, no pointy antennas" school), but T-Mobile didn't have the one I wanted, and we got a good deal on two of 'em, so here I am. Gets damn nice reception tho, so I'm quite happy with it.

    • 3410 (Score:2)

      by pjt33 ( 739471 )
      4 rows of 3 numbers (plus # and *), equally sized. Is that really too much to ask for?
      Sounds like a description of my Nokia 3410, actually.
  • They plan to win by introducing 35 new models in one year? When Jobs returned to Apple, they had 35 models of mac with arbitrary names like Mac 2200/750. It was a confusing morass. He rejuvenated them in part by canning that mess and developing a small number of compelling products. Now Nokia thinks developing a mess is the way to go?
  • I've recently switched to a Nokia phone after using Motorola for a few years. It is *much* better for texting (SMS). I just wish that I could run the software [nokia.com] that they offer through their website; unfortunately it all requires Windows. Supporting Linux might help them to get back at least a little of the market that they are losing.

  • Nokia is too expensive (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kyknos.org ( 643709 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:31PM (#9725638) Homepage
    Nokia is too expensive. For half the price I can buy Siemens with the same functionality.

  • Nokia has been tremendously successful (Score:5, Insightful)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:32PM (#9725644) Homepage Journal
    Well, first of all, Nokia has been very successful in the cell phone market, and generally when you have high-quality competing players, the competition kicks in, and things even out. Nokia boasted 34.7% global marklet share in 2003 [itfacts.biz], and in Q1 2004 grew in European region with those new concept devices like N-Gage [itfacts.biz] and what not. Suchy growth is hardly sustainable, especially when competition largely is just as good.

    Second, US is a large market for cell phones in regards to global sales. However, few of US customers ever choose their cellphones, since in the United States the phones are purchased by the operator, not customer. Which still creates some sort of competition, but it's way tougher to push newer phones and newer features, while the operator still has the year-old models available and runs those commercial "and now get a free blah-blah-blah phone with the signup for 1-year plan".

    Realistically I think slipping to 28.9% is not too big of a deal, and Nokia will kick back after maybe just one sweet deal with US operator like Cingular or Verizon, where new models get pushed.
  • Hmmm...the way nokia seems to be going, pretty soon, you'll have phones that you can put on the ground and play that dance-on-the-lit-squares-to-really-bad-music game... .
    .
    .
    .
    oh, wait a minute....people are already doing it without waiting for the game to be programmed into the phone....i think it's called stomp-the-phone...whatever happened to just talking into a phone *sigh*

  • Too little too late, in the US at least... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chuqmystr ( 126045 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:38PM (#9725664) Homepage
    Unfortunately for Nokia they probably won't be able to win back many here in US anytime soon. <sarcasm> Our wonderful carriers </sarcasm> have such a convoluted aproval process that it can take over a year to get a new handset to market. The CDMA guys are the worst too. Still waiting for some sort of functional bluetooth. (Nokia has been trying to get VZW to show more interest in their CDMA chipset for a very long time now. Qualcomm has it pretty sewn up. Oh, not hold my breath for the moto V710 either) Hell, even IR ports are rare. Guess the CDMA guys here hold stock in some data cable manufacturers? Hmmm...

    N'way, my point being that by the time some of those new handsets make it to market here many consumers may just be starting to forget about Nokia. Credit where it's due though, T-mobile got the 6600 out fairly fast. But then they're not an American (or CDMA) carier either. Just my $0.02

  • Hey Nokia! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Psychic Burrito ( 611532 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:44PM (#9725699)
    Hello Nokia! If you're reading this, we have already figured out your trick: You never sell a phone will all the features. I guess you do this to artificially "keep the hunger up" for your phones, because people will then have to buy a phone which has one more feature the next year. And then again.

    Well we have found out your trick already 3 years ago. Other companies sell phones with the whole nine yards, and they're light too. So we now buy these phones. Bad Nokia, bad!

    If you want my business back, give me a phone that has every feature in it. Every acronym, even if I don't know what it means. I want to have it. It's some sort of spiritiual thing, you know.

  • It's a shame too... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mo ( 2873 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:49PM (#9725721)
    The real bummer about this is that Nokia has far and away the most open platform for development [nokia.com] of any phone manufacturer. They provide a huge array of sdk's and example code for both symbian and j2me developers.

    Contrast this with an LG phone running brew on verizon and you have to pay all kinds of money and jump through all kinds of hoops just to write an app that verizon decides it doesn't want to distribute anyway.

    My (very small) company is developing a cellphone app, and the costly barrier for starting Brew/Verizon devleopment is preventing us from using that platform. You pay through the nose for the development suite, then it's 300 bucks to register as a qcomm developer, then you have to jump through all of these verisign hoops to get a DRM key to sign your apps with, then you have to mail in your phone to be flashed into development mode, then you have to deal with verizon for distribution.

    Meanwhile we're downloading compilers, tools, and example apps off the net for the nokia symbian platform that just work on an unmodded handset we bought at the store.
  • Is their goal to saturate the market with so many models they'll just win by random choice? That sounds like crap to me.. but then I'm an engineer, not a marketing exec.

    Still, if their phones suck then no one is going to buy them. I bought my nice Moto V600 because it had the features I wanted and wasnt a hassle to use. Nokia made the goddamn buttons so small on their phones and in such stupid designs. Make a cell phone thats easy to use and works well... doesnt need to be art-deco looking.
  • That is a bit excessive.

  • I Just Want To Call People! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Farrside ( 78711 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @01:01PM (#9725781)
    I think they could increase their sales a bit if they'd offer a phone that JUST MAKES CALLS. I don't want to play games. I don't want voice features. I don't mind customized rings, but I don't need them either. I especially don't want the bloody animations whenever I do anything with the phone- I just want it to do whatever it was I asked it, and then stop showing off so I can press more keys without waiting for the phone!!!
    I can't believe I'm alone- there must be a lot more folks out there who just want a phone!
  • luring customers away to phones by other brands such as Motorola

    Um, I remember when Motorola WAS the cell phone market. Basic cell phones have turned into another fad, where people upgrade solely for the 'WOW' factor.

    you do have the PDA users who want the combined features.

    Back in the day, it was all about size (or lack thereof). That's when I switched from Motorola to Audiovox (remember when audiovox was cool?). Now, I don't really need a smaller phone, but I don't need the features as well - so u

  • I wanted a phone with
    color screen, GPRS and polyphonic sounds
    3 phones fitted the above options and and were equally priced
    Nokia 3200
    Sony Ericsson T 210
    Samsung SGH-C100

    Used each phone for 10 mins and the user friendliness of Nokia was outstanding
  • phones can truly be a phone+pda+music player combination I'll just stick to the freebie phones.

    I use mine primarily for work, and they aren't willing to spring for a treo ... and until they get neuros or ipod type music features (20+gb, nice interface, etc) they aren't worth 300 or 400$ to me.
  • I used to have a Nokia 2160 phone a long time ago and it was great. Not so long ago I purchased a Nokia 3310 GSM and it sucked. After a few months it became crazy. A lot of funny things appeared on the screen. Here in the third world warranties don't last long so I had to buy another phone. This time I sent nokia to hell and bought a Siemens C35. That phone rocks. It has better features (the only thing that sucks is the tune editor) than the nokia, was less expensive and has way better quality. I have a fri

  • I want fewer features! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sahonen ( 680948 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @01:26PM (#9725912) Homepage Journal
    I don't want 5 million features I don't want or need in a $5,000 phone. I just want a couple of useful features in a nice inexpensive phone I won't be afraid to actually use.

    For me, the following would be perfect:
    Folds up to protect the screen from my pocket.
    Monochrome display, just large enough to display the info I need, maybe 3-4 lines. Placed somewhere that won't be pressed up against my cheek when I'm making a call, making me have to wipe it off every time I make a call. Color uses too much batteries.
    A ringtone that sounds like a phone. This is a pet peeve, I don't want some annoying song to play when I get a call, I just want something to let me know I have a call, that's it.
    Good reception. I want to be able to use my phone from my basement or my office building.
    Rugged. Should take at the very least a 3-foot drop.

    That's it! You could probably sell this phone for $50 with a HUUGE profit margin, and I'd buy it.

  • Why Nokia ain't selling more phones (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bmo ( 77928 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @01:26PM (#9725916)
    Because the old models are more durable than anything by Motorola, Samsung, or the rest.

    I've dropped mine on concrete, had it go skidding 'cross the shop floor, etc etc etc.

    It still works. The only thing it could use is a new plastic shell.

    I dropped a Motorola *once*. Within a week, the screen died.

    My Nokia is an old 3390. It doesn't fold in half and doesn't have an external antenna. It doesn't have a camera. It doesn't have a fancy qwerty thumb keyboard. The display is rugged. Since the case is an external component to the phone itself, cracking the case isn't always going to crack the phone itself.

    IOW, it's well engineered, even for a cheap phone. This probably (definitely) means that people aren't replacing them as often as say...Motorola phones.

    It's like whether you buy a Federal Products dial indicator (I've got 3, plus 2 CDI indicators graduated in .0001 inches), or a cheap Chinese knockoff. I've got a Federal indicator that's pre *WWII* by the looks of it. It's just as smooth and accurate as anything new.

    You can have my 3390 when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

    --
    BMO
    • Well, they tried to fix that in recent years, I can tell you that much. :-P

      My old 3210 survived two hours in the washing machine. My girlfriend's recent model died after a full day in her pocket in rain.

      It goes the same way with pretty much any company:

      1) Make a good product
      2) See it take off
      3) Profit!
      4) Dump the quality
      5) Wonder why the market thinks you suck.

      But the really bad thing is that the other manufacturers now know that they need to live up to the old standards of the successful compa

  • People like lots of features, people are buying expensive phone and Samsung is flat out better at doing that.

    It's not about product design it's about running an entire country.

  • Why flip phones ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Frog in the well ( 795793 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @01:58PM (#9726012)
    Of the reasons for the popularity of the flip phones over the traditional 'block' phones, the first one is the better audio clarity. The reason being the absence of dense 'sound wave' absorbing electronic components and other structures near the earpiece speaker. So you get better acoustic properties, obviating the need to press the earpiece of the phone to your ear to hear better.

    The second reason is the clamshell models have a better 'ear to mouth' length advantage, which is difficult to obtain with the 'block' design unless you want to make the phone 'thin and long' like one of those Sanyo models, which again are more prone to breakage.

    The third reason is the 'ear frying' problem with some of the non-clamshell models (I have noticed this problem with many 'block' phones, atleast when they are new). Because of the proximity of the heat producing components to the earpiece and due to conduction, the region around the earpiece becomes quite warm to cause significant discomfort. But this problem is non-existant with the clamshell, because the bulk of the heat producing electronics is away from the earpiece with little or no conduction.

    The fourth reason being the less scratch prone screen and buttons. Also you dont have the problem of accidental dialing from the speed dial buttons when carrying around, or the discharge of the battery from the frequent turn on due to the accidental key presses.

    The case of Nokia is like a 'hare and tortoise' story, they were sleeping when the others were running. If you have observed the company, there was not much activity atleast for the past 18 months, not many new phones or variety (like clamshell or camera phones). Not much of advertising, so they were effectively getting erased from the collective memory of the consumers. They were in the hibernate mode, now you see the results.

  • I just got a 6100 [nokia.com], and I like it a lot.

    However, there are a couple of things I just can't figure out.

    Like why Nokia didn't include a Java-based HTML browser and e-mail client. If a third party [reqwireless.com] can make them, you'd think Nokia would give it a shot as well.

    Or why there is only *one* game pre-installed, and not a very fun one at that ("Chess Puzzle").

    I can make up for these deficiencies with a few Euros and a few downloads, but it strikes me as odd that Nokia didn't bother updating their phone software on
  • I think this might have something to do with the fact that Nokia had shitty, old-generation phones on the market as 'freebies' (with sign-up) for a couple years longer than other brands - which had irritatingly pitched ringtones. I, personally, got a Kyocera a year and a half ago when I switched providers, at a cost of an extra $20, simply because the Nokia ringtones were beyond irritating.

    Now people are sold on the Sprint (et al.) picture phones.

  • Ya know what would get me buying a phone? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jez9999 ( 618189 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @02:32PM (#9726175) Homepage Journal
    The ability to clacklist certain numbers would get me buying a phone. It's #1 on my desired features list for my next phone, which is probably why I haven't yet bought an other phone - NO phones seem to offer the ability to blacklist (or auto decline) the most important number of all - Number Withheld. If Nokia actually implemented useful functionality such as this in just ONE of their phones instead of concentrating in making them look weird/stupid and play ever larger numbers of Java games, they'd have earned a sale from me, that's for sure.

  • keypads (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Refrag ( 145266 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @05:47PM (#9727270) Homepage
    They might sell more phones if they didn't put stupid non-standard keypads on all of theirs. I know I used to love Nokia, but I switched to Sony Ericcsons for the Bluetooth, Java, and a normal keypad. I never use the stupid camera on the phone.

  • Bluetooth (Score:5, Insightful)

    by metamatic ( 202216 ) on Saturday July 17, 2004 @08:29PM (#9728105) Homepage Journal
    I loved my Nokia phone. But I wanted it to sync with my computer, and Nokia didn't have any Bluetooth phones for sale in the US. So, I got a Sony Ericsson.

    The Sony Ericsson is slow and poor quality compared to my Nokia, but Nokia still only have one Bluetooth phone on the market, and have a ton of stupid designs--circular keyboards, keyboards with two buttons on each key, slanted keypads, and so on. Idiots.

  • the problem with nokia (or at least from the ph) (Score:3, Informative)

    by john_uy ( 187459 ) on Sunday July 18, 2004 @11:52AM (#9731529)
    *note* we are using gsm as mobile standard so cdma type phones may not be application in this discussion.

    1. i am not surprised that they will be relasing a lot of models this year. probably it will be a model something like xx10 xx15 xx20 xx25 xx30. all featuring the same system with different casings, or different software features. the problem with this is that it is difficult to choose phones with only one feature compared to a competitor with feature rich phones. for example, you either choose a colored screen, one with flashlight, one with fm radio, one with camera, one with bluetooth.

    2. nokia phones are expensive and devalue quickly. in our country, turn over for phones are very quick (i've been using 4 different mobile phones for the last 2 years and plan on upgrading to sonyericsson p910 - i've used p800 and using p900 now.) the problem is that nokia phones are sold at a high price initially but quickly goes down. the phone cannot be sold at a reasonable price. compare this with sonyericsson t68 that lost just around 60% of its face value years ago (probably around 3 at least.) with nokia phones, the prices go down at around 50% in just a few months (not talking about half a year here!) people get pissed and they just buy other phones. i am not afraid of selling my existing p900 at a huge loss.

    3. quality of phones. the old ones are good but i think the new ones are not of good quality. nokia phones sold in our country had problems with the lcd screens in different models. the solution is to change the screen which is quite expensive (considering the price of the phone has been devalued.) many new phones are of better quality. take for example my previous p800 where it is full of scratches as it fell and fell. the same with my p900 - hasn't failed me yet. i'm quite impressed with how they handle falls (as in around > 1 meter from the ground that is hard.) being a smartphone with a big and touch sensitive screen , i haven't had problems. compare this with my old nokia that i have to replace the lcd around twice already.

    4. lastly, i think that the competitors just release better phones (both features and design.) back when nokia was dominant, they was no design and feature for other mobile phones that was even close. all were yucky (bulky, expensive and featureless.) but now, the others have innovated and introduced lots of new features and nokia didn't quite catch up. now this is a problem for them. as a sidenote, i watched in discovery channel about a documentary of samsung. i'm amazed on how they design mobile phones including their turn over time for design to market in only 6 months (they claim it is half of their nearest competitors!)

    anyway, this is a problem with nokia and may only be limited to them. other manufacturers are enjoying growth. it's now quite interesting to see the market on who will dominate (but i guess it will be samsung overtaking them in a year's time.) i'll be waiting for the mobile phone wars. probably new features and designs will be accelerated and, of course, consumers will be able to benefit. though japan is enjoying the cool features, i can't wait for my phone to have wifi capabilities for seamless roaming and camera of at least 2 megapixels. :)

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