Nokia answers iPhone's blows with its first touchscreen phone
After more than a year without a direct competitor to the iPhone, Nokia on Thursday fired back with a phone that it hopes will better Apple's now widespread device -- albeit with a delayed launch and a few other catches.
Although the largest single producer of cellphones in the world, Nokia is only now rolling out its first touchscreen phone in the form of the 5800 XpressMusic.
Pitched as a media phone first and an Internet device second, the familiar-looking device has 3G, GPS and Wi-Fi but focuses most of its attention on a reworked, 5th Edition of the Symbian Series 60 operating system that has a drop-down media bar for controlling music regardless of where the user might happen to be in their software.
The Finland-based company touts a crisper 640x360 screen versus the iPhone's 480x320, vibration feedback for on-screen presses, a 3.2-megapixel camera with flash and video recording, and removable storage.
And in a not-so-subtle tweak at the absence of Flash on the iPhone, Nokia notes that Flash Lite 3 is built into the 5800's full HTML web browser.
"Individuals can surf the entire web, not just pieces of it," the company boasts.
Price is also important to Nokia. The phone's unsubsidized price with an 8GB memory card is set at 279 Euro, or $396 -- well below the $631 UK iPhone sold with O2's pay-as-you-go service and lower still than the $826 Belgian iPhone.
A special version of the phone will come later with access to the handset maker's Comes With Music, a service that hikes the price of the phone in return for a year's worth of unlimited but permanent music downloads.
Even with these key differences, several discrepancies as well as Nokia's current competitive environment may dampen expectations. Thanks in part to Apple's patents for multi-touch input, the 5800 uses a single-touch display and comes bundled with a stylus to handle aspects of the interface that can't be controlled with a finger.
The screen is also dependent on pressure for input rather than the reaction to finger electricity that makes the iPhone's input relatively subtle and precise, further supporting the need for a pen.
Moreover, Nokia's final release plans for the heavily leaked phone are now known to be especially conservative. Instead of a launch into its core European market or into Apple's US home, Nokia will have to launch its first touchscreen phone in Asia, the Middle East and Russia during 2008. American and European launches are now only due in 2009 and won't necessarily bring Comes With Music to all areas.
The official explanation, according to representatives speaking with Forbes, is the insistence by carriers such as Orange and Vodafone that the new XpressMusic phone come to their networks with proprietary branding and portals adapted to the touch interface. By contrast, Apple has so far insisted on keeping nearly all carrier branding and interfaces off of iPhones regardless of territory and just recently completed its third wave of iPhone 3G introductions, launching the phone in 30 more countries late last month.
The delays only serve to reinforce problems that the Symbian Foundation and Nokia itself has had with preserving its lead. Recent statistics from the mobile operating system development group have Symbian's use on phones growing just 5 percent year-over-year versus rapid growth just the year before, while Nokia proper has had to lower estimates for its market share during the summer as Apple and peers undercut its smartphones' pricing.
Although the largest single producer of cellphones in the world, Nokia is only now rolling out its first touchscreen phone in the form of the 5800 XpressMusic.
Pitched as a media phone first and an Internet device second, the familiar-looking device has 3G, GPS and Wi-Fi but focuses most of its attention on a reworked, 5th Edition of the Symbian Series 60 operating system that has a drop-down media bar for controlling music regardless of where the user might happen to be in their software.
The Finland-based company touts a crisper 640x360 screen versus the iPhone's 480x320, vibration feedback for on-screen presses, a 3.2-megapixel camera with flash and video recording, and removable storage.
And in a not-so-subtle tweak at the absence of Flash on the iPhone, Nokia notes that Flash Lite 3 is built into the 5800's full HTML web browser.
"Individuals can surf the entire web, not just pieces of it," the company boasts.
Price is also important to Nokia. The phone's unsubsidized price with an 8GB memory card is set at 279 Euro, or $396 -- well below the $631 UK iPhone sold with O2's pay-as-you-go service and lower still than the $826 Belgian iPhone.
A special version of the phone will come later with access to the handset maker's Comes With Music, a service that hikes the price of the phone in return for a year's worth of unlimited but permanent music downloads.
Even with these key differences, several discrepancies as well as Nokia's current competitive environment may dampen expectations. Thanks in part to Apple's patents for multi-touch input, the 5800 uses a single-touch display and comes bundled with a stylus to handle aspects of the interface that can't be controlled with a finger.
The screen is also dependent on pressure for input rather than the reaction to finger electricity that makes the iPhone's input relatively subtle and precise, further supporting the need for a pen.
Moreover, Nokia's final release plans for the heavily leaked phone are now known to be especially conservative. Instead of a launch into its core European market or into Apple's US home, Nokia will have to launch its first touchscreen phone in Asia, the Middle East and Russia during 2008. American and European launches are now only due in 2009 and won't necessarily bring Comes With Music to all areas.
The official explanation, according to representatives speaking with Forbes, is the insistence by carriers such as Orange and Vodafone that the new XpressMusic phone come to their networks with proprietary branding and portals adapted to the touch interface. By contrast, Apple has so far insisted on keeping nearly all carrier branding and interfaces off of iPhones regardless of territory and just recently completed its third wave of iPhone 3G introductions, launching the phone in 30 more countries late last month.
The delays only serve to reinforce problems that the Symbian Foundation and Nokia itself has had with preserving its lead. Recent statistics from the mobile operating system development group have Symbian's use on phones growing just 5 percent year-over-year versus rapid growth just the year before, while Nokia proper has had to lower estimates for its market share during the summer as Apple and peers undercut its smartphones' pricing.
Comments
Sure the rest of the industry are (poorly) copying the iPhone, but thought Nokia would have at least come up with something slightly unique. Sad.
Thanks in part to Apple's patents for multi-touch input, the 5800 uses a single-touch display and comes bundled with a stylus to handle aspects of the interface that can't be controlled with a finger.
The screen is also dependent on pressure for input rather than the reaction to finger electricity that makes the iPhone's input relatively subtle and precise, further supporting the need for a pen.
Not all touch-screens are created equal, shame the buying-public won't get this.
McD
Apple shook-up the industry and now the industry is catching up. What's next Apple?
We have a dot that moves when you drive.
Support for All Major Video Formats including Flash Light.
Voice Dialing.
Speed Dialing.
Stereo BlueTooth.
Video Recording and with front separate camera.
3.2 Mega Pixel Camer with zoom and a flash
Audio and Video Recording Built in
Stereo FM Built in
MMS
Weren't these all the things we wanted when we purchased our iPhone 3G's.
I know it's what I wanted and it's pretty slick looking. Wish I was still in my 30 day return policy.
Apple. Take Note of what's being offered built into the phone without having to pay or wait extra time for.
Nice Job Nokia.
What a blatant rip-off of the iPhone.
Sure the rest of the industry are (poorly) copying the iPhone, but thought Nokia would have at least come up with something slightly unique. Sad.
No it's not- does the iPhone have Flash?
All the music you can download from all labels and independants, Keep the music forever. Authorize a computer to use your Comes With Music too.
Freely give all your music to other Comes With Music users.
Whatever happened to iTunes Unlimited?
I would rather DRM free but I couldn't afford my collection of MP3 files at 0.99c a track. So Comes with Music sounds great.
The real test for many users will be: How well does the device work as a phone, its primary function ? After all, if one just wants pizazz, an iPod Touch is cheaper.
It would be a mistake to underestimate Nokia.
"Individuals can surf the entire web, not just pieces of it," the company boasts.
This is as false as Apple's claim if 'entire web' of full 'internet' means plugins, and support for correctly rendered pages with web standards. Does it support Silverlight, Quicktime, ActiveX? These are part of the internet. While exceedingly common, Adobe Flash is not a web standard.
Another iPhone clone with EPIC FAIL written all over it. Full HTML browser? See that screen cap with Facebook? That's the mobile site.
Nokia bought TrollTech earlier this year. TrollTech created Qt. Nokia is working with Mozilla to get Firefox ported to Qt for S60. This is pretty big deal but both parties to grab users, but I'd say it's much more important for Mozilla as WebKit?not just for the mobile Safari?is dominating smartphones. Even Blackberry and Android have adopted WebKit because of it's highly mobile design.
The single fact that you have to use a stylus (other than being unoriginal) makes this thing lame.
There are plenty that like having a stylus as it does allow for many fine-tuned usage that the iPhone's finger-usage just can't match and won't match. The 5800 may be geared toward better media and internet to compete more directly with the iPhone, but it's still a more hardcore device than the iPhone in many ways. The most iPhone-like phone I've seen is the Sprint Instinct as it's going after the average consumer who probably hasn't ever used a smartphone before, and that is fine for those that want to stay with Sprint (I know several). I love my iPhone as it suits my specific needs, but the 5800 looks like a very solid device that merges popular iPhone features with the Nokia-experience, which happens to have a nice size fan base, too.
crisper 640x360 screen
3.2-megapixel camera with flash and video recording
removable storage
Flash Lite 3 is built in
8GB memory card
year's worth of unlimited but permanent music downloads.
Not a bad start really.
What a blatant rip-off of the iPhone.
Sure the rest of the industry are (poorly) copying the iPhone, but thought Nokia would have at least come up with something slightly unique. Sad.
I don't think it's really a copy, there are quite a few differences that are easy to see. It's kind of hard to make a black rectangle look much more different, and it doesn't seem to have the chrome bezel. I think it's less of a copy of several thematic elements than other touch screen phones are.
People are forgetting about some of the philosophies of Nokia regarding women consumers—women will take notice of this phone. And unfortunately (clone or not) it will bite into Apple iPhone sales.
Forgetting? I've never even heard of a Nokia philosophy regarding women consumers.