Google launches a 1080p, Snapdragon 800 phone at $349.

[Doctor Pork]

It is obviously useless to compare prices with a phone more or less sold at cost by an advertising company which does not make money on hardware. To not count the price for advertising and research and development is clearly misleading, and by the way, apple likely have lower costs for manufacturing than the other manufacturers due to them only releasing a few models and than reaching economics of scale by selling tens of million of them.

Even if we count these costs, it is still misleading to not count the costs of actually selling the phones. The operators might eat the costs on contract, but that is because they make their money selling you mobile services. The off contract prices have to take into account the costs of getting the phones to each store and then pay for the stores and the people selling the phones. The costs for actually selling a product to the end user are often higher than the costs to produce the product in the first place, just look at the cost breakdown of clothes.

If the prices are so ridiculous, how come it's pretty much only Samsung and Apple making a big profit in this industry?

 

[Daylife]

lol.

I dont understand where your "lol" is coming from?........Care to elaborate?

 

[Michael Alan Goff]

The phone is cheap for a very good reason, no marketing, no distribution.

This device will sell, but not much, its a very good phone, but if no one knew about it? Its useless.

Nexus 4 had almost no marketing, and it was still almost constantly sold out.

Also, this one does have marketing.

 

[cckgz4]

The general public will not know about this device. How many units did the 4 sell?

Sent from my RM-915_nam_usa_228 using Tapatalk

 

[a5cent]

I wouldn't be surprised if Google is heavily subsidizing the cost of the phone. With the amount of money they have they can afford to do that. Other OEMs don't have that luxury.

No. They aren't subsidizing the phone. Even the iP5S costs little over $200 to manufacture. Even after factoring in engineering expenses, Google is still not subsidizing the new Nexus. What Google isn't getting from this device are notable profits. However, as always, Google doesn't need money from consumers to make profits. Google makes profits selling the data these devices collect. Getting as many of these devices out as possible, at cost, is very much in their interest, and ultimately, very profitable for Google. They just don't need to earn money on device sales to do so.

As far as I can tell their flagships do not sell in any meaningful quantity, offering disruptive price points could change that.

I agree with your analysis, but not with your conclusion.

I think Google has MS over the chopping block here. Apple even more so. It's just a matter of time before smartphones become cheap commodity products. Google will eventually drive prices to the point where competing in the market is only possible if you can rely on alternative revenue streams. The only thing holding Google back is their participation in the Open Handset Alliance, as Google can't have their hardware partners running off to support competitors, at least for now.

Given this situation, there is no such thing as disruptive pricing. If MS/Nokia were to undercut Google with their WP devices, then Google could easily follow suit. In that competitive race towards rock bottom prices, MS/Nokia would be hurting themselves far more than Google. Such action is only disruptive if the competition can't or refuses to follow. Google can and would.

As such, it is in MS'/Nokia's best interest to delay that race as much as possible. Market share is important, but sacrificing all your earnings just to reach your market share goals is a great way to kill a company.

The L520 is well suited for chasing market share. The same will be true of its successor (whatever comes after the 525). That is what the cheap devices are for. The rest of the MS/Nokia line up should focus on other goals. I agree that MS/Nokia must quickly upgrade their mid range to better compete with the new Nexus, but undercutting them and attempting to compete on price in the mid-range won't solve anything. Using high-end devices to go after market share would be even worse, as that will quickly bring share holders down on MS/Nokia with a vengeance.

I think MS'/Nokia's current marketing mix and product positioning is fine. That's not the problem. The problems are still the same as they've always been... an under featured OS, lack of developer support, and MS' continuing failure to leverage their other franchises and tie them all together into a single, integrated, simple and compelling ecosystem.

 

[a5cent]

I've been reading about Android 4.4 and something I find interesting is it is optimized for lower end hardware. I think Google is trying to get their hand in the market that Nokia is doing so well in.

Won't happen. At the point Google is with Android, there is only so much optimization they can do. They are in the same predicament Microsoft is in with Windows. Any of the big and very worthwhile things you could change to make it run better on low-end hardware, would break compatibility. That isn't an option. These types of engineering decisions need to be factored in at the get-go. For Android, that ship has sailed. That is precisely why Android has been relying almost exclusively on the bigger-faster-better hardware approach. It's really the only viable approach they have. High-end smartphone hardware is now at the point where it can cover up OS inefficiencies. In a few more years, low-end hardware will also reach that point, but the inefficiencies won't be gone... they'll just be out of sight.

 

[luk3ja]

Are you forgetting that Microsoft is purchasing Nokia? It absolutely can afford to play that game.

Lol, everyone is still saying that Microsoft is purchasing Nokia. No they are not! They are simply buying the devices sector from Nokia. Nokia will not be owned by Microsoft and it will continue to exist as it's own company providing hardware for mobile phone networks and also continue it's amazing HERE services.

 

[neo158]

I agree. With KitKat it appears that Google is trying to combat the fragmentation. Obviously there are a lot of low end Android phones, but they run older versions of Android. KitKat is designed to run light enough for low end devices as well.

Tell that to people who won't get Android 4.4. That's really helping fragmentation isn't it /s

 

[realwarder]

Google isn't selling this on the high street which is where 95% of people buy phones still. therefore it's not going to impact Nokia in any significant way.

 

[iAdrian23]

My guess is that Google is going to use the ads (all over the phone) to make profit. Am I right?

Anyway, some of you are right. While other phones price's do drop, Nexus's line MERELY do.

I'm still waiting for a mix between 925/920 and 1020. Please Microsoft, fulfill my dreams this summer

 

[Michael Alan Goff]

My guess is that Google is going to use the ads (all over the phone) to make profit. Am I right?

Anyway, some of you are right. While other phones price's do drop, Nexus's line MERELY do.

I'm still waiting for a mix between 925/920 and 1020. Please Microsoft, fulfill my dreams this summer

Aside from camera, please tell me how any of those phones are better than the Nexus 5. The Nexus 5 has fairly top of the line specs. :\

 

[Michael Alan Goff]

Tell that to people who won't get Android 4.4. That's really helping fragmentation isn't it /s

I think the idea is that they're almost to the point where every application is in the store. The launcher is in the store, the gmail application is, calendar is, SMS is because of hangouts integration, and the list continues. Once they get everything in the store, it won't matter what version you're on for a long time. They'll just send you updates for the launcher or dialer or whatever else they want to tweak. That's how Google will fight fragmentation.

 

[rockstarzzz]

OP is comparing Linux to Windows and Android to Windows and Tesco to Marks&Spencers.

The difference is quality. No doubt Android has all the power user features but it is a free OS. Windows on the other hand is an OS you pay fee for. That itself raises the prices. For Google as many have rightly pointed it is affordable to offer phones at silly rates as their advertising revenue goes miles ahead as soon as you have a Google account to log in to that device to use almost everything. No, don't tell me you don't need a Google account because then it won't be a smartphone thing to do.

You cannot compare these two. Try and compare a Note 3 with Nokia's phablet maybe?

 

[z33dev33l]

Aside from camera, please tell me how any of those phones are better than the Nexus 5. The Nexus 5 has fairly top of the line specs. :\

Easy, they run windows phone. Put a lambo engine in a jumbo jet and tell me how it goes. Put a hemi in something optimized for it and you're gonna do a lot better.

 

[scottcraft]

Won't happen. At the point Google is with Android, there is only so much optimization they can do. They are in the same predicament Microsoft is in with Windows. Any of the big and very worthwhile things you could change to make it run better on low-end hardware, would break compatibility. That isn't an option. These types of engineering decisions need to be factored in at the get-go. For Android, that ship has sailed. That is precisely why Android has been relying almost exclusively on the bigger-faster-better hardware approach. It's really the only viable approach they have. High-end smartphone hardware is now at the point where it can cover up OS inefficiencies. In a few more years, low-end hardware will also reach that point, but the inefficiencies won't be gone... they'll just be out of sight.

So you don't think 4.4 will run decent on devices with half a gig of ram? By optimization I meant Google intends to improve memory management and do all sorts of things I don't understand. Seems like I saw a part where there will be tools for app developers to help make their apps more efficient with memory. At this point I won't put it past Google to make android run well on lower hardware. That's really the only area where Android isn't way ahead of everyone.

 

[tgp]

Tell that to people who won't get Android 4.4. That's really helping fragmentation isn't it /s

It won't help today obviously, but consider KitKat the starting point. If reducing fragmentation is indeed their goal, it will be from here on out.

 

[AngryNil]

Market share is growing at a steady rate, and the awareness is becoming more broad. Trying to keep up with the "times" is a losing race as far as specs go. I think what they're doing now, making niche devices for those that crave those things like the 1020, is the best route

I don't think there is any right or wrong answer here. Perhaps you see the current trajectory as satisfactory, but I do not, and I'd bet neither does Microsoft. It's been three years and Windows Phone is still not at 4% market share globally. Even if Microsoft's future is to step away from the OEM model and become a fully vertically integrated company, it will want more than 4% market share on the low-end. Yes, OS X has little market share and still manages to be a successful product and ecosystem, but that is because it has the high-end.

Lol, everyone is still saying that Microsoft is purchasing Nokia. No they are not! They are simply buying the devices sector from Nokia. Nokia will not be owned by Microsoft and it will continue to exist as it's own company providing hardware for mobile phone networks and also continue it's amazing HERE services.

That's just arguing over semantics. The Nokia that everyone knows and cares about creates smartphones, and that is being purchased by Microsoft.

The L520 is well suited for chasing market share. The same will be true of its successor (whatever comes after the 525). That is what the cheap devices are for. The rest of the MS/Nokia line up should focus on other goals. I agree that MS/Nokia must quickly upgrade their mid range to better compete with the new Nexus, but undercutting them and attempting to compete on price in the mid-range won't solve anything. Using high-end devices to go after market share would be even worse, as that will quickly bring share holders down on MS/Nokia with a vengeance.

I think MS'/Nokia's current marketing mix and product positioning is fine. That's not the problem. The problems are still the same as they've always been... an under featured OS, lack of developer support, and MS' continuing failure to leverage their other franchises and tie them all together into a single, integrated, simple and compelling ecosystem.

The 520 is rock-bottom as far as I'm concerned; I think it's dangerous to place so much of your growth on one specific device in one price bracket, especially with the news that Google is investing in going further downstream with Android 4.4. I definitely don't suggest Nokia to undercut the Nexus with the 1520 or anything, but I think they need compelling devices at other price points where you can just say "this is great value" like with the 520. What we've seen is the 620 fail to offer much over the 520, the 720 being a premium-priced, mid-range device with middling specs, and no one knows where the heck the 820 was supposed to fit in. So I think we meet halfway there – their mid-range needs some serious work.

Maybe their flagships can stay at similar prices to the competition, though I still think they should be negotiating for on-contract price drops like they did with the Lumia 900 – the exclusivity should be worth something.

The difference is quality. No doubt Android has all the power user features but it is a free OS. Windows on the other hand is an OS you pay fee for. That itself raises the prices. For Google as many have rightly pointed it is affordable to offer phones at silly rates as their advertising revenue goes miles ahead as soon as you have a Google account to log in to that device to use almost everything.

You state the difference is quality, but where's the case for it? The fact is that Windows Phone is a long way away from Android in functionality, while OS X and Windows are much closer. Even iOS 7 brings a tonne of changes for developers to further strengthen its ecosystem advantage, while Windows Phone developers are still asking for access to videos in the camera roll. And I think most consumers will give the finger to "quality" if it means:

• First party apps that have sat around doing nothing. You've probably heard all the complaints about Calendar and Email already. Maps has no turn-by-turn navigation, and if you go the Nokia route, it's annoyingly separated into two apps and Drive still doesn't have traffic information. Messaging only integrates with Facebook (who owns Skype again?) and that's been half-broken for more than a year now.The Office apps have frustrating UIs and limitations. There's still no predictive dialing for the phone. Photos – ergh, don't get me started. Camera & IE have subpar UIs.
• Missed opportunities. Integration with People / Messaging / Photos. Mobile XBL. Hubs.
• Developer restrictions. It's just depressing to see users posting questions on this forum or elsewhere each day, wondering whether the platform can do this or that, then knowing the answer is "Microsoft isn't doing it, and doesn't allow developers to do it".

 

[cckgz4]

I don't think there is any right or wrong answer here. Perhaps you see the current trajectory as satisfactory, but I do not, and I'd bet neither does Microsoft. It's been three years and Windows Phone is still not at 4% market share globally. Even if Microsoft's future is to step away from the OEM model and become a fully vertically integrated company, it will want more than 4% market share on the low-end. Yes, OS X has little market share and still manages to be a successful product and ecosystem, but that is because it has the high-end.

So what do you suggest they do (in a no hostile-defensive question)? Yes, it's fair to count Windows Phone (7) as the included timeline, but things didn't pick up until Windows Phone (8). From Nokia producing more hardware to more awareness being brought, which is also thanks to Windows 8 being pushed out (along with a ton of catchy commercials and adverts). Windows Phone 7 had somewhat of a push initially, but nowhere near the type of campaign it's getting now (Nokia Lumia 1020 was one of the main advertisements for this past VMA's on MTV). Personally, I think beefing up specs and whatnot should be an Android only thing. Why? Cause, IMO, they need it to a) stand out from the rest and b) there are so many hands in the pot for the OS to be optimized for every single device. It wasn't until Android started catching on that the attention started shifting to specs and power. Before, no one gave a damn. And even to this day, specs (outside of Android) doesn't matter to the general consumer (except for the camera). Now, if Microsoft/Nokia start making the mistake of charging premium prices for lackluster/dated specs (like Blackberry), then they will be shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[cckgz4]

To give a perfect example of optimization: A co-worker of mine has a Samsung Exhibit II (old phone, about a year plus) and whenever she gets alerts, texts, etc. she can see it in her notification header but the phone freezes so bad she has to wait about two minutes before she can go to it. Now let's compare specs:

The Exhibit has 1 GB of memory and 512 MB ram, was released in 2011 of October, was released with Gingerbread, has a 1GHZ CPU (Scorpion), and a 1500 mah battery

My phone, the 520, has an 8 GB internal memory and 512 MB of ram, Dual Core 1 GHZ CPU (Adreno), and a 1430 mah battery

Very close in specs, but different performances. I make this point with a two year old phone because I promise you, two years from now, my 520 won't have the issues that she's having, ESPECIALLY since she just purchased it about 5 months ago brand new

 

[AngryNil]

So what do you suggest they do (in a no hostile-defensive question)?… Personally, I think beefing up specs and whatnot should be an Android only thing. Why? Cause, IMO, they need it to a) stand out from the rest and b) there are so many hands in the pot for the OS to be optimized for every single device. It wasn't until Android started catching on that the attention started shifting to specs and power. Before, no one gave a damn. And even to this day, specs (outside of Android) doesn't matter to the general consumer (except for the camera).

Hm, sorry if I have come across as overly-defensive or anything like that. For all I know, no significant changes will have to be made and Windows Phone will still grow over the next few years. I just think that as competition shifts and Microsoft is still just toes-deep in the market, it's worth reevaluating what's been achieved so far.

Yeah, Android manufacturers do have this spec-pissing contest going on. But Microsoft+Nokia do need a clear reason to choose a Windows Phone over more popular, proven choices like iPhones and Galaxies. It seems Nokia's plan was to saturate the channels with a bunch of models, so consumers will notice one or the other, and hence perhaps consider one. I feel Nokia is spreading itself too thin to allow for each of their models to be compelling at each price point. I don't have any solid numbers to prove my point, but I'm pretty sure (AdDuplex, etc.) that some of their models are simply not doing well. The 520 is a success, but I think that is because it is inherently good, and they need more of that.

So my original idea was to have more of those kinds of devices at other price points. The reason for saying "this is one of the best devices at $300" does not have to be that it is a Snapdragon 800 inside; it might have a Snapdragon 400, but maybe it's designed like the Lumia 720 and has a great camera. Some people are right in what they say about the Nexus 5, it probably isn't going to get the widest distribution, and it seems that it is going to be marked up at external retailers. Nokia doesn't necessarily need to match or beat it, just have better distribution and its own unique features.

I'd like to see Nokia bring the stuff they excel in on the high-end further downstream. Great screens (especially in terms of outdoor readability), great cameras. AFAIK the 520 does not have a great screen (though I can hardly blame them at $100), but neither do the 625 and 820. To an even larger degree, only their top-end has their good cameras – 920 and above. The 920 is now discount to $300 occasionally; why not bring that tech to their mid-range (whether it's a 7xx or 8xx class device)? And start pushing 720p to the mid-range, especially for devices larger than say 4.5". I really hope WP 8.1 brings some big change to multitasking, and if it does, I think I'm going to want 1GB of RAM to be more prevalent.

On the software side of things, perhaps we do get caught up all too often in feature parity. That is very important in my eyes, but so is developing a differentiator. I think Microsoft needs to look at something like Glance and make it a core part of what Windows Phone is. I'd like to see them invest in some "basic" camera features like high-res burst and HDR. Google Now is really pretty sweet, I'd like to see Cortana be a selling feature in the same way. Really start to pump some resources into making sure that Microsoft's services are fantastic on Windows Phone. Make interoperability more seamless, have it so if you're running Windows 8, you're probably going to want to have a Windows Phone because they will work that well together. I'd really like them to pull off application data sync using SkyDrive. Maybe they'll have an opportunity to revive mobile XBL over the next few years – the past year has been relatively quiet for mobile gaming, and the new consoles are almost upon us.

To give a perfect example of optimization: A co-worker of mine has a Samsung Exhibit II (old phone, about a year plus) and whenever she gets alerts, texts, etc. she can see it in her notification header but the phone freezes so bad she has to wait about two minutes before she can go to it. Now let's compare specs:

The Exhibit 2 has the same chipset as the Lumia 800. It's not comparable to your Lumia 520.

Taking a specific model (or perhaps even individual device) which is having serious performance issues doesn't quite discredit Android as a whole. I'm sure you know that the two-minute wait for notifications is atypical. Seriously, I have a tonne of issues I inevitably run into with desktop Windows (even on 8.1 right now) and I could similarly paint it as a terrible mess compared to OS X, but I'm not going to because it's unfair. I'm going to need to spend more time with a family member's Optimus G, which has the same chipset as my 8X, but from the times I have poked around in it, app load times are superior to Windows Phone.