Myth of Windows Phone In India

[anon5997296]

I can't tell if you're joking or not.

If you are, bravo for commitment.

He ain't joking, it's the fact in India.

 

[worldspy99]

Speaking of converting people to WP in India, there is a lot of 8 Lumia 822 phones on eBay right now with bad ESN but working phones, which should find a good home outside US since Verizon will not activate them but any GSM SIM card will work. Keep in mind, talk, text and data should work. Do not try to make MMS work - use Viber or Whatsapp instead.

 

[vivekbmi07]

Good article. Its really helpful for us(Indians). But the OS misses few things which are required by most of the Indians(maybe all). I have a 820 and I made 10 of my friends to buy windows phone. All of them after buying the phone asked, where can I find File manager. Few of them asked can they install apps on the sd card and also they would like to save whatsapp videos to the phone.
Hope Microsoft adds these features.

Yes, I am also feeling the same, some more features are like video sharing.

 

[rajamass]

I made 3 of my frnds to buy Lumia 520, two 620, two 720 and one 820

and finally I wanted to have Lumia 1020 for myself but it was priced heavy initially and when I am ready to buy it now, Lumia 1520 is luring me so much

May be I will wait for Lumia 1520

 

[kvrbrijith]

So what features "are required by most of the Indians(maybe all)."?

The things you listed would certainly not apply to most Indians. I believe you are projecting the wants of the few other people you know to an entire consumer base.

Actually, 'File manager ' is the most requested feature for windows phone all over the world.
Feature Suggestions: Top (41021 ideas) – Feature Suggestions for Windows Phone
Beyond that, most of us in India do not use laptops with the mobile. So that, file manager may be the most anticipated feature in India also...

 

[montsa007]

What indian users really need???

1-A file manager->It is very common for a lot of us to be able to browse files and/or be able to use device as mass storage and be ale to atleast view what files are in the device(even if its not supported).
2-A better appstore->Though its not very big deal as the marketplace is growing but its not enough,Indians love to show off and to flaunt what they have among their peers,with so many androids out there with totally "open" platform,it makes us a li'l bit worried but I think it will be solved in coming times.
3-A better video player->Most of us love to watch the videos downloaded from youtube/other site in default FLV format,and we like to carry it on our cells because we are huge "social networking sites" users.
4-Social networking->A full supported native app from facebook is all needed atleast for now as almost every second guy/gal wants to be able to browse facebook without current "mumbo-jumbo" on windows phones.
5-Whatsapp->This is the biggest factor,though its because MS hasn't opened its API and not fault of WA,but again,as these times,a number of people have their frnds who forward them videos and songs etc,and to not to be able to save it biggest pain.
6-Familiarity->You go in Metro,and you see very few with windows phone,y??? Because earlier(before advent of droid) it was nokia's symbian who rules every indian's hear and it has so many features that cannot be even compared to windows phone 8,this is the single factor coupled with above that's restricting.
7-Price->We are very price concious,a typical indian will want feature of a buggati veyron in maruti 800,though you ppl might laugh but with an expanding middle class and rapid urbanisation+globalisation,we indians want to invest in products that work for a long time,as we do not have contract system here so we have to buy the phones,and this makes us go for something which is in fashion or say accepted totally by the society.

Saying that WP8 is secure and other good things,if looked from our view,don't matter much because what we want at the end is a phone that has-
a-Heavy battery
b-be able to play good games
c-let us connect to our fav social sites with ease
d-Let us store more and more on our phones(not all of us own a computer even now)
e-rough and tough(harsh weather and daily running life)
f-Good speakers(sometimes we like to play it loud)
g-wallpapers and theme(though not an issue for me,but,a lot of us like to tweak the appearance)
h-minimalism is good but not everyone understands it.

FYI i own a lumia 720 and I am an Indian and I might have missed a few points but in a nutshell i have tried to enlist the factors that make us go for a phone.

Don't stereotype mate, I've seen college blokes having no income holding a lavish phone and my boss, who is the director of 1 of India's top 10 cement producing companies (and not some middle class guy) using a Nokia E52 for 3 years, he just bought a Nokia 515, 2 days back. Imo middle class people look for the best phone and are willing to stretch their budget without a second thought.

The kind of people who compare 'value' to 'price', in my opinion belong to the lower class, they are fancied by cheap phones by players like Micromax, Karbon, Videocon who (these companies) offer bunch of stuff at a throwaway price which companies like HTC, Samsung cannot. For example at 5k you get Android 4.0, Bluetooth, 5MP Camera, 4GB Onboard memory etc., so a poor person will happily buy this device without knowing that he is entering a dark cave, service centres barely exist and don't solve any problems.

I own a 720 as well as a 1020, and I completely dislike the people who show off their cheap china instruments as if its a crown jewel, specially when it rings like a boombox in the public.

 

[rakesh1995]

Most of my friends says

1-No appzz and gamezz i don't even care to argue with them. Even if i show them my 40+ games in my hub they will next day still say no appzz and gamezzzz. I don't know where from this my came. None of my friend cant even name 2 apps and games combine that is not available in store.



2-unfamiliar interface- dosent matter how simple and productive is metro. We grew up being families to Symbian, home screen, grid layout of icons. Android being nothing other than a Symbian knock off is familiar.



3-no free and good games- baseless comment. Games are priced the same. Excluding some angry bird but we have the add free version which cost the same in android app store. Its not free in ios also. I simply don't know where they go the thinking to say games are not free. If some one give me a $ for ever "make it free" comments in app store i will be next gates.



4-Majority- all have android so i should also have.



5-App piracy- i don't know how android developer can live with it. Back to point. Data in India is quit costly, and wifi is not available. Most people just download apps illegally and install it. Its quicker and cheaper(free). Sometime my friends just transfer app and games through Bluetooth. They ask me does wp do it?.

I mean developer spend nights and days to make a app and they steal it it boils my head.



6-bias salesman- seriously when i went to by 520 that people showed my Galaxy y and even lied it had a dual core processor


Sent from my Uuusumm Lumia 520 using Tapatalk

 

[rakesh1995]

As for me give me a dual sim Lumia 520. I don't care off anything other than it. Its perfect and enuff for a average

Sent from my Uuusumm Lumia 520 using Tapatalk

 

[diktea]

As for me give me a dual sim Lumia 520. I don't care off anything other than it. Its perfect and enuff for a average

1.i too would be very glad if the rumours of dual sim came true (as there are some news recently), my most needed feature.
2. file manager as such is not necessary if all videos and music irrespective of receiving via whatsapp or other apps can be centralized in the common library and be shared. (microsoft seems to be working on it lets just hope)
3. email attachments need to be improved.
4. Other storage is really driving me nuts. anyway the company seem to put it purposefully so can't complain.

 

[rakesh1995]

1.i too would be very glad if the rumours of dual sim came true (as there are some news recently), my most needed feature.
2. file manager as such is not necessary if all videos and music irrespective of receiving via whatsapp or other apps can be centralized in the common library and be shared. (microsoft seems to be working on it lets just hope)
3. email attachments need to be improved.
4. Other storage is really driving me nuts. anyway the company seem to put it purposefully so can't complain.

i don't know why. But i never found not having a file manager a bad thing. I never missed it.

Also other storage problem is in every os





Sent from my Uuusumm Lumia 520 using Tapatalk

 

[anon(7935575)]

I won't say that its just in India. That would be wrong. It's actually around the globe and the ignorance of people gives it a boost.
97% of my friends run Android based phones. Even I was once a huge Android Fan who used to change ROMs daily. No I did not enjoy it. I was frustrated with constant lags and substandard working environment. Yes I would not say that android sucks. It is good. But WP is better.

Apps:
I can barely feel the need of any android app. I don't think anything is missing.But I did start using more apps in WP as it did not make my phone slow as a snail.

Games:
i won't argue here but would say that Android has better games. But those games are full of crappy advertising and push advertisements. I didn't find that in WP. Also more and more game devs are going forward for developing for WP.

EcoSystem/Interface:
Some people just won't change because they are too scared. Notifications? We have live tiles son. You don't need a status bar to tell you if you have notification or not. Yes the notification system can be improved and it will be. Microsoft changed from Windows Mobile to WP which was a totally different ecosystem so the progress is bound to be slow.

Rumors/Ignorance:
A lot of my friends make fun that I chose windows phone. Actually I was gonna buy a HTC One X + but I bought a 520 instead. I saved a hell load of money and also got a stable phone. To be honest I didn't expect to be happy with this phone but I actually did. I just missed a screen rotation lock and a gallery lock (Oh don't pretend you don't know for what). I installed GDR3 for rotation and Used Get Them All or UC browser for the latter.

Future:
MoliPlayer made me believe that the best is yet to come. I think Microsoft will slowly start recognizing the user needs and will change accordingly. There are many apps to come and maybe some day we will be able to do all that stuff that android guys do but with better, stable and cleaner OS.

 

[Abhishek Upadhyay]

What indian users really need???

1-A file manager->It is very common for a lot of us to be able to browse files and/or be able to use device as mass storage and be ale to atleast view what files are in the device(even if its not supported).
2-A better appstore->Though its not very big deal as the marketplace is growing but its not enough,Indians love to show off and to flaunt what they have among their peers,with so many androids out there with totally "open" platform,it makes us a li'l bit worried but I think it will be solved in coming times.
3-A better video player->Most of us love to watch the videos downloaded from youtube/other site in default FLV format,and we like to carry it on our cells because we are huge "social networking sites" users.
4-Social networking->A full supported native app from facebook is all needed atleast for now as almost every second guy/gal wants to be able to browse facebook without current "mumbo-jumbo" on windows phones.
5-Whatsapp->This is the biggest factor,though its because MS hasn't opened its API and not fault of WA,but again,as these times,a number of people have their frnds who forward them videos and songs etc,and to not to be able to save it biggest pain.
6-Familiarity->You go in Metro,and you see very few with windows phone,y??? Because earlier(before advent of droid) it was nokia's symbian who rules every indian's hear and it has so many features that cannot be even compared to windows phone 8,this is the single factor coupled with above that's restricting.
7-Price->We are very price concious,a typical indian will want feature of a buggati veyron in maruti 800,though you ppl might laugh but with an expanding middle class and rapid urbanisation+globalisation,we indians want to invest in products that work for a long time,as we do not have contract system here so we have to buy the phones,and this makes us go for something which is in fashion or say accepted totally by the society.

Saying that WP8 is secure and other good things,if looked from our view,don't matter much because what we want at the end is a phone that has-
a-Heavy battery
b-be able to play good games
c-let us connect to our fav social sites with ease
d-Let us store more and more on our phones(not all of us own a computer even now)
e-rough and tough(harsh weather and daily running life)
f-Good speakers(sometimes we like to play it loud)
g-wallpapers and theme(though not an issue for me,but,a lot of us like to tweak the appearance)
h-minimalism is good but not everyone understands it.

FYI i own a lumia 720 and I am an Indian and I might have missed a few points but in a nutshell i have tried to enlist the factors that make us go for a phone.

Woah woah..
Enough of this "we Indians this, we Indians that"..
The stuff you've pointed out is what people expect from all OSs universally, not just Indians.
Don't stereotype like you know 1.2 billion people.

What Indian users really need is for you to chill out and stop projecting us like we're some mutants.

 

[ShreyansShah]

awesome post man. really helpful and informative. thx.

 

[rakesh1995]

China has population of 1.6 billion, India has a population of 1.4 billion. Combine both has 3 billion its 1/2 of total population of world.
So next time if you meet someone call him as either a India or a Chinese 50% time you will be correct

Sent from my Uuusumm Lumia 520 using Tapatalk

 

[xplod566]

I think wp is,doing good in India. Surely will take a bit of,time but ita doing good. I myself,bought a 920 selling iPhone 4s

 

[Lokiwp]

Hi This is Laksh and i want to share with all of you that I also made few peoples to buy Windows phone just because of its good performance comparison to android. Previously they use to tease me by lumia guy but I didn't care of their comments and bought lumia 720, this is my second smartphone as my lumia 710 got stolen in bus, I wish Nokia could embedded GPS offline feature to phone so that we can track our phone through internet....
Yes android has lots of features that windows phone 8 don't have but common guys its a smartphone os it will be changed in future according to customer requirements.
Its has improved a lot so far........
Just waiting for GDR 3 Update release by Nokia in india......

 

[SlingLaker9811]

Hi This is Laksh and i want to share with all of you that I also made few peoples to buy Windows phone just because of its good performance comparison to android. Previously they use to tease me by lumia guy but I didn't care of their comments and bought lumia 720, this is my second smartphone as my lumia 710 got stolen in bus, I wish Nokia could embedded GPS offline feature to phone so that we can track our phone through internet....
Yes android has lots of features that windows phone 8 don't have but common guys its a smartphone os it will be changed in future according to customer requirements.
Its has improved a lot so far........
Just waiting for GDR 3 Update release by Nokia in india......

You can update to GDR 3 right now using the developer preview program...

 

[nokia3660]

MSFT has no clue what markets other than the US needs. They have no idea what is big in India or china, they are still hell bent on breaking into the US market that they completely ignore the emerging markets like India. Belfiore himself acknowledged this.

A Bluetooth file sharing feature is particularly popular in developing countries, but Microsoft wasn't aware as US consumers don't typically use it. "We didn't even have that feature, and we didn't even understand or appreciate the degree to which it was critical," says Belfiore

source: Nokia kept secrets from Microsoft over its Windows Phone plans | The Verge

 

[link68759]

Hi This is Laksh and i want to share with all of you that I also made few peoples to buy Windows phone just because of its good performance comparison to android. Previously they use to tease me by lumia guy but I didn't care of their comments and bought lumia 720, this is my second smartphone as my lumia 710 got stolen in bus, I wish Nokia could embedded GPS offline feature to phone so that we can track our phone through internet....
Yes android has lots of features that windows phone 8 don't have but common guys its a smartphone os it will be changed in future according to customer requirements.
Its has improved a lot so far........
Just waiting for GDR 3 Update release by Nokia in india......

There is already a built in 'find my phone' which periodically updates the phone's location to the internet. You say you want this as an 'offline feature'... there are two problems with that- #1 if it's offline it is therefore not online, so you wouldn't be able to track it from the internet. #2 if nokia implemented a tracking feature specifically designed for finding stolen phones, they would have to have tracking on regardless of user settings, have tracking persist across hard resets, and have tracking broadcasting identifying info somehow without a SIM card or internet.

No. Holy s*** no.

 

[Arpit Mittal]

What opinion of this thread (only India) give example for good & what suggestion we will give to microsoft for improving wp8 specially in India.