Lumia 620 is big news

[brmiller1976]

A full WP experience for under $250? These will fly off the shelves! That is a great price, even compared to el cheapo Android Gingerbread phones... with a much better user experience.

 

[snaqvi91]

Yeah if we compare the cheap phones I think this will be much better than any android. Whatever power the android will have it will be wasted on just keeping the system running. Hugh end apps like games won't work on the android anyway and save for a few apps you won't lose much by going 620.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[a5cent]

It is phones like this that will ultimately make WP a mass market success around the globe. Android currently commands the highest market share, due in large part to the many cheap Asian models sold outside the U.S. and Europe. However, customer satisfaction levels with these low-end Android devices is consistently terrible. One of the main problems is that the OEM's serving these markets will regularly dip right down to the very bottom of the low-end component barrel to get their parts, and then install Android on that hardware, even though Android's traditional approach to solving performance problems has been to throw more powerful hardware at it. In other words, price pressure is forcing these OEM's to use hardware far below the levels Android should ever run on.

By 2014, WP7 era hardware will be close to the bottom of that low-end component barrel, on which WP7 will run wonderfully well, while similarly priced Android devices will get the customer a "laggy" Android 2.1 like experience. At that point I would also expect Nokia to retire their Asha line and replace it with WP (Tango).

Devices like this will represent the natural upgrade path for all those who enjoyed WP (or Asha devices) as their first smartphone experience.

 

[StevesBalls]

It is phones like this that will ultimately make WP a mass market success around the globe. Android currently commands the highest market share, due in large part to the many cheap Asian models sold outside the U.S. and Europe. However, customer satisfaction levels with these low-end Android devices is consistently terrible. One of the main problems is that the OEM's serving these markets will regularly dip right down to the very bottom of the low-end component barrel to get their parts, and then install Android on that hardware, even though Android's traditional approach to solving performance problems has been to throw more powerful hardware at it. In other words, price pressure is forcing these OEM's to use hardware far below the levels Android should ever run on.

By 2014, WP7 era hardware will be close to the bottom of that low-end component barrel, on which WP7 will run wonderfully well, while similarly priced Android devices will get the customer a "laggy" Android 2.1 like experience. At that point I would also expect Nokia to retire their Asha line with WP (Tango).

Devices like this will represent the natural upgrade path for all those who enjoyed WP (or Asha devices) as their first smartphone experience.

Please don't forget that the Android development moves at a much much faster rate than WP. By 2014 even low end Android phones will run fine - they will come a long way from the Eclair/Froyo/Gingerbread days (and WP7 will be dead). The success of WP will depend on the same things as today - a mature OS, ecosystem and marketing.

But even more importantly - selling cheap phones will not save Nokia. While I do agree that the cheap phones are the road to market share for WP, the same can't be said for Nokia's future. They NEED to sell their high end phones to get out of the slump they are in right now.

 

[PG2G]

But even more importantly - selling cheap phones will not save Nokia. While I do agree that the cheap phones are the road to market share for WP, the same can't be said for Nokia's future. They NEED to sell their high end phones to get out of the slump they are in right now.

Well, a major reason they have difficulty selling their high end phones is due to the WP ecosystem. The WP ecosystem is is the way it is due to WP marketshare. Major growth in market share is going to push the ecosystem, which will eliminate pretty much the only issue most press and consumers have with devices like the 8X and Lumia 920.

 

[socialcarpet]

The 620 looks great to me. If I were on a tight budget, I might even chose it over the 820 honestly.

Hopefully we'll see the 620 offered in the U.S. and Canada. Right now it looks like it's only South America, the Middle East and Europe.

 

[socialcarpet]

But even more importantly - selling cheap phones will not save Nokia. While I do agree that the cheap phones are the road to market share for WP, the same can't be said for Nokia's future. They NEED to sell their high end phones to get out of the slump they are in right now.

They need both.

Cheap phones are Nokia's bread and butter as far as the global market goes. They are still pumping out millions of Symbian Series 40 and Series 60 phones after all.

They need to have phones at all the price points.

As far as Android goes, I don't believe for a second that cheap Android phones will ever be a good choice unless they start selling them without useless skins and bloatware you can't remove without rooting and I don't see that happening anytime soon. Though the new Nexus is relatively cheap, but after my experience with an LG Revolution I would NEVER buy an LG phone again.

 

[a5cent]

Please don't forget that the Android development moves at a much much faster rate than WP. By 2014 even low end Android phones will run fine - they will come a long way from the Eclair/Froyo/Gingerbread days (and WP7 will be dead). The success of WP will depend on the same things as today - a mature OS, ecosystem and marketing.

I disagree. Android development only moves faster if it is unrestricted by price pressure. Every Android device effectively comes with it's own unique Android based OS. Deriving that Android based OS from Google's open source offerings, and ensuring it is well optimized, stable and custom tailored to a devices specific hardware composition is an extremely costly process, which only a few companies have the luxury of being able to afford. The OS side of most Android handsets is cobbled together with the mind-set: "if it doesn't crash it's finished", particularly the low-end devices we are talking about here. Apart from throwing out their entire existing UI stack and standardizing on a few select GPU's (which is an unrealistic proposition), Google doesn't have much chance of bringing WP7 like performance to Android devices running on 2009 era hardware. Android OEM's can only choose to go with more modern and costlier hardware, or compromise on the UI experience.

... and WP7 will stick around for quite some time.

But even more importantly - selling cheap phones will not save Nokia. While I do agree that the cheap phones are the road to market share for WP, the same can't be said for Nokia's future. They NEED to sell their high end phones to get out of the slump they are in right now.

Absolutely. However, I was discussing WP's market share, not Nokia's profitability. As others mentioned, Nokia must be successful in both the low- and high-end offerings to remain relevant.

EDIT: I hope that HTC is successful too, and that also goes for Samsung if they ever decide to get serious.

 

[dkp23]

I would love w 4 inch phone with a 920 gut and features.

 

[lordofthereef]

Looks nice. Just wish the screen resolution was better. I realize it's a budget model, so I am not criticizing it, but the only high res screens on the market for WP8 are also 4.x"+ My wife is having a hard time with the bigger screens and I am sure there are others in the same boat. The form factor of the 620 looks to be nearly perfect for her.

 

[WasteSomeTime]

This looks like the phone that would probably make me want to get a WP8. I like that it's small, that's the main thing that's so attractive to me right now. I'm surprised I like a Nokia. Lol.
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[StevesBalls]

I disagree. Android development only moves faster if it is unrestricted by price pressure. Every Android device effectively comes with it's own unique Android based OS. Deriving that Android based OS from Google's open source offerings, and ensuring it is well optimized, stable and custom tailored to a devices specific hardware composition is an extremely costly process, which only a few companies have the luxury of being able to afford. The OS side of most Android handsets is cobbled together with the mind-set: "if it doesn't crash it's finished", particularly the low-end devices we are talking about here. Apart from throwing out their entire existing UI stack and standardizing on a few select GPU's (which is an unrealistic proposition), Google doesn't have much chance of bringing WP7 like performance to Android devices running on 2009 era hardware. Android OEM's can only choose to go with more modern and costlier hardware, or compromise on the UI experience.

... and WP7 will stick around for quite some time.

Let's say we use the 2009 hardware for today's low-end. That makes a 3 year difference. Okay, let's apply that logic on the year 2014. That means the low-end will be made up from 2011 hardware. This gives us:

A dual-core 1 GHz processor
512 MB/1 GB RAM

These will be the specs of a low-end Android phone in the year 2014. It might not be as smooth as WP but it'll be close enough to not be a major argument against it.

And feature and ecosystem wise? Let's say that a LOT would have to happen for it to not fall into Android's favor.

PS: WP7 will be dead in a year. But that's just my prediction. Let's make a bet.

 

[kittshelby]

Yea, but too bad it's ugly (IMO). Wish the HTC 8S had the specs of this phone (8GB rather than 4)

 

[a5cent]

WP7 will be dead in a year. But that's just my prediction. Let's make a bet.

The reason we aren't on the same page is because we are making different predictions about WP7's lifecycle.

Nine months ago most people were very sceptical when I suggested Nokia will continue to release WP7 devices well after the introduction of WP8. But that is exactly what happened (Lumia 510 is the first). What do you think motivated Nokia to do so? Just late to market? What if more were to come?

I can't precisely predict how long WP7 will stick around, but as long as the price difference between a low-end WP7 and a low-end WP8 device remains as large as it is today (about double), WP7 isn't going away.

Let's say we use the 2009 hardware for today's low-end. That makes a 3 year difference. Okay, let's apply that logic on the year 2014. That means the low-end will be made up from 2011 hardware.

You are thinking about this the wrong way. My argument has nothing to do with the notion of low-end hardware trailing high-end hardware by a certain number of years. The year 2009 is relevant to WP because that is when Qualcomm first released the SoC on which WP7 runs. WP OEM's can't just choose to use a SoC from 2011, because WP doesn't support it.

Although the price of these Qualcomm SoC's from 2009 need to fall another notch or two, at some point Android OEM's will only be able to choose to either price match WP7 devices by using similarly inexpensive hardware (leading to a sub par user experience as with many of todays low-end android devices), or use more capable hardware which will command a higher sales price. In both cases Nokia is very well positioned to take back Android market share on the low-end, but as I said, only after the bill of parts for a WP7 device falls another notch or two, probably sometime in late 2013.

 

[snaqvi91]

Yea, but too bad it's ugly (IMO). Wish the HTC 8S had the specs of this phone (8GB rather than 4)

I think it looks great for kids and price wise too it seems quite suitable.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[StevesBalls]

Although the price of these Qualcomm SoC's from 2009 need to fall another notch or two, at some point Android OEM's will only be able to choose to either price match WP7 devices by using similarly inexpensive hardware (leading to a sub par user experience as with many of todays low-end android devices), or use more capable hardware which will command a higher sales price. In both cases Nokia is very well positioned to take back Android market share on the low-end, but as I said, only after the bill of parts for a WP7 device falls another notch or two, probably sometime in late 2013.

The whole point of my argument is that by 2014, as far as performance goes, the field will be leveled and both Android and WP low-end devices will be comparable. The mobile tech world moves at an insane pace. Do you really think that in 2 years Android will still suffer the same baby sicknesses as today?

And the whole low-end market does not matter anyway if the high-end is not successful. Look at the Android market - Samsung is the only company making money there. And WP right now is pretty much just Nokia. HTC hast their own troubles and Samsung couldn't care less about WP.

And so Nokia needs to sell high-end phones so that they don't run out of money in a year or two. But they can't sell high-end devices as long as they don't have the ecosystem to support them. To build up an ecosystem they need to sell a lot of cheap phones - but frankly, they can't afford that. It's a Catch 22 situation for them.

And there is still Blackberry although probably not even God knows if he can save them...

 

[jiayit]

My L800 is screaming in protest while scrolling this thread. But I worry about the 512MB RAM, since i usually have many tabs open in IE.

 

[WasteSomeTime]

The specs of this phone are ok for the windows mobile OS. If an android phone had these specs the phone would not be able to handle everyday tasks after 6 months. And as for the looks, this the best design that Nokia produced so far for windows 8 phones. I heavily reminds me of the iPhone.
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[a5cent]

The whole point of my argument is that by 2014, as far as performance goes, the field will be leveled and both Android and WP low-end devices will be comparable. The mobile tech world moves at an insane pace. Do you really think that in 2 years Android will still suffer the same baby sicknesses as today?

Yes, that is exactly what I think, but only on low-end devices. Google doesn't and can't make any assumptions about the hardware their OEM's choose to employ. For that reason Google has no way of solving these problems, and although OEM's could solve these problems, they won't (due to the costs involved and their ability to muddle through without doing so).

The one-sided android tradition of simply throwing better hardware at any given performance problem isn't arbitrary. It came about for a reason.

You think these are baby sicknesses, but that is incorrect (Android has been in development since 2005). The issues stem from unfortunate/outdated design decisions, the correction of which would necessitate sacrificing app compatibility and Android's any-hardware-goes policy. It's a much more profound problem than ironing out a few kinks and opening up a few pinpoint bottlenecks here and there.

If performance of future Android and WP7 devices are levelled , then price won't be, or visa versa.

And the whole low-end market does not matter anyway if the high-end is not successful.

I agree. I don't think I have much to add beyond what PG2G and socialcarpat already mentioned above. Viable high- and low-end offerings must both exist for WP to succeed as a whole.

To build up an ecosystem they need to sell a lot of cheap phones - but frankly, they can't afford that. It's a Catch 22 situation for them.

This is the part of your argument that I don't understand. Why can Nokia not afford to sell a lot of cheap phones? It's what they've been doing during all of the last decade. Nokia can absolutely afford to sell al lot of cheap phones, they just can't afford to do only that.

 

[WasteSomeTime]

So they can just make both.
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