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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
WP7 will be dead in a year. But that's just my prediction. Let's make a bet.
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.
Yea, but too bad it's ugly (IMO). Wish the HTC 8S had the specs of this phone (8GB rather than 4)
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.
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.