Yes yes... but still no word on operating system?
How Nokia is (and isn't) back in the phone business today
We have a new phone company today, and it’s European. And the badge says Nokia. So is Nokia back in the phone biz? Yes and no. It won’t spend a penny on either making or marketing phones - even at arm’s length. All that is going to be the job of a new entity, HMD Global Oy, run by present and past Nokians. From HMD we can …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 19th May 2016 13:45 GMT Zolko
"From HMD we can expect a range of Android phones and tablets"
says who ? If they only make Android phones, they can stop right here, there are already too many concurrents. But if they use another OS (MeeGo, Tizen, Sawfish, whatever it's called now) then that changes the market. And I'll buy one right away.
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Thursday 19th May 2016 19:15 GMT davidp231
Problem is, if you use another OS, you have the problem of getting a decent app store going, and employing an Android runtime to get the decent ones - which is what Blackberry tried in BB10 and Jolla did with Sailfish. Both didn't go well - why bother with a phone that has a compatibility layer when you can get one that runs everything native?
Would be much less hassle, and increase greatly uptake if they went with something that runs Android apps natively.
If you can create a new mobile OS, and combine it with an app store that can rival that of iOS and Android, *and* convince devs to port their apps to it, you'd be in business. Which is what MS tried with Windows Phone and that didn't go all too well either.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 14:25 GMT Richard Jones 1
Welcome Back Nokia IP
If they can produce a replacement for my 6230i I will be straight round to see if it has the one feature I need, the rest is horse feathers for me and only worth anything as a gift.
If it only churns out another lump of a smartphone then the 6230i will have to last a bit, no make that a lot longer.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 14:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Make a 4G access point with a dumb phone built in
New Nokia should make a dumb phone - that has brick-like qualities of minimal LCD screen, week-long battery life, robustness, and reasonably pocket friendly. All the 'smart' bits come from a basic tablet which is paired / tethered to it.
You take just the phone if you need just a basic phone - e.g. to call a taxi after a night out. You take both, and leave the phone in your bag, when you want to use the tablet at the office, on the train etc.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 14:37 GMT Dave 15
Maybe
Maybe these guys might be brave enough to provide me with a phone of Nokia quality... i.e. if I put it on the table the screen won't craze, Perhaps if I am lucky enough they might actually try providing a phone with a keyboard or keys, a flip or a clam shell so I don't have to put up with endless they all look the same and frankly are unusable apple styled slabs with a cheap and nasty touch screen that I can't use on the move.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 15:01 GMT Bob Vistakin
Any of the old staff coming back?
Nokia exec: Using Android like 'peeing in your pants' for warmth.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 15:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
I have to admit,
this deal is very confusing. From a valuation perspective, was this a fire sale? Does it relate to MS having problems selling phones in India and China so they said "screw it"? It totally messes with the messaging around Windows 10 and Microsoft's commitment to mobile. MS Enterprise sales and store reps are going to have to explain this thousands of times and what do you want to bet they have no clue because they just found out today like everyone else. Satya and his team have a lot of splainin to do. This is all very curious and negatively disruptive indeed. Is a Blackberry acquisition next?
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 15:45 GMT Bob Vistakin
Splain this then
Here's that Microsoft commitment to mobile you mentioned.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 16:34 GMT Christian Berger
What will be their selling point?
I mean we are at a point where we have a nearly level playing field. Even large manufacturers like Samsung and Apple are feeling the heat from lots of little Chinese company nobody even heard of a year ago.
Most software ways to differentiate themselves from stock Android only make the product worse as nobody likes bloatware installed on their systems. Adding a decent hardware keyboard would be potentially interesting, but I doubt Nokia would be courageous enough at this point.
Nokia has lost their chance. They would have had everything to shape the future, but decided to chase the iPhone... just like the rest of the industry.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 22:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What will be their selling point?
> They still have some great engineers. Or at least know where they are.
I know you said engineers, but at least where the designers are concerned if this is true then they're still at Nokia:
"Nokia kept a chunk of its best designers at Nokia, and Microsoft fumbled retaining the rest"
The deal to offload the failing devices business to Microsoft for $7.2Bn looks better and better with every passing detail...
Frankly, with mobile phones becoming almost commodity devices these days, a firm's (industrial) design chops should be valued more highly than those of it's engineers (Foxconn will most likely take care of the engineering, in any case). You can command higher prices for better designed gear.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 16:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
Do Nokia need to differentiate?
Ignoring their PureView camera tech (which I assume they still have), the goodwill alone should be enough for healthy smartphone sales.
There are enough "toxic" or untrustworthy mobile manufacturers out there (Apple, Samsung, HTC, OnePlus etc.) that Nokia - being fondly remembered by a legion of adults, though maybe not kids - should see healthy sales simply by offering a competitive device that isn't screwed up in some way (please don't dick about with the GUI too much). If it's got knockout features, they'll clean up.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 17:28 GMT Mystic Megabyte
SMS feature request
On my old Nokia 6310 it would tell me when a SMS had been sent. This is important because where I live sometimes a SMS will arrive 24 hrs. after being sent*. On my new "smartphone" it only shows when it was received :( Well duh' I just heard it beep so that when it got here. WHEN WAS IT SENT!
*Oddly, If I send a SMS to New Zealand (in the other hemisphere) it will arrive almost instantly.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 17:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Wow some people here...
Are asking for what already exists.
As for me, I want a true Scandinavian product.
1. It must have awful instructions.
2. The name absolutely has to be beyond the realms of general pronounciation.
3. I have to drive 2 hours to get to a place in some shit tip town like Croydon to get one.
4. Delivery must be £30 no matter how much or how little I order.
5. Breakfast at the shop has to be £1 and unavailable by the time I get there.
And finally...
6. The battery must be removable.
Nice to haves...
7. The air in the sealed box has to be pumped into the container from a can of fermented pilchards.
8. The phone has to smell of pigshit and bacon.
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Wednesday 18th May 2016 20:32 GMT Sandtitz
"Only" four?
"Only four new Lumia devices have limped out of the door in the past year, all running Windows 10 mobile."
Presumably the author writes about phone models and not the total number of sold devices...
Anyhow - how does this compare to other manufacturers? Have Google and Apple produced more models in the past year?
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Saturday 21st May 2016 09:22 GMT arctic_haze
Re: "Only" four?
Are you joking? Samsung had something like 13 Galaxy line models since this January
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Thursday 19th May 2016 11:48 GMT Bad Beaver
Endless pain, endless strain
I am sure many people will love yet another rectangular Android choice, I am just not one of them. So much hurt.
Regardless, the working adults of this world need business class devices that help them with _getting things done_. This is a trainwreck like Blackberry still exists. So how would that work for "Nokia"?
• Keys are key. Literally.
• Skin that droid! Add a well working interface (geez, just thinking about the UI from the N9's Harmattan rotting away in some IP-drawer is making me sick) that does not make one aggressive by just looking at it.
• At least provide the illusion of being shielded from the mighty eye in the sky.
• Have more than 24h of batterylife.
• Have expandable storage.
• Have a decent camera without any "EDOF" shenanigans.
• Finally: Try not to be everything to everybody with one device.
So pretty much like a Priv but better in terms of specs, build and general attention to detail. It cannot be that hard. Good Lord, why is it so hard?!
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Thursday 19th May 2016 11:52 GMT BinkyTheMagicPaperclip
It isn't even slightly difficult to differentiate
1) removable battery
2) landscape hardware keyboard
3) open source hardware as far as possible from day one
4) commitment to provide fixes for a period of <n> years, that don't depend on the carrier
5) HDMI port, *multiple* OTA micro USB ports
6) Android desktop computing support (plug in monitor, keyboard, mouse - there's your environment). Ship phone with a mini HDMI to DVI cable, and two micro USB to USB cables.
6a) optional expansion of desktop computing support - better mail client, file synchronisation, yadda, yadda.
7) Car standard GPS support (i.e. Google maps with a bit of area pre-loading, display of speed, and speed cameras)
No-one offers all of that at the moment, and my personal obsession with hardware keyboards aside, it would probably sell.
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Thursday 19th May 2016 13:42 GMT Danny 5
sign me up
I am still having daily annoyances with my Lumia 950 and now feel safe to conclude that it's really a piece of crap. Sign me up for a new, Android based Nokia any day, because Microsoft have proven once again they are incapable of creating anything worthwhile in the world of mobile computing.
I am never going to use another windows mobile device again. Surface is like Apple products to me, overpriced and not worth my money. The only reason i stuck with the Lumias was because i loved the Nokia versions of them, the Microsoft version is a generic piece of crap and not worth a cent.
Please make it like the real Nokia devices were, no generic crap please. Have some guts with the design.
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Thursday 3rd January 2019 09:15 GMT Parveen2019
Its HMD Global not Old Nokia
Within 1 month a new Nokia 6.1 + stopped charging. I have not seen such a shameless and indifferent organization and management who are so unapologetic for holding the phone at service center from 21 days and without any commitment on getting the phone up and return to customer.