Wasting your time
El Reg might as well not bother reviewing Mango or Mango phones. You're just going to get a flood of comments from people who haven't read the article and have never seen the phones, telling us that it's crap.
You are about to read what may be the shortest “hands-on” review you’ve ever read. But there is something quite surprising, I discovered, not appreciated until you compare both new Nokia models. Why the Clown Colours? After half an hour putting each through its paces, the budget model is the much more impressive offering. The …
According to Anandtech:
"Unlike the 800 however the 710 features a microSD card slot that can accommodate up to a 16GB card (24GB total)."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5015/nokia-lumia-800-710-windows-phones-announced
Have you any idea what is going on here Andrew? Why on earth has Nokia not put an SD-slot in the 800 when they have in the (relatively speaking) budget 710?
The icon? Well although it is IT it definitely deserves a question mark!
I see the msft employees are getting savvy, accusing the others of their own doings. Just looking at all the praise for the fugly WP7, and all the upvotes you got, makes one wonder. In particular when everywhere the reaction to these phones can be resumed as "meh". Low/mid-range specs, low/mig range price, fugly interface, OS barly comparable to old versions of the competitors, clowny colours...
One has to wonder how suddenly this forum has so much praise yet to be seen phones, and so much upvotes for the softies and downvotes for the critics.
Give me one reason why people should jump into Microsoft's walled garden to replace even two year old Motorola Defy models with this??
This is not faster, no better camera, no better screen, not even an SD slot, certainly not dust and water proof / mil spec rugged, didn't see gorilla glass mentioned, and yet its more expensive than the Defy was a year ago.
My one year old has thrown my wife's Defy on concrete floors with no damage (since I installed Toddler Lock, she thinks its hers, but she lets mommy borrow it, and she loves talking on it too)
A friend recently asked me why it is that toddlers go crazy over smart phones...
Anyway, I think people who want to be in walled gardens have already bought Apple phones and for those of us who don't like having someone else decide things for us, M$' walled garden that looks more like a ghetto seems no alternative, regardless of fancy big colored squares with clipped text.
From https://www.nokia.co.uk/gb-en/products/phone/lumia710/specifications/ ...
"Personalisation - Swappable covers, changeable home screen colours"
So, better value than the 800, nigh-on the same spec, AND swappable covers = everyone wins. Can even (it seems) swap Voda-red, O2-blue and Orange-erm-orange colour schemes if they are a bit lairy after a while. Probably only to the standard WP-green, but it's a start...
Waiting for the tatt-bay knock-off third party Xpress-on cover in black with a silver apple on it.
You should ask them about s40 qt and what were they thinking with meltemi linux announcement coming from nowhere.
What will they do with the elephant in the room as they partner with oracle's arch enemy and relying on java on "next billion" is another matter.
I assume it was hard for you to find a nokia contact there since you must be "enemy" based on your the register career. They like reporters working as their press.
It is amazing nobody asks about the natural upgrader customer base who runs abandoned symbian and who are really pissed off. Just recently endomondo guys officially declared end of updates. Sports tracking is one of couple things symbian phones do great because of battery life.
Speaking of which, at several points I asked Nokia people whether they would seriously choose to carry around a phone that is Shocking Blue, Shocking Yellow, or Screaming Pink. These are clown colours – they don't convey "edgy" or hip, but Ronald McDonald. Or Mr Tumble.
---
I'm an iPhone user.
But I'd be happy carrying around the blue one. I thought it looked quite nice.
Why is everyone complaining about the Lumia 800 "clown" colors?
It will also be available in black.
Or, as Gizmodo put it: "It's available in cyan, magenta, black, black, black, and black."
Even the picture from the Vodafone UK site shows the black version: http://www.vodafone.co.uk/brands/nokia/nokia-lumia-800/
I read somewhere they are positioning these phones for the Indian market. Maybe someone at Nokia saw some Indian clothing and/or some Indian movies just after taking a look at India's wiki page, and thought:
Lower end (cheaper) smartphone + bright colors + India = 1 BILLION phones sold
Why is it that no one can offer a 32GB-64GB capacity phone with at least a 4" screen and dual camera on the WP7.5 platform - the closest is the HTC Titan and Nokia could have had a winner over the Titan had they offered those options. (iPhone 4s=64GB anyone?)
Trying to sell me a phone in Q4 2011 with features of a phone from Q4 2010 simply isn't inviting at all - my iPhone 4 and HTC Desire HD is still more appealing at one year of age plus than any of the Lumias, I'll stick with them I guess.
1: probably a safer gamble going budget/midrange right now. WP7 hasn't set the world alight and simply putting Nokia's badge on the devices won't magically turn that around overnight. Highly profitable high end phones would risk chasing a small share of a tiny market, a market Apple already own. Easier and safer to smuggle WP7 into many more peoples pockets with cheaper phones.
2: after so many engineers walked and with so short a deadline Nokia had little choice but to take last years high end hardware and hack WP onto them. Last years high end == this years budget. The lost talent aren't likely to return and Nokia are likely to be out of the high end for a long time.
3: Microsoft need volume more than trailblazing phones. What Microsoft wants, Elop delivers. Microsoft actually have to fight for sales, unlike the PC with its 'Microsoft tax' and default Windows installs. The bulk of the market don't care what the OS is, just that it works and the price is right and that means competing with increasing numbers of cheap, powerful Android devices.
Strange WP7 V1.0 had wireless sync and a true notifications system, unless I'm mistaken it wasn't till V.5 that IOS had it?
Now I think about it WP7 v1.0 also had a hardware camera button that didn't require the phone to be unlocked. I could go on....
As for Andriod, well as the recent patent cases prove they just steal other peoples ideas!
I've been telling for several months that there's really nothing that would differntiate Nokia's WP7 phones from all the other WP7 phones except the carl Zeiss logo on fron to/t device.
The reality is indeed that. You do get OVI Maps (or whatever it's been called now) something called Nokia Music (Comes with Music under a different name probably) and some lame ESPN stuff that nobody really cares about (since ESPN is only available in the US and NOT in those emerging markets that these current Nokia leaders deem so important but which they obviously overlooked).
They should have released the N9 worldwide in September. They should have appointed ME as CEO then they would have been world leader in comms again but since I don't live in those 'emerging markets' I'm not important enough, jusrt like all the other El Reg readers whom don't live in 'emerging markets'.
I'll stick with my C7 for the time being. In the future I'll probaly stop using cell-phones and cease working (since I'll be out of job because of those emerging markets ) anyway. And hence won't need a cell phone. Their all digging their own grave.
I find OVI maps on my Nokia C5 to be very good, having used them on foot and in cars in Australasia and half a dozen countries in Europe. In fact, on a recent drive across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary they were rather better than my companion's Garmin device. Free to boot - one of the features making me hesitate before changing to an iphone or android.
Fact is, Nokia's built-in functionality is rather good. I hope both low and high end mobiles retain it.
They say that William H. Gates owns one half of this whole site
with political connections to keep his money tight
Born in the other washington, a lawyer's favourite son
he had everything a man could want.
Excel, Windows, Dos.
But I, I'm stuck with that damn Clippy. And I curse the comp I'm using and I curse all of IT..... Oh I wish that I could see, Oh I wish that I could see, yes I wish that I could Billy Gates
So another one designed by a very large committee. Giving you absolutely 0 UPS that you wants and several large ones you really dont...
Who is going to choose this over the beautifully simple Apple island or the techky Android world?
Nokia are still stuck firmly in the 90s and will die there once the 3rd world moves past their cheap phones...
Recently a mate of mine asked what I had in my rucksack.
As I was just using my iPhone I said, "that's the spare battery". I can't blame him for believing me, with WhatsApp sending all my SMS traffic to the NSA and 3G sucking the rest you actually need more juice.
I found a way to survive a day with one charge. First off, I ripped out WhatsApp (not tried iMessage yet - same NSA problem, ditto iCloud location services), secondly WiFi off, thirdly - no 3G. Especially the latter is an absolutely astonishing battery booster. I'll switch it on when I need the Net, but for email EDGE is good enough..
Anyway, sorry for the digression. It's the UPS that done it :-).
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