back to article Networks nag Nokia to lower Lumia levy

Nokia's upcoming Windows Phone handset, the Lumia 710, has been deemed too expensive by UK networks. And they have pressured the Finnish outfit to lower prices in order to compete more effectively with rival low-end smartphones. While the Lumia 710 is more powerful than most budget handsets in question, sales of the Lumia 800 …

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  1. nordwars
    Meh

    How much lower?

    It's a pretty well specced phone for the price, and I know it will run smooth as silk as it is has almost the same internals as the Lumia 800. WP7 doesn't need a dual core CPU, compared to Android (pre ICS) it is much less laggy naturally.

    That said, they need a low price to entice people to Windows Phone. Clove's price is typically high, once it actually arrives I'd expect £220-£250 unlocked.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No Front Facing Camera though

      The latest Lumia 900 shows how Nokia should have done it from the off, instead they shuffled out the 800 and 710 with missing hardware (that's available on even older devices from other WP7 vendors) and consequently the 800/710 are not very compelling devices, particularly at their current high price points.

      Yes, even can say they don't need a front facing camera but given the choice of one with or one without, it's obvious which one will sell.

  2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    Quite tempted, though sad if it's £300...

    I'm in the market for a new smartphone, to replace my HTC Wildfire.

    I'm buying it myself, SIM free, to use on the company tariff, so I don't want to spend much more than £200. I've had a good long play with the Lumia 800, and it's a nice phone. No telling if the OS is up to the job - but it can't be worse than the Android 2.2 I'm stuck on now. So it's got to do light sat-nav, company Exchange email / address book, combined diary, personal email / address book, and I'd like to dip my toe into Facebook [spit!], due to family stuff - mostly cute photos of the niece and nephews.

    I'm not paying £300 for the iPhone 3GS, Apple are taking the piss! It's over 30 months old. I like the size, and I'd snap it up at £150-£200 though. There are several 18 month old Android high-end phones at around £200, which might be less crap than the Wildfire (if I can get ICS on them). But I thought I'd at least look at Windows/Nokia first. My experience with Android has not encouraged me to give it another chance.

    I wonder if WinMob7 can cope with proxy servers without 3rd party software?

    1. Andy Watt
      Thumb Up

      If your wildfire is still in good physical condition...

      Why not load Cyanogen 7.1 onto it? I suspect this might be a bit more up to date, and give you some more time for a more powerful handset for ICS to come through to your price range...

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        I have considered rooting it

        When I last checked (admittedly ages ago), you still needed some sort of hardware hack to get a Wildfire rooted. And that seemed like too much trouble. But you're right, I should look into it again. HTC released an app to give you root this month, according to XDA.

        Also the Wildfire is pretty slow. I doubt it would be up to running Android 4. Although 2.3 is better than 2.2, it didn't seem worth the effort for an incremental change.

        I'm happy to hack around with a PC to make it do just what I want it to, but I want a phone to work. I'm also not terribly impressed with Android. For example, I've still not found a contacts app that handles 3,000 work contacts well, and manages to separate them from my own. So I haven't really decided what to do. But £200-£250 to make the problem go away (and get new shiny to play with), seems acceptable.

        1. Paul Shirley

          2.2 vs 2.3

          "Although 2.3 is better than 2.2, it didn't seem worth the effort for an incremental change."

          Depending on how they configured 2.2 on the Wildfire it may be a much bigger step up than you believe. Quite a few 2.2 releases had JIT disabled by default, AFAIK all 2.3.x releases default it enabled. Makes things a bit smoother. Concurrent garbage collection should make a very noticeable difference on low spec devices as well.

          I think that's when they started turning on GPU acceleration as well but again the Wildfire's low spec does you no favours.

          2.3 doesn't look like a big improvement but it does run a lot smoother. Lag in 2.3.4+ is usually a 1off thing, soon as the JIT kicks in it vanishes on my Play.

    2. DrXym

      I'd say don't bother

      I have a Nokia Lumia 800 (sent to people in their dev program) and I wouldn't recommend it at all. There is something seriously wonking with battery charging on my device. If you run the device down and plug it in, you can come back in the morning and discover it hasn't charged at all. Other times it might recover but take 10 minutes to register any signs of life.

      The phone is also seriously hampered by WP7 which might look superficially okay but is a step below either Android or iPhone in terms of functionality starting with the basics such as multitasking.

      If you can wait I suggest you hang on a few months since it's likely that ICS phones will be appearing in droves this year at all price points.

      1. Caleb Cox (Written by Reg staff)

        Re: I'd say don't bother

        http://www.reghardware.com/2012/01/19/nokia_lumia_800_second_update_inbound/ Perhaps the incoming update will address your battery woes? That's what the company claims anyway.

        1. DrXym

          Firmware

          I'm still waiting for the firmware. Supposedly the update is staggered over 14 days though some people are reporting it causes issues. I'll modify my opinion of the device once I get the update. My bet is Nokia used a couple of battery suppliers and for whatever reason didn't catch the issue with one of them. Hopefully it can be correctly fixed rather than hacked around. It still pretty shocking to discover a phone that doesn't work as intended in such a fundamental way.

          My other issues with the phone are mostly software related and I don't hold out much hope of them ever being addressed until such time as the phone gets WP8, assuming it does. I like Android far more than this and I expect when ICS turns up in force that I'll upgrade from my 2.2 HTC desire to it.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Thumb Down

            I concur, don't bother

            According to some of the people at XDA that have already received the second update from Nokia (as Nokia as staged it over two weeks, a few product codes at a time), it still doesn't fix the battery.

            I've given my Lumia to the wife, as she doesn't use the "smart" part of the phone, only doing calls and SMS. But she has already complained the meteo app is inferior to the one on her android phone...

            And you won't believe all the work you need to do even the most basic of things, as setting a mp3 as the ringtone... WP7 is simple as long as you don't try to do anything.

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Caleb Cox

          As another developer with a free Lumia 800 courtesy of Nokia I can confirm the latest update does NOT fix the battery problems.

          Agree with the other poster - I wouldn't waste my own money on a WP7 device, and certainly not a Lumia 710. The N9 is, IMHO, a much better all round device, assuming you can get hold of one.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Colour scheme

    I suspect the designers wanted it to evoke the Finnish flag.

    Unfortunately they've ended up making it look like one of those things you dangle over the toilet rim to freshen when you flush.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why should they?

    In a few years they will have a larger market share than Apple.........won't they???

    1. Neil 7
      Facepalm

      Why, yes indeed!

      It was iSuppli who claimed that WP7 would surpass iOS by 2015. But then read this[1], and it all becomes clear...! :-)

      1. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/01/22/greatly-exaggerated

  5. Fihart

    A 90% price reduction needed ?

    Judging by the deals on Android phones -- as little as £40 on payg for a Samsung Europa -- in the near future we will see the £30 smartphone.

    1. Mark #255

      not convinced

      If that's the GT-I5500 you're talking about, I'm not surprised it's only £40 on PAYG (Eclair + tiny, low-res screen = yeuch). The lumia is much better, newer tech than the europa.

      Now excuse me, I've just defended a WinPho product and I need to rinse myself with bleach.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cyanogen mod

    Sounds like the Lumia itself could do with one.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Needs to be said...

    The easiest way to reduce the price is to avoid the MS license.

    I'll get me coat.

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