BelView Tech

Many remember the glory days of the Nokia 3310 and subsequently think of Nokia as the father of the modern mobile phone. However, somewhere over the past decade Nokia have fallen behind other manufacturers including the likes of the Apple iPhones and the RIM Blackberry’s, even the search engine Google have brought out phones that have quickly overtaken Nokia – a firm who have been making phones for over three times as long.

In 2011, Nokia announced the release of the Nokia Lumia smartphone for European customers only. Things looked bright for Nokia once more with the general reaction to the announcement positive and with a sleek new design and a sharp 3.7inch touch screen, the consumer reaction was expected to be the same. However, at £400 a pop the phone never really lived up to expectations, particularly when it became apparent that the actual functionality was not quite up to scratch.

One major complaint was the battery life. In the run up to Christmas last year with the story being mentioned on various mobile phone news blogs Nokia announced that, following a large number of customer complaints, they would be investigating these battery problems. A short while later they then announced that it was actually a software error that was limiting the phones ability to utilise the battery’s full power. An update released in 2012 fixed this issue but many still complained of poor battery life and by the point, the damage had already been done to the Nokia Lumia’s image.

Unfortunately, the public perception hasn’t improved and a survey by BNP Paribas suggested that only 2% of those surveyed would have an interest in buying the Lumia 800. However, this cannot yet be written off as another failed attempt to establish a foothold in the smartphone market by Nokia, especially as they have yet to launch in the American market – something they will be doing this year.

A key part of the new Nokia Lumia range of smartphones is the integration of Microsoft’s Windows phone software. An interesting combination as Microsoft too have struggled to break into the phone market, with Google’s Android OS and Apples iOS both retaining the lion’s share of the phone software market. However, Microsoft are not a company who don’t tend to stay behind long and whilst their software is still having a few teething problems and is not quite as smooth as the iOS or Android OS, the partnership between Microsoft and Nokia is likely to be one that in time will help both grow their market shares.

Despite its various problems, I believe that the Nokia Lumia 800 could well be the phone that turns around the Finnish phone giants ailing fortunes. The key to its success will be the American launch of both the Lumia 800 and 710 later this year, where Nokia will try again in a country where their previous smart phones have been ill-received.