Nokia's Windows Phone 7 concept revealed

[whalesalad]

Not gonna lie those looks sick. I also really liked using the Windows Phone interface, when I played around with it in a T-Mobile store the other day. I prefer it to Android.

I was an iPhone 3G user for a while, then went to the darkside with a MyTouch 3G, then Nexus One, and yesterday I picked up a VZW iPhone 4. I can honestly say that with due time for developers to get up to speed with Windows Phone... it will offer a much nicer experience than Android. I still think that Apple does it best though, and adore this new VZW iPhone.

[jonhohle]

Huh?

Is this thread full of Nokia/Microsoft PR people? Seriously. How does this not look like every other modern Android, WP7, iPhone rip off?

  - Black minimalist screen ✓
  - Horizontal speaker port ✓
  - Buttons on the bottom ✓
  - Cheap plastic case ✓

I don't think this phone could look more generic. Is this the state of the art in phone design outside of Cupertino? Are people's expectations really this low?

I really don't get the appeal of this device from a hardware perspective. The software may be a different story, but the hardware looks is pretty boring.

[stcredzero]

The iPhone 4 hardware is just pleasurable to hold. It's a slab of magic glass with this Bauhaus designed edge. Just handling it almost makes me smile.

That said, there's more fundamental value in the software, how well that software performs the functionality I want to use, and how well the battery, touch interface, and other hardware support that functionality.

"Shiny and makes me smile" in the end is just a nice adjunct to "does what I need and helps me make money." Apple has both. That's a hard combination to beat in the short term. In the long term, the latter is the foundation.

[flyosity]

I'm not sure how much hardware design has to do with a phone's success anymore. After the iPhone came out, every manufacturer now makes phones that are 90% screen. How close are we to hardware design where the bezel around the screen is 1mm and the whole device is only a few millimeters thick? Won't every phone basically look the same with the OS and user experience the only differentiators? Isn't that pretty much happening already?

[macco]

Actually i think it own of the rare phones that does not look like a iphone clone and looks gorgeus. As I said before, Nokia is the only phone company that has design on level with Apple - what is really hard by the way

[celticjames]

This Nokia/Microsoft deal is really terrib... Hey, look at those shiny phones!

[electromagnetic]

My thoughts exactly, but apparently I also have a defective gene inherited by some alien splicing of the magpie genome into the human species, because damn do I like shiny!

[lancefisher]

They looks nice, but they do remind me of the logo diarrhea mentioned here: http://uxhero.com/ux-theory/logo-diarrhea/

Put those logos on the back or make them very subdued.

[kiiski]

Nokia has always had their logo on the front. It's part of their brand.

[mseebach]

Hmm, looks a bit like the Nexus S.

Smart-phones are about the software, not the hardware (above a certain threshold). And even then, WP7 can be the sliced bread of smart-phones, but if they don't have an apps ecosystem, they're not going to take off. With iOS and Android at roughly 20-30% each, and with WP7 at, what, 0-1%? -- who is going to develop WP7 apps? We might not think about it now, but it took a long time for the cool kids to start developing for Android, and even longer for them to do it properly. I only see this slowing down for each new platform added.

[barista]

in case you didn't know the WP7 app store has eveolved faster than android and has already passed 8000 apps. It's about the same speed at which iPhone market evolved, except that the iPhone had a huge installed base by the time apps were allowed.

It's foolish to underestimate the developer muscle of MSFT.

[tomh-]

I have to say, they look pretty good!

[DanI-S]

Nokia's industrial design seems like the only real contender to Apple's in terms of being sleek, modern, but still distinctive and immediately recognisable. It's hard to make a touchscreen phone anything more than a screen, but they both manage to pour the identity of their brand into their devices in a way that few others do.

[saturdaysaint]

These look like exceptionally pretty renders - I have the feeling that the final product will look nothing like that. The reason modern smartphones don't have those sleek contours on the back is that a long-running (read: large) battery is a prerequisite. All of the swooping contours in these shots are basically trading hours of battery life for a dramatic look - I'd be surprised if this survives basic testing.

[fingerprinter]

I guess I don't see it. Here are my rough thoughts.

1. Nokia was on the verge of non-existence. Honestly, Meego and Symbian were not going to cut it. Nokia just didn't have the chops to do it and that was obvious.

2. MSFT was aching to get in the game w/ something/someone other than HTC and this was a real opportunity.

3. Nokia hand Android available to it or this partnership w/ MSFT. By choosing MSFT they got cash infusion and also got to outsource dev to MSFT (which I'm assuming from what I read is the arrangement).

So far, so good. Given those parameters it actually seems to make strategic sense for Nokia to choose MSFT and this route. But wait..that isn't all.

5. Who is going to write the apps for this? Had Nokia chosen Android, they would have literally gained hundreds of thousands of apps instantaneously. Does anyone know the number of people writing WP7 apps? It is not a huge number and most of the apps are not good. Sure, it is early and this announcement will likely boost the numbers but still...it isn't android numbers and it certainly isn't iOS numbers.

Given #5 all of the sudden the decision looks quite questionable.

I guess, what I don't see, is who is Nokia really going to call a customer? If Nokia wants to capture the smartphone market, this is just plain dumb. If nokia wants corporate phones, it might be quite smart..being able to replace RIM/Blackberry just about a launch (really, it would be that easy if they focused). If they want to capture Corporate market AND capture ultra cheap entry cell phones....now it sorta makes sense.

Ok...so what am I missing? Anyone know their real strategy?

[JonoW]

Your views on WP7 apps are a bit off, there is a huge pool of C# devs who are eager to get into a viable app-market. The WP7 tools are free and have been downloaded 2 million times (according to MS). The app store is growing well, and there are about 8000 apps, which is pretty good considering the plaform is v1 and is only about 4 months old. I've found the quality of apps good, and most of the major players have released apps (e.g. facebook, twitter, amazon etc). The Xbox live games are particularly good (although a bit expensive)

[stcredzero]

Nokia was on the verge of non-existence.

Only in the smartphone context. They have strong sales and would have strong sales for quite awhile, even if they just gave up making anything new.

[dshep]

Am I the only one that wishes Nokia had bought Palm instead of HP?

[kenjackson]

The HP rollout this week was pretty impressive though. Palm's designs are already pretty good. HP gives them engineers and services to execute on it. I think HP+Palm is actually a pretty strong fit.

[dflock]

I think Nokia need less OSen, not more.

[paul9290]

Nintendo should have bought Palm. Would be great to have a Nintendo branded phone; one developers can make apps for & even use some of Nintendo's B-list characters. I think that such would give Apple a run for some of it's money.

[metachris]

Agreed, but also rather HP than Oracle or MS!

[zyb09]

Looks so weird to see the letters "NOKIA" on something running WM7, you almost get the feeling that they just sold their soul (not that WM7 is any bad, just not used to see that combination).

[bho]

How did they have this already ready? Was this a previous phone design that they just rendered with Windows Phone 7, or had they been working with Microsoft already?

[endtime]

From TFA:

>The best part about this whole discovery, however, might be that it confirms Steve Ballmer's assertion that the engineers of both companies have "spent a lot of time on this already."

[natmaster]

From the article, "..confirms Steve Ballmer's assertion that the engineers of both companies have 'spent a lot of time on this already.'"

Which then links to the original with the quote from Ballmer here: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/live-from-nokias-capital-...

[Geee]

They've been working together for some time already, but this is likely just a mock-up using Nokia's internal concepts to show how it might look.

[barista]

A few hours on Photoshop and its done. I doubt if this is something real.

[shareme]

Because they have been doing mock ups with both WP7 and android since last summer...I know someone in engineering at Nokia..

[Pooter]

I saw speculation about Nokia switching to WP7 about as soon as Elop went to Nokia. It's hardly a surprise that they've been working on this stuff for a while.

Or it's some Photoshop renders. Either way.

[smogzer]

So they need to do a deal with the devil in order to loose the keyboards and copy established designs. Nokia + MS = 2 x Marketing.

[kiiski]

Some of us still prefer having a qwerty keyboard. At least I wont be buying another phone without one.

[JonoW]

There are already WP7 phones with keyboards, so I don't see why Nokia won't make some

[meemo]

Looks nice, but if you take away the Nokia logo, it could be a phone from any other maker that licenses WP7.

[jsz0]

More appealing than anything else Nokia has done in the post-iPhone era.

[lotusleaf1987]

Gr... I actually wanted something more like an N900 with a capacitive touch screen and some Zeiss optics. I like it, but I wanted a landscape keyboard.

[Geee]

They'll be rolling in every shape and form.