In his latest post for Techspeak, exclusively for Gadget Geeks, Ian Morris talks about the latest generation of Nokia handsets, and how the company deserves to succeed.
Much has been written about Nokia's troubles recently. The once mighty firm faces the same challenges which BlackBerry is trying to deal with. But there's one very distinct difference between Nokia and BlackBerry: Nokia is still creating great hardware that works well while BlackBerry, it seems, is flapping around making £1000 Porsche Design handsets.
Creating phones only footballers can afford is really not the way to rescue a failing business. Nokia, though, has done the sensible thing and focused on good design and the same likeable handsets that made people fall in love with it in the first place.
I've used two Nokia phones recently, the Lumia 800, which its the firm's flagship Windows Phone 7 device and the Nokia 700, which is possibly one of the last Symbian-powered handsets that the world will see. But what has struck me most is just how good these phones actually are.
The Lumia is the nicest Windows Phone I've used. The solid Nokia feel is here, which we all know and love. The screen has a beautiful curve to it, and the OLED display is bright, vibrant and stunning to look at. There is also the way Nokia has placed the panel under the toughened, slightly curved glass. It's so close to the surface that it looks amazing. Too often, phones have their panels mounted with a large gap between the panel and the glass, which looks naff, in my opinion.
Windows Phone isn't for everyone though, and I sometimes wish the Lumia was an Android phone - I think the firm would have sold a lot more if it was - and there are some issues with the camera, which is good, but not great, and troublesome battery life.
The Nokia 700, on the other hand, is like the Nokia phones of old. Symbian has been Nokia's baby for years. It's a good OS, but one that struggled to progress into the touchscreen era. Nokia has mostly sorted those issues now, and this small, well-built handset is lovely to use. It's not going to tempt anyone away from their huge smartphones, but for most users this handset does everything they'll ever need.
It may be that both BlackBerry and Nokia will survive these challenging times. But, if you ask me, Nokia deserves to do well, because it tries so hard with its devices.
