Meraj Chhaya from Phone Report attended the Growing Together 2008 Conference and was able to get some hands on experience with the 4 devices Nokia launched at the event. I've offered to publish his article on Into Mobile and he has agreed, quite enthusiastically might I add.
The fascination with sub 100 EUR handsets stems my curiosity with what effects the democratization of technology will have on future generations and how they will define the term knowledge. What happens when the people who are currently scraping by to buy a Nokia 1100 will have something in their pocket that resembles the Nokia N95 of this day? It may sound crazy and cruel to state such a thing now, those parts of the world have more important issues to deal with, but with the rate of technological innovation we're facing in the mobile industry today such a future might happen in less than half a decade. Anyway, enjoy Meraj's piece after the jump!
Nokia on Wednesday released four mobile phones and gave an in-depth press conference about its strategy in the entry-level emerging markets. Following the speeches by Nokia's Vice-President for Sub-Saharan Sales, Loren Shuster, and by Nokia's Vice-President for entry-level devices, Alex Lambeek, there were three workshops where Nokia demonstrated the need for mobile internet and email in rural areas. Interesting remarks were also made by Paul Griffith, Nokia's Head of entry-level phones design, and at the end the day there was a lecture on the partnership with Nokia Siemens Networks to provide internet connectivity for rural areas with the Village Connection Internet Kiosk Project.
During Shuster's speech he noted that current mobile connections outnumber fixed connections by nearly six to one. He explained that the key to Nokia's success in the entry-level emerging markets is the wide range of products and services and consistency in evolving by recognizing the needs and wants of African consumers. When examining this market the Sub-Saharan sales Vice-President said that “Nokia wants a direct touch with retail customer” and to confirm this he stated that there are already more than 500 customer care service points across the market.
Alex nominated South Africa as one of the top three largest growing markets of Africa and said that Nokia is a major catalyst in the industry. Heading into the technical details he said “Nokia brought innovation with the first flash-light-enabled phone, the Nokia 1100,” besides that Nokia also brought the first cameraphone under 100€, the Nokia 2630. The Nokia 2300 completed the innovations list which featured a built in FM Radio.
The Nokia 1100 sold over 250 million units; the first billionth phone sold by Nokia was the 1100, sold in Nigeria, one of the most profitable emerging markets due to its size.
Alex listed the 5 key areas of focus that needed for a entry-level device to be successful:
- Languages: Nokia releases phones with menus in 80 different languages.
- Durability: Dust covers were released to protect the internals of the device from harsh environments.
- Battery life: In remote locations electricity is scarce.
- Ease of use: An example of this is the talking clock.
- Entertainment: FM Radio is an important step to transform phones into multimedia devices.
To conclude his speech he noted that users replacing their mobile phones are slowly increasing in number versus first-time users, a segment that Nokia will place more emphasis on than the latter.
Nokia 5000
This is the most high-priced low-end phone at 90€ before subsidies and taxes. The 5000 incorporates a 1.3 megapixel camera. The display is a suitable QVGA with 65k colours that fills up the 2” screen.
An FM Radio is included, but the breakthrough here’s being able to record FM Radio. MP3 and ACC ringtones are compatible as well, but the question is how to fit everything under 12MB of memory without a memory card slot? There is Bluetooth, GPRS and EDGE.
The phone's shape and appearance kept on reminding me of the Nokia 5310 Xpress Music that I reviewed some time ago. The colours available for this phone are cyber green, neon blue, and perfect purple.
An interesting detail in this device is the speaker on the back, the stylish way the cover is raised so that the sound doesn't get trapped if the phone is put on a surface. Paul Griffith told the press that on the speaker there’s a mesh layer that prevents dirt and its colour matches the aluminum highlights on the sides of the display.
Nokia 2680
The 2680 is the first slider in the entry-level phones category. It will be available in the third quarter of 2008 and it has reduced functionality when compared to the Nokia 5000, therefore it has a reduced 75€ price tag.
In terms of features there is a VGA camera, FM radio with the capability to record, Bluetooth and GRPS connectivity.
The display has a resolution of 128
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The US wireless landscape is something of a trip back in time. Our adoption of mobile services and network technologies is so slow it hurts. But, according to a recently published study, it seems that mobile phone reliance in the States is increasing.
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