How is the N8? Is it “faster and more intuitive,” as Nokia’s press releases claim? I really couldn’t say. Journalists got to touch the handset for about a minute each. Many of the phone’s most desired entertainment features such as social networking, Web TV and Ovi downloads depend on the connectivity provided by the Kingdom’s mobile bandwidth providers. That connectivity remains unreliable and expensive, and no handset can overcome such handicaps.
At the press conference, Nokia claimed that its handsets are leading in all sectors in the Middle East and Africa. Chris Braam, VP, sales, Nokia Middle East and Africa was extremely upbeat during his presentation, rattling off numerous statistics and advising that the company was on a “journey to get compelling mobile solutions into the hands of billions of consumers.” In its offerings, Nokia is trying to be more relevant to the region’s consumers. Twelve countries in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) have been introduced to Nokia Music. In the MEA region there are 400,000 users of Nokia messaging and 16 countries are now navigable with Nokia Maps. Nokia’s Ramadan apps where extremely popular this year with 600,000 downloads from the Ovi store, which meant 140 percent growth year over year.
Truth be told, the Middle East and North Africa aren’t Nokia’s main concern right now. The company is more worried about the fact that they still haven’t cracked the huge US market. Apple controls the smartphone market there and Nokia’s latest offering, the Twist, has so far been a bust. Braam remarked that Nokia is witnessing over 2 million downloads each day from the Ovi App Store. That sounds impressive until it’s noted that earlier this month, Apple announced that there have been 6.5 billion downloads from its AppStore. That comes to an average of over 8.2 million downloads daily. Android market statistics from AndroLib show 1.6 billion downloads or over 2.4 million downloads daily.
Nokia is trying to fix its Ovi store problems. With US telecom AT&T, the company has just announced a “Calling All Innovators contest” in the USA similar to the 2009 Nokia Calling All Innovators Bil3arabi contest held in the Middle East — but with a much bigger total prize award. Prizes in Bil3arabi were worth about $125,000. The US contest is offering $4 million in cash and prizes to three winners in seventeen categories of competition for developing Ovi Store Apps.
More apps are potentially a boon for all Ovi users, wherever they may be, but apps are just one of Nokia’s problems. The pressure is on for the Nokia N8 to be a smashing global success. Handset manufacturers from Samsung to Blackberry have been nibbling away at Nokia’s market share and the company needs to bring out a device that will be an object of serious desire. The Nokia N8 will be the first of a new family of Symbian smartphones. Powered by Symbian ^3, the operating system introduces several advances, including support for gestures such as multi touch, flick scrolling and pinch-zoom. The Nokia N8 also offers multiple, personalizable homescreens, which can be loaded with apps and widgets. Symbian ^3 provides improved memory management allowing more applications to run parallel for a faster multi-tasking experience.
Mikko Aarras, the lead designer for the Nokia N8, was at the pre-launch event. It was clear that he loves the device he helped create. The handset body is cut from a single piece of anodised aluminum and will be available in five colors. Market research done by Nokia predicts that the bright orange N8 body will be the most popular among young Saudi males. Aarras had the metallic blue handset in his pocket.
“The starting point for the design of the Nokia N8 was high quality materials and the feel of the surfaces in your hand,” Aarras said. “We wanted it to show the craftmanship that has gone into designing the device. For example, we wanted to have rounded edges and emphasize the details by diamond cutting. These are simple ways to bring out the qualities of the material.”
Sounds amazing and interest surrounding the handset is high. Will the N8 live up to its promise? In a few weeks, consumers like you will decide.
