The Nokia N97: Why Nokia?
In December 2008, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) announced a new flagship device, the Nokia N97. Before I get into the Nokia N97, I wanted to first talk about one huge thing:
Why Nokia?
It’s no surprise to anyone that’s read half the things I’ve said about mobile devices, I love Nokia products. I have since they released the Nokia 5100 and 6100 series phones that featured the first iterations of mobile entertainment with Games, especially Snake, and the 5100 series was also the first ever mobile phone to feature changeable colored faceplates. Nokia brought more than merely personalization and entertainment to a market that was previously geared toward the common businessperson. They also introduced the first global phones, supporting multiple network frequencies, at a consumer level. In fact, going through the history of Nokia with a few Google searches, the word you see the most is “first”.
The object of the game, which is available on any Nokia phone in the 5100 or higher series, is to move the slithering snake toward morsels of food while avoiding the imaginary electric fence that runs around the boundary of the screen. Bits of food (little dots) appear in random areas on the screen, and they are gobbled as soon as the snake passes over them. The more the critter eats, the more points you rack up. – New York Times circa 2000
Following Nokia for nearly 10 years now, it’s apparent: innovation and market shift coming from their vision of the future is what drives the mobile market. Over the past two years, they’ve only had one thing to look to as possible competition, the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone.
Since the iPhone’s release to the market, comparing the Apples to “oranges” has been common practice, and not just for Nokia, but for Palm, Blackberry and the G1 alike. But to take a step back, and look at the bigger picture, Nokia had the vision for the future well before Apple even understood what the cell phone market was asking for:
Nokia displayed a yellow, egg-shaped handheld device intended to serve as a cell phone, personal digital assistant and camera. The phone has a color screen and supports the Epoc operating system from Symbian. Nokia executives said the company will start releasing some of the features in its family of cell phones next year. – CNET November 21st 2000
After 2 hours of searching archives from the 1.0 web, I was able to track down an image I saw on a South African cellphone site when I was a technician for what used to be PacBell Wireless (Cingular, now AT&T). Behold:
Now, I can’t even tell you how excited I was when I saw this concept. There were two others that were released the same time, but this one got my attention. A full screen phone, touch screen number pad, video/photo camera… Pretty much what you have today; but I found this photo stuffed away on archive.org in May 1999, and this featured Video Teleconferencing.
Nokia is like the frikkin Nostradamus of the cell phone market, and everyone thought they were nuts. Games on cellphones were seen as a road hazard, the whole idea of color screens was a question of “why”? Until cameras started coming attached to handsets. The future Nokia saw was “one device for everything mobile”. That was 10 years ago.
Now? With the Nokia N95 on my desk, and the Nokia N97 anxiously being waited for – I can say this. Pay attention to where Nokia is going, not just in their “market appeal devices”, but in the little leaps that they make throughout the span of their product and service releases.
When it comes to Apple? Apple doesn’t know cellphones, they don’t know innovation. Apple knows marketing. They know how to create demand for a device, and unless they catch up on the past 20 years of experience Nokia has in the industry – not the market – they will simply fall behind, and become “the 2006 thing to have”. Point being, it’s going to take a lot more than “multi-touch” and a “full browser” to put a dent in the future Nokia started to pave more than 10 years ago.
The Nokia N97
Features:
- 3.5″ Sliding Display (larger than both G1 & iPhone)
- 16:9 Widescreen Display (vs. the 3:2 on iPhone and G1)
- 640 x 360 display (vs. 480 x 320 on iPhone)
- TV-out
- Nokia Video Center
- A-GPS
- 5 mega-pixel camera on the back
- 1.3 megapixel camera on the front (for Video Teleconferencing)
- Carl Zeiss optics (you know, the guys that put lenses in space for NASA?)
- 32 GB in-phone w/ microSD slot for expansion
- 1500mAh removable battery (vs 1400mAh embedded battery on iPhone)
- S60 ver 5 Open Source operating system, pay attention to this one
- QWERTY keyboard
- Tactile feedback touchscreen
- Modular widget home-screen (meaning you can customize what shows up, in what order, on the home screen much like you get with iGoogle)
- Bluetooth 2.0 (stereo audio and EDR for faster data rates)
- Standard micro-USB adapter (vs. proprietary whatever plug Apple comes out with, there’s usually a new one every single device they release. How’s that working out for you accessory buyers?)
Coupled with Nokia Services like Ovi [The upcoming Nokia App Store which is already a center for video & photo sharing, among other things], as well as Nokia Vine / Nokia Sports Tracker or even PC Suite (for those non-Ovi folks); The N97 will be the realization that mobile computing is a complete reality, and will be focused on content contribution and consumption, unlike it’s “competitor” the Apple iPhone – which is the perfect device for those that merely consume, and rarely contribute.
After the release of the Nokia N97, those that are using the iPhone will be seen as those who are still using Internet Explorer 6 to browse the web – but that’s just my humble opinion topped with well… check this out if you have doubts:
Ref:
2009 N-Series (http://2009.nseries.com/specs.aspx)