Nokia X6 Comes with Music lands at Nokia World for music lovers

So this will have a interface similar to the current symbian (5th edition) Xpressmusic range of phones???

And I see a new series have been launched - the 'X' series.. Knowing Nokia, they should add the tagline of the X Files to this - 'the truth is out there' :tongue:

Processor 433.9MHz + nHD screen + tail end of 2009 = FAIL

I was ever hopeful that this event would see the introduction of an S60 5th edition device that uses the 'cpu ref design' that is even in something as lowly as the 6720! That they will put that level of processor (which is hardly cutting edge itself) in a mid to low range candybar, and then choke their 'halo' products with an engine that is easily 2 years out of date and maybe more, that clearly shows that the wind of insanity is blowing through Espoo.

Higher res screen = higher pixel fill rate = more work to do, and with no graphics co-pro, you need a faster core processor.

For the last 3 years, Nokia couldn't catch the zeitgeist even if it came up and bit them on the backside (see their perpetual state of catchup with flip phones, then slide phone, then thin phones, and now finger driven touchscreens). Can someone please read the last rites for this once great company, and then put it out of its misery.

Andy

Hey Ewan, you also included picture of X3, this is the next release.

Webbunny wrote:

For the last 3 years, Nokia couldn't catch the zeitgeist even if it came up and bit them on the backside (see their perpetual state of catchup with flip phones, then slide phone, then thin phones, and now finger driven touchscreens). Can someone please read the last rites for this once great company, and then put it out of its misery.

You mean the leader with 49% of the market?

The vast majority of the market for music phones are not nurds and don't give a toss about the geek-specs.

Webbunny wrote:Processor 433.9MHz + nHD screen + tail end of 2009 = FAIL

And 12-17 girls spend this much money on a phone? For me, it fails because it will be made using cheap plastics yet cost as much as a phone that should be made out of high quality materials. The N86 is the only decent phone available from Nokia at the moment.

There is more to processor speed than raw Mhz. AMD and later on Intel proved that.

The vast majority of the market for music phones are not nurds and don't give a toss about the geek-specs

I dont think you got my point, I wasn't talking about "geek-specs". You are right, the vast majority of customers dont give a rats a*** about the speed of the processor. My point is, they also wont give a rats a*** about how good the camera is or how fast the 3G connection is, if the phone in general is laggy, unresponsive and therefore annoying and frustrating to use.

The faster processor is just a means to an end - responsiveness.

Nokia seem to have completely missed this point, the 'zeitgeist' in high end phones, the 'spirit of the times' right now is not about having a long bullet list of features (ie X Megapixels, X Mbit HPSA, etc), it is about a phone experience that is responsive to use, easy to use, joyful to use. The device with the mindshare at the moment, and I think you all know the one I am on about, has a pretty lowly screen, camera, battery etc. But the company behind it has understood that what is important is the experience, the joy of use, which equates to the industrial design and the software environment, so the focus of the hardware has been on making it 'ooh, shiny', and a great platform for the software.

My point about 'missing the trend' can be clearly seen with Nokias response to the whole Moto Razr trend (which was 'thin is in'😉. By the time they did respond, what customers wanted had moved on.

And as for having '49% of the market', thats 49% of the whole worldwide mobile phone market including simple 'make calls, send texts' phones like the 1661, in fact the vast majority of that 49% is made up of simple devices just like that, selling in developing countries. And its that market that Nokia is going to be left with.

Like I said, its last rites time.

Andy

Unregistered wrote:There is more to processor speed than raw Mhz. AMD and later on Intel proved that.

True, the most recent phone chip on the market, the Cortex-A8, can do more work for the same raw Mhz rating than the previous generation that Nokia is using in everything bar the N900.

So to get a 'faster' processor, Nokia could

- use a more recent design at the same Mhz rating they use now
- use their existing older design, and clock it higher.

They've done the second option on a number of S60 3rd Ed phones released this year.

My point is, for the S60 5th Ed phones, which inherently need more processing power because they have 3 times as much to draw on the screen, they have done neither option.

Andy.

Webbunny,

The phone with the 'mindshare' is not the one with the 'sales volume'. You should also bear in mind that processor speed means nothing in itself - it's how it runs the OS and UI and it'll manage the X6 just fine with that spec. I should also point out that the iPhone 3GS runs at 600 MHz because Mobile OS X is a hell of a lot more demanding than S60v5.

The other point I think you're missing is market segmentation. The X series is not the premium brand going forward - that remains the N series which I expect to go pretty much exclusively Maemo in the future (the N900 is the first series device here, expect slimmer capacitive screen versions in 2010) - it is a consumer music brand which, as we know, is a market Nokia have done very well in with the 5800 despite the fact that unit has a CPU with three quarters of the horsepower of the X6.

Which is why your point that it's 'last rites' time is woefully unfounded when you review the facts:

1) Nokia's global market share has shrunk largely because the US smartphone market has grown and Nokia have no presence there.
2) In the EMEA and Asian markets share has increased or remains stable.
3) Year on year unit volumes are up from 2008.

The hype around Nokias competitors vanishes a little when you look at ex-US sales. You would do well to review these (and by that I mean longer term trends rather than just, say, launch quarters).

Mr Mark

Mr Mark wrote:The X series is not the premium brand going forward....it is a consumer music brand which, as we know, is a market Nokia have done very well in with the 5800 despite the fact that unit has a CPU with three quarters of the horsepower of the X6.

I believe the 5800 and the new X6 have the same 'guts' so one has no more horsepower than the other. I have had a 'good play' with a 5800, running the latest firmware, and it is my opinion that it would be a very nice phone if it wasn't so laggy. In its current form I find it too frustrating to use, which I can only attribute to the hardware not being sufficient for the software (despite the Symbian OS' renowned low hardware demands, which I would agree with you is its greatest advantage).

As for wanting 'sales volume' over mind share... hmm. No I think any company would want 'high per unit margins' rather than 'sales volume'. And Apple (lets not hide) have got 'high per unit margins' on their product because they are charging a bloody fortune for their product!

But plenty enough people are prepared to pay that fortune to make more profit than Nokia is making right now. Why are so many people prepared to pay? Is it marketing brainwashing? Maybe, but isn't that another way of saying 'mindshare'?

Leaving the X Series out of it for a mo, are we saying N Series is going to jump ship from Symbian wholesale sometime soon? What happen to "its not a phone, its a multimedia computer", or "its what computers have become"? Is the only answer to that Maemo?

There has been a trend in the last decade, for brands to go one of 2 ways, or wither. They either go 'budget' (the Aldis and Matalans of the world), or 'boutique'. Brands that didn't or couldn't go either way have struggled (this is commonly held as the cause of Mark & Spencers recent troubles). Apple is 'boutique' definitely. Nokia (and by association, Symbian) is taking a roadmap to 'budget'. To me, thats really unambitious.

Andy

Webbunny wrote: Apple is 'boutique' definitely. Nokia (and by association, Symbian) is taking a roadmap to 'budget'. To me, thats really unambitious.

WebBunny:

The day that I turn to a phone user interface for a 'joyfull' experience is the day that I decide to stay home alone and watch star trek re-runs, quote from Star Wars in a yoda voice and collect comic-books for the rest of my life. that really is the saddest reflection on people that I've read for a long time. People and life make for joyfull experience. A smartphone is a gadget tool.

Plus, the 5800 with V30 is completely sharpened up and not laggy at all. It is quite impressive for a low end budget device.

Webbunny,

The 5800's ARM11 runs at 369MHz, the X6's will run at 434MHz. OK, not quite a quarter but a good 20% faster and certainly fast enough with what they've learned about the 5800's firmware (I own a 5800).

I agree with a lot of what you say but I feel it's an overly negative approach. Apple offer one style of phone with the only variance being in memory levels which are fixed and that market is becoming really crowded. Boutique products only remain boutique if they move with the times and I'm not sure Apple are doing that with the iPhone. Nokia's transition to Maemo for high end devices feels like the smarter move in the long run as does HTC's Sense UI for its Android line.

Unregistered wrote:And 12-17 girls spend this much money on a phone? For me, it fails because it will be made using cheap plastics yet cost as much as a phone that should be made out of high quality materials. The N86 is the only decent phone available from Nokia at the moment.

12-17 years olds often have more expensive phones than this bought by their parents. It's a music phone and therefore does include school age in its target market.

The N86 is way down my list of Nokia products that I would choose.

Btw, I think the X6 has a capacitive touch screen.

Interesting, although along the lines of other Nokia marketing to resell the same internals in a refreshed box with some minor tweaks.

To really win now dump that 1980s operating system.....

mvn wrote:

To really win now dump that 1980s operating system.....

Care to elaborate what is "1980s" about Symbian?

"The 5800's ARM11 runs at 369MHz, the X6's will run at 434MHz. OK, not quite a quarter but a good 20% faster and certainly fast enough with what they've learned about the 5800's firmware (I own a 5800)."

Actually, the 5800 ARM11 is the same as the one in 5530 and N97 ... and as per firmware V20 and above, now runs at 434 MHz only ...

it has capacitive ts, it was confirmed from people at nw09

mvn wrote:Interesting, although along the lines of other Nokia marketing to resell the same internals in a refreshed box with some minor tweaks.

To really win now dump that 1980s operating system.....

Symbian isn't 1980s. no idea what recreational drugs you're taking to be coming to that conclusion.

even if it was a 1980s operating system, what's wrong with sticking with something that works?

UNIX is a lot older than 1980s, and yet it still influences modern operating systems.

Mac OS X
Windows
Linux (and all derivatives)

to name but a few

OK, so an anonymous person has decided to have a personal pop at me and suggest I am sad enough to impersonate Yoda as amusement.

But I will say this. What is wrong for wanting to enjoy the use of the gadgets and tools we have with us and use every day? Its my opinion that the 5800, even with V30, is too frustrating for me to want to use it, let alone pay for it. Your opinions are different and I accept that.

I would kindly ask those reading this to please read this rant by Stephen Fry:

http://www.stephenfry.com/2008/12/11/gee-one-bold-storm-coming-up%E2%80%A6/

This page hit headlines because he was very cruel about the Blackberry Storm. But it touches on this idea of enjoying your daily tools, the paragraph that starts "Looking back, then, at the first phase in the history of smart communication devices...."

There are some comments here saying that the hardware Nokia is shipping S60 5th Ed on is 'enough'. Maybe Nokia believe in this too, why offer more when this is enough, of course theres no way to know this for sure but as someone completely unconnected with Nokia this is the impression I get from their latest products.

Mr Fry counters this thinking:

"they all need to understand for the sake of their pride and happiness as much as their success, this simple rule: ‘That’ll do’ won’t do. ‘That’s good enough’ is never good enough."

This is the reason I am sat here, thinking 'oh dear', and 'never mind', and 'shouldn't have got my hopes up I suppose' and sighing.

I want Nokia to succeed at all levels and sectors of the telecoms market that they are in. I want to stay as one of their customers, no logical reason why, call it 'brand loyalty' to the Symbian OS, which I feel is the only smartphone OS designed from the start for mobile devices that run for days off batteries. I know Nokia <> Symbian, but Nokia make the vast majority of Symbian devices and seem to know how to use Symbian better that anyone else.

While I'm probably not the target market for the X6, I'm left with wondering what is targetted at me. N900? Possibly, but I get the impression it is Nokia hedging their bets, and of course it is not Symbian, its a desktop OS squashed into a phone, like iPhone OS and Android. Does this mean it is not going to be as well suited to being a phone as well as a 'pocket computer', the way Symbian is and those other two are not?

Andy

Forget about the devices announced today, here's the real scoop! I'm psychic, and my spirit guide has just revealed to me the specifications of the next Nokia S60v5 device, to be announced sometime in the near future:
434MHz ARM11 processor
"large" (either 3.2" or 3.5"😉 resistive LCD
128MB RAM
32 GB onboard flash storage
5MPx camera
dual led flash

😃
Seriously, Nokia, this is pathetic.

"I should also point out that the iPhone 3GS runs at 600 MHz because Mobile OS X is a hell of a lot more demanding than S60v5."

is this for real? or are you just plain DUMB?

I'd still take the Samsung I8910 which runs S60v5!

Unregistered wrote:"I should also point out that the iPhone 3GS runs at 600 MHz because Mobile OS X is a hell of a lot more demanding than S60v5."

is this for real? or are you just plain DUMB?

Well why don't you explain why it isn't and when you're finished I'll be nice and tell you exactly why Mobile OS X is a more demanding mobile OS than Symbian (if you're clever enough - which I doubt - you'll notice Webbunny alludes to the reasons in his post) and its S60v5 layer?

Or you can throw cowardly anonymous insults and have no credibility. Up to you, sport.

Guys, It's been confirmed that the X-6 is the first of the Nokia S60 V5 with a "Capacative" touch screen.

this comes will have a capacitive touchscreen, unlike 5800. More lipstick on a symbian pig!

I read else where that the X6 has capacitive touchscreen, is that true?