Nokia Announces Treo-Killer

Nokia's new X5 mobile phone, which runs Symbian 3 and is priced at about $450 $200 unsubsidized, also comes in chartreuse. Nokia launches slew of smartphones to take on Apple, Android [The Hindu]

• [Anonymous]

  Even assuming that the subsidized price (if this ever ships in the USA at all, which I kinda doubt) is $0, exactly why would anyone in their right mind pick this over a Palm Pre/Pixi or one of the cheaper Android phones? Or a $99 iPhone 3GS?

• [Anonymous]

  My X6 is much nicer looking and not pink, well at least without it’s protective cover :D The X3 is similar to this one with a keyboard but bigger screen. Why do pics of Nokia phones always look much wider than the phone really is?

• [Gilbert Wham]

  But I don’t Nokia to come in my Chartreuse.

• [Anonymous]

  purple? chartreuse?

  why the half-measures? bring on the paisley!

• [Rob Beschizza]

  Yeah, so this is actually a competitor for the Kin. It looks pretty neat square, and I also love chartreuse. But the lack of touch and that rinkydink little screen — no!

  • [Stooge]

    Chartreuse is lovely, but the shade of yellow Nokia actually went for suggests urologists were consulted extensively as part of the design process.

• [Anonymous]

  450$? Nokia must be purchasing these screens on ebay auctions, because they just don’t make them that small any more.

  I guess, Nokia just did not wanted the worst news in its upcoming quarterly financial statement to be the sales, so it made this.

• [Dewi Morgan]

  Yeah – while USians might feel that their market is the be-all and end-all, to me it seems like the US market is really an afterthought to them. They really don’t seem to be even trying over there. While it’s prettymuch the market leader elsewhere, Americans often seem unaware that the company’s still even around. Which is a real shame, because their top-of-the-line products typically blow the best stuff available in the US out the water: when the iphone came out, I did a point by point comparison with my Communicator, and the communicator equalled or beat it on every point but touchscreens. And that Communicator was a good few years old by then.

  Annoyingly, only about one carrier supports them in the US, though, which is why I guess Nokia ignores the US market: there’s just not enough of a market there to be worth making a US version of its phones. Pisses me off, because it means I’ll have to make do with some crappy Motorola or iPhone or something in the states, but there we go.

• [Anonymous]

  I work for a mobile applications company that produces apps for iPhone, Blackberry, Android and now Samsung, but we won’t touch Symbian with a ten-foot pole.

  I think that illustrates the future of Nokia pretty well.

• [Anonymous]

  I can’t imagine why NOkia stock dropped 10 percent today.

• [jacques45]

  Yeah, it’s ugly. But if the thing runs apps, has user-changeable skins (very important!), and runs down to $50 subsidised, sure I could see it even beating out the Kin despite I’m sure a much smaller marketing budget.

  There is definitely a market of pre-teens with their first phone, teens who want something uncomplicated, and folks who want something above a dumbphone but not much more. It’s probably not a big market, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a money-loser for Nokia. My guess is they’re throwing everything against the wall to see if it sticks as to stem the hemorrhaging of market share.

  • [Anonymous]

    Ah, the money-loser to keep market share. That is always a good strategy.

• [Anonymous]

  Chartreuse is greenish.

• [Anonymous]

  A non-touch smart-phone designed for young Asian teens, in a square form factor that is tailored for the pocketbook. It is able to download apps (PC or 3G), has a pull out QWERTY, 5MP w/flash camera and is designed to support music playback (OVI Music) and messaging. Meant to be very affordable device in Asia, where most phones are not subsidized. Launched in Singapore, it will likely be a hit for markets like Malaysia and Indonesia.

• [Anonymous]

  @anon #7: dad is absolutely a sad keanu.

• [brie987]

  Talk about beating a dead Palm!

• [Anonymous]

  This photo says all you need to know about why Nokia’s corporate performance is tanking each quarter. Anon #12 says this phone “is not intended to compete with any touchscreen based smartphones.” First of all, with Nokia’s current fortunes being what they are, why would they be wasting time and money on such intentions? Secondly, would even third world customers want a dinosaur like this?

• [Anonymous]

  Epic Fail.

• [Halloween Jack]

  Most excellent headline. Also, someone may want to tell Nokia that getting product placement in the Star Trek remake doesn’t count as future-proofing.

• [bobrk]

  Best Boing Boing Headline Ever.

• [Anonymous]

  is it April 1st?

• [Xenu]

  It’s 1998 all over again!

• [Laura]

  I am Anon #12 and Anon #17. Contrary to Glenn’s assertion in #15, I am not a paid Nokia shill. I’m just an infrequent BB commenter and I was on a shared work machine this morning, and I didn’t feel like going through the retrieve password thingie for what I thought was a fast comment. Sorry about that.

  I will cheerfully admit to being a longtime Nokia fan, although their …”strategy” over the last few years has escaped even me, and provided an awful lot of facepalm moments. Please, Nokia, please stop making me defend you when you do such embarrassing things.

  But this phone isn’t (IMHO) a facepalm moment. This is an Indonesia-only phone, announced at a Singapore conference. Yes, it’s square and it’s ugly and the colors are…well, they’re not my thing. But we’re not going to see this phone in the US or in Europe. It’s not going to compete with the iPhone. It’s not going to compete with the Kin. Its closest competitor — from what I understand — is a minidisk player that is popular in that market.

  Keep in mind that although smartphone sales are growing, they still only account for 20% of world cell phone sales (and only 50% of US sales). There continues to be a huge market for phones that do not have touchscreens, do not have high-speed internet access, and do not have an app store. That’s what the X5 and low- to midrange- phones like it are for, its a specific phone for a specific market. Nokia does a lot of that.

  Whether creating lots of different phones for lots of different markets is a GOOD strategy, or whether it will continue to work for them in the future, is of course up for discussion. Being the world sales leader in inexpensive, low-margin devices isn’t exactly a happy place to be.

  • [Itsumishi]

    Being the world sales leader in inexpensive, low-margin devices isn’t exactly a happy place to be.

    That really depends on how many low margin devices you’re selling. That strategy has been working pretty damn well for say Ikea for some time now.

    All this said. This phone doesn’t look uncomplicated. It looks downright confusing. Which to be honest, seems to be the way Nokia’s strategy for quite some time.

    They went from creating simple to use interfaces that were miles ahead of the market to creating junk like the n95 and n97 with strange menus, buttons in all the wrong places (the tiny button to delete a character in text message on the n95 is directly next to the also small button that closes your text message and saves it to the drafts folder, which is about 8 button clicks away FFS!)

    God I hate the n95. I’ve been counting down the contract months pretty much since I got this pile of crap. The above phone looks like it’s in much the same vein.

    I wish I’d never lost my old nokia with the very handy torch, excellent battery life and minimal features.

    • [zio_donnie]

      Yes but Ikea does not pay taxes.

• [vordan]

  Isn’t that screen a bit small?

• [jaypee]

  Wait, what? “Treo-killer”?

• [Manooshi]

  Although chartreuse (not pictured) IS an awesome color, if I were to be able to afford the extra data costs per month for having a smart phone, then I think I would want it to have a larger screen for viewing the interwebs.

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  It looks like a purple Hitler robot head. Needs a sticker for the diagonal forelocks.

• [Anonymous]

  is “Dad” actually a sad Keanu?

• [Anonymous]

  That’s S60 3rd Edition (Feature Pack 2, to be exact) and not Symbian^3. Symbian^N has no provision for devices without touchscreens, so Nokia’s using its own, closed source version of Symbian 9.3

• [Anonymous]

  Wow, an ugly e71! Well, I guess there are consumers for every product.

• [Anonymous]

  Is that a physical keyboard? I thought it was 2010, did I miss a meeting?

• [salsaman]

  ZOMG it can play Bad Romance?! Breaking new ground, for sure…

• [Quiet Noises]

  How come Nokia doesn’t get that you simply cannot just spec a phone to compete in this market, but the entire Ux needs to be designed as a whole. Apple has done this so damned well that it’s even gotten itself into trouble (see: Cory Doctorow, Walled Garden, et al.). Anon @ #7 doesn’t make me think that the already-trailing Symbian OS on this beast is going to save it either.

  I just don’t get how they think something that looks like it performs like a brachiosaurus can compete in the segment. I’m actually laughing at how Late Jurassic this thing is (although that magenta is just dashing.

• [chip]

  You have to wonder why they’d waste their time and money. Android is free and open source. It runs well even on cheap, slow processors, and works with both touchscreen and cursor/trackball input methods. It scales down to 320×240 gracefully, which is as low as a “smartphone” has any business going. If they want to keep symbian for <$50 prepaid dumbphones and developing markets, that’s fine. That’s about all nokia is good for these days. But unless you’re apple or microsoft, there’s no point to dumping resources into yet another closed, proprietary smartphone OS – just ask palm.

• [Saint Fnordius]

  It seems as if this is akin to Al Gore’s “I invented the Internet” albatros – getting killed by snark and distortion. Granted, the little square isn’t anything to be excited about, but it makes you think that it’s the N8 (which looks a lot more like a standard touchscreen, with a slideout keyboard).

  Mob opinion is already writing Nokia off, it seems. They and Microsoft are getting left behind in mindshare.

• [Anonymous]

  Wow, thehindu.com is really doing a lot of damage to this phone today with that one picture.

  It’s a square phone. The keyboard slides out. It is not a treo killer, and it is not intended to compete with any touchscreen based smartphones. It is optimized for music, video, and messaging. It’s a simple inexpensive phone for the far east. And it comes in colors other than pink.

  Not every phone has to be a high tech wonder.

  • [The Life Of Bryan]

    It’s a simple inexpensive phone

    SRSLY? $450 unsubsidized is “inexpensive?”

    • [Anonymous]

      Nokia announced the estimated retail price of the X5 will be 165 euros, which is about $203 unsubsidized.

    • [Stooge]

      That’s an error on Rob’s part: $450 is the price of the N8. The X5-01 should be around $200. Still not exactly cheap for something that looks like an early Game & Watch.

      • [areyouthatguy]

        If it WAS a Game & Watch it might actually be worth getting.

  • [Glenn Fleishman]

    Your check is in the mail, one wonders.

• [Anonymous]

  $450 is inexpensive?