Nokia Lumia nail polish

When Nokia announced its N9/Lumia 800, I was among many delighted by the attractive hardware. With Microsoft's new Windows Phone OS—itself getting surprise raves for its minimalism and focus—it struck me that here was a vision in the sense that technologists and marketers mean it: a contemporary ideal of quality and forward-thinkingness that could translate into a serious commercial advantage. Competitors had already made their plays, after all, and even great success can lock a company in place. Perhaps the next decade in gadgets wasn't going to be divvied up by Apple and Google, after all.

So, when it finally came out in the U.S., I walked into an AT&T store to upgrade to it.

What they had on the shelf, however, was something slightly different. The Nokia 900 was significantly larger, for starters, with that exquisite design morphed around a fatter, heavier chassis. Worse, the new display offered the same relatively low resolution as the smaller model, but stretched over larger screen—heading in the opposite direction to the "retina" displays found on newer iPhones and Androids. I felt disappointed in it: something indefinite and strange had gone wrong with a good idea. Someone had Homered it.

The salesman suggested that the changes allowed them to include a powerful "4G" radio, which promised faster speeds but required more juice, and therefore a larger chassis to contain a larger battery. If I wanted the more compact 800 model, he said, I'd have to order it off-contract. Turns out that it's $750 at Amazon.

I walked out with a new iPhone, and the impression that Nokia was kinda doomed on grounds of carrier and OS licensor market power, etc.

However, they've now announced matching nail polish to go with a new pink model, so I've changed my mind and will be hurrying over to the AT&T store this lunchtime.

Nokia Lumia 900 pink nail polish [The Verge]

• [giantasterisk]

  A marketing breakthrough!

• [mobobo]

  it is a little beauty – and the OS is SO refreshing after years of the beautiful iPhone OS being ripped by everybody and their uncle…but until they can sort shite like this oot they are totally fecked.

• [nixiebunny]

  Were you eyeing the pink model? After all, it has matching nail polish. 

• [Chuck]

  Not so fast.  Apple holds the patent on that shade of pink.  Expect court action.

• [Boundegar]

  The nail polish does not match the phone, this does not work for me.

  • [jackrabbitslim]

    Yeah, the phone’s case has a lot more orange in it. I’d go so far as to call it coral, whereas the polish is more your general purpose princess and Pepto pink.

• [Crashproof]

  Lumia is “prostitute” in Spanish, or so I’ve heard.

  Just throwing that out there.

  • [Guido]

    Not in Venezuelan or Chilean Spanish at least. 

• [Daneel]

  I wish Nokia would just let us buy N9 Pink, instead of fobbing us off with Lumia Pink. Why won’t they just let us buy what we want?

• [orangedesperado]

  Well obviously with all that pink — plus the bonus of almost matching nail polish — this product is for WOMEN. Because women don’t actually keep up to date on technology or functionality, right ?(sarcasm) It’s PINK ! When does the 0.0005% donation towards breast cancer research get tied into this brilliant marketing scheme ? Maybe if they included a free DIY swarovski bejewelling kit that could really reach the target market, right ? Right ?

  • [Nathan Hornby]

    My girlfriend bought her phone because it’s purple and has a menstrual calendar on it.  Twice.

    Just saying.

    • [blueelm]

      Actually the menstrual calendar thing sounds great. But I have to wonder how it could possibly differ from a regular calendar, and why would you want a separate calendar for that?

      I want to be able to speak to my calendar, actually. “August 15-16 travel to xyz remind me on August 14 at 10 am”  or “Remind me that I have to take my car to be serviced on September 23 at 6 PM” 

• [IronEdithKidd]

  Because pink nail polish improves all technology? 

  This woman will be keeping her black iphone.

• [Jack Kieffer]

  I still can’t get over the design of the Nokia Lumia – it looks so slick, and the vibrant colors really bring it to life!

• [Matthew Duncan]

  So you went with the iPhone with screen resolution beign a deciding factor?  “Retina” display is little more than a marketing ploy.  By Apples definition every screen ever made is a “retina” display, if viewed from the proper distance.  You have chosen, poorly. 

  • [edkedz]

    Settle down, Francis.
    To have a side at all in a fight like this is to choose poorly.

• [Nash Rambler]

  I bought the Nokia Lumia 900, and I’m pleased so far, but I’m prejudiced: I had never owned a smartphone before (after limping along with a 6-year old flip phone).  So far, I’m finding it easy to use, and the Windows features are pretty seamless.  There are some hand-wringers; you can load Google, but Bing is your default search engine.  Forever.  There are many apps which I would like to have but are only available in iPhone/Galaxy flavors.  Oh, and Google maps is neatly blockified, but you can sign up to AT&T’s navigation service for the low low price of $10 per month.

  The upside is that it works, isn’t intimidating, and the display is large enough for me to type things out with my giant, sausage-like fingers.  The price was right (nearly free after rebates), and the battery life is decent for a display this size.  So, I’m happy, but with only a minor twinge in wondering if I should’ve gone with a Galaxy Nexus.

  As for the pink thing?  Eh, I agree, sounds like a cheap scheme to target a non-nerd demographic.

  • [RobertoMapp]

    Why are you using Google Maps when you have Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, and Bing Maps?

• [Mark Dow]

  Am I imagining the hand zombification is progressing? She should call a vDoctor about that.

• [blueelm]

  I like the polish better than the phone, but you’d think they would go for an edgier color. Also the “I’d like a nail-polish-pink phone” crowd seems better served by cutesy designer and hello kitty crystal encrusted iPhone cases currently.

• [Ipo]

  “ Someone had Homered it.”

  Can’t quite decide. 
  Epic, cartoonish or sportive. 
  D’oh!

• [skeletoncityrepeater]

  I love how the alt-text for the main image is ‘asfasfasfasfasfas’.  I guess the visually impaired don’t need to know about the pretty phone and its matching nail polish. ;)