Nokia reportedly readies mass price cuts
Cheap phones to pave way for WinPho?
Nokia is readying a ten per cent price cut across its entire smartphone product line this September, it has been claimed.
Eldar Murtazin, owner of Russian website Mobile-Review.com, claimed on Twitter that the Finnish mobile giants will implement a price cut as it struggles for market share worldwide. Murtazin is believed to have good connections within Nokia.
Thanks to the rise of Android and Apple, Nokia's share of the mobile market is in decline and it recently turned to Windows Mobile phones in order to take the company forward.
With such WinPho models on the horizon, lowering the price of older models make sense, but would it be enough encouragement you to buy a phone with a soon-to-be defunct OS? ®
COMMENTS
"Murtazin is believed to have good connections within Nokia."
...only by people who still think it's 2008.
The only story he did "break" this year was a bare-faced lie that had to be denied by the CEO himself to stop it getting legs. He completely missed the N9's launch, and if we go back to February, he got the Microsoft/Nokia tie-up wrong too (although in fairness, he did "leak" almost every possible outcome except the one that came to pass).
Leaving aside his unreliabiliy (and sometimes hostility) on matters Nokia, price cuts are hardly a major scoop: the current Symbian range is based on last year's device launch (the N8), there's now a new batch of phones coming in Q3 with higher specs than the current ones, and a newer OS ("Belle"). These new products, and serious price competition from the Chinese Android units makes a price-cut inevitable.
Price cuts in mobile are an odd thing anyway, when almost no customers pay the real price of their phone, especially smartphones. Even PAYG handsets are either subsidised or loaded depending on what the operator wants.
Why would you care about a "dead" OS?
With a Symbian phone you can access www and other content and send and receive SMS and email messages -- chances are you'll get it with a longer battery life than Android and iOS devices also. So, why would you need any more?
If you bought a smartphone on contract you'll likely upgrade on the next renewal anyhow.
All I want
Unlike a lot of people, it seems, I'm happy with a basic smartphone. If it's got a decent IMAP email client with encryption and a sane web browser and can do texts and phone calls, that's enough if the price is low enough. A few bells and whistles such as Google Maps (or even Ovi maps if they continue to exist), an IM client and a stopwatch (one of the few apps I use on my existing phone) and that'll be it.
I don't need Android or iPhone with their dodgy tracking and booby-trapped app stores, I just need a basic tool, so if Nokia will oblige with a low-enough price, I might buy one before they wreck their line with Windows.
Get it while you can
Step right up. Who wants to buy a burning platform? Guaranteed to keep you warm in the cold Atlantic while you wait for the rescue boats to arrive. Get these limited edition Symbian phones before they become collectors items!
"Thanks to the rise of Android and Apple..."
Should be "Thanks to the poor build quality, underpowered processors and poor operating system..."
Its why I switched after quite a few years of Nokia.
