Will N8 will suffer the same fate as N900 ?

by Farhan on July 4, 2010

So Nokia’s Anssi Vanjoki the latest Head of Mobile Solutions, has come out with his fighting gloves and has said that Nokia is ready to fight back  . Nokia had been loosing their support fast with it’s biggest blog supports with the latest shut down of Symbian-Guru.com ( I had been a small contributor there )  Mr Vanjoki had a rough first day .  Nonetheless he is ready to face the competition  as said in his latest blog post and it’s being heralded by many Nokia’s come back.

I’m happy for Mr Vanjoki that he is ready to take on the challenge and wish him all the best but after re reading his post , I got a feeling that a new N900 fiasco is brewing at Nokia .

Mr Vanjoki has said “  The Nokia N8 will be our only Nseries device on Symbian^3 “ followed by “ Symbian^4 Nseries device is a strong possibility. A very strong possibility “

So again we are looking at a fiasco like N900 .

When we compare the N900 and N8 launches ,

  • both were and are  much hyped devices , N900 was touted as the revolution in mobile computing so in N8 a revolution in Mobile photography with a ‘new’ OS
  • both has one time OS , N900’s Maemo is never to be seen again and with the announcement Symbian^3 will only be on N8
  • When MeeGo was announced , rumors were spread that it will work on N900 so happened with the Symbian^4 which was rumored to  be supported on N8 but no official announcement has been made

So in our opinion folks , beware of N8 , you may get stuck with a one time deal , atleast with N900 , developers can port different platforms from MeeGo to Android to even OSX on it , the same won’t be possible with the Symbian ^3 powered N8

We hope Nokia reads this post , think about it and say that Symbian^4 will be ported to N8 in their official statement .

Farhan

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Tagged as: MAEMO, Meego, N8, N900 / Maemo, Nokia, Symbian 4

  • VICTOR

    The Nokia N8 is a superb phone what with its 12MP camera and really tons more features than any other smartphone out there. Judging from the specs and the videos I’ve seen around the web, this is a must-buy, must-have gadget for everyone. Especially those who love Symbian. I saw how Symbian^3 operates and it’s more than ok for me. It looked fast and great. I see no reason why the Nokia N8 will ever fail.
    Now all I read is Symbian^4. And you guys doesn’t even know what it is, anyway. Symbian^3 is already great. If ever, Nokia N8 going to Symbian^4 will only get better.
    By the way, how can you say Nokia N900 is a fiasco when you yourself say, “developers can port different platforms from MeeGo to Android to even OSX on it”. Fiasco???? Isn’t that supposed to be called one of the best phones ever??

  • Mike

    Farhan,

    Unfortunately, you misread just about everything (which kinda makes your article invalid). Let me clear them up:
    1) Nokia announced that Symbian^3 will not be used anymore in *other N-Series* devices. It will be used in the other device families (E, C series etc.) and also be used in the N8 family (yes N8 according to Nokia is a family of devices, not just the 1st device you see now). So it is a branding exercise, not killing the OS as you seem to be think. There will be other phones with Symbian^3, just that their names wont start with ‘N’.

    2) N900 was never launched as a flagship or mass market device (check any Nokia official sources). I wish sometimes people would read official Nokia press releases for a change instead of dreaming up their own versions. N9 is the mass market version and not N900 so there is no comparison with N8 vs. N900 – former is a mass market version of an S^3 phone while the latter is a developer version of Maemo/MeeGo OS. So your complaint would be valid if Nokia decided to kill MeeGo forever but till then your article doesn’t jive with reality.

    3) There are already builds available of MeeGo for the N900. Again people don’t realize that Android while claiming to be “open” is not really a community-based OS platform – it is controlled by Google and OHA. MeeGo is an open source project (its a Linux foundation project) hence, regardless of Nokia’s official support for the N900 or not, the community already takes care of it. That is truly open source. And try MeeGo on your N900, if you have one.

  • Bill

    Mike,

    Anything that is designated N is Nokia’s flagship division. So N-series equals flagship division. N97 was a big disappointing sales failure. No company releases a product just for kicks and giggles. So it would be pretty idiotic for Nokia to release an N900 phone at a selling point of $400 to $500 without wanting to make a profit. One would think that a business is all about maximizing profits and minimizing loss. So you would have proven your point that Nokia is pretty dumb for not wanting to maximize profits by not mass marketing the N900.

    The N8 being in the top of the line, luxury division or whatever you want to call it, using Symbian 3 is a big failure. They didn’t learn from their past N97 debacle. “google it.” Being the last device “n8′ in the N-Series to use Symbian is a cause for concern. When you use $400 to $500 for an N-Series Device with Symbian and then find out down the road that only lower division C-series phones costing $50 to $100 will really be symbian focused, says a lot about the poor choice you’ve made. Nokia “finally” realized they can’t compete with other OS’s using symbian and pretty much is ditching it for Meego or whatever comes next. How much more can they develop Symbian on an N series phone vs. a watered down lower C series phone? It is a loss any way you look at it.

    Don’t believe the Hype. When the N97 first came out, it was the same way. This is the next best thing since sliced bread, riiigggghht. Nokia has been a poor performer for the last couple years. Their stock is about to get delisted from the Dow/nasdaq down to the S&P Poors for such poor performance. Even Share holders are sick and tired of losing money on them. But they have become to complacent and refuse to listen to their fanbase doing things the same old way. Playing musical chairs within the company positions instead of bringing in new blood doesn’t bode well for consumer confidence. You’d be dumb to buy the N8. Be better to wait for the Meego phones to come out down the road.

    Oh, and Meego on the N900 is pretty much for testing in it’s infancy alpha, omega stage. It is nothing to brag about. It is for future phones to come. Luckily the N900 was able to use Linux based software to where the N8 doesn’t have this capability. Nokia failed with the N900 as well. Unable to stand behind the Maemo “a fully working OS vs. Meego atm,” and now people are resorting to putting android Froyo 2.2 on it. Even Warren Buffet would avoid Nokia’s N8 like the black plague.

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