Elop himself leaks Nokia's first Windows Phone | Hacker News Reader

Elop himself leaks Nokia's first Windows Phone

engadget.com

49 pointsdirtyaura41 comments

I'm extremely excited for Nokia + Windows Phone. Recently upgraded from an iPhone 3GS to a 4 and it just didn't feel like an upgrade. I'll admit that I haven't had the chance to try out a Windows Phone 7 device personally, but I've watched A LOT of videos. The interface smoothness and holistic integration of various services and information makes a hell of a lot more sense than silo'd individual apps.

The only downside about Windows Phone now is the lack of tethering. I find it a very important feature, so I'm really hoping that gets included in Mango or soon after.

I'm also excited about the Nokia WP7 - I wish they had it out already - better be soon!

Regarding iPhones - really? Well I went from a 3GS to a 4, the screen is a world of difference in terms of contrast ratio, battery life is better, reception is better, multitasking works better and the camera too.

Objectively and quantitatively I obviously agree with you. However - surprisingly even to me - I didn't find it had a qualitative impact on my experience of the device. I actually still have my 3GS and still use it back and forth, and I don't experience any kind of "ugh, have to go back to this old thing".

And I've also had the same experience with the iPad to iPad 2 - I've been able to switch back and forth friction free.

It's really down to how you use the device, and I discovered that my use cases don't highlight the improvements. Note that I found a major difference between the 3G and 3GS and felt that was a huge upgrade.

I've been on WP7 now for a couple months (HTC HD7 on T-Mobile) and overall I'm very happy with it. However, it has its issues.

First and foremost is the lack of background services. I'm an avid Rdio (http://rdio.com/) user, and while the app works well, it can't play in the background. Want to listen to it and check a text message? Sorry, no dice. I'm assuming this is coming with multitasking in Mango, but we'll see.

While the browser works damn well (really, why can't IE on the desktop not suck, if they can pull this off?), there are a few things that irritate me. There are two big ones: wide comments on HN (e.g. in a code block) completely break the zooming of the page, so you have to scroll back and forth to read any comment; if you're on, say, a HN thread, then go check an email and come back by clicking the IE tile rather than hitting the back button, hitting the back button then brings you back to the home screen, with no way of actually going to the previous page (history seems to only exist in the back button functionality).

And since my only test hardware has been the HD7, I should point out that it likes to reboot. A lot. I think this is related to the poor microSD slot, which allows the card to slip out and cause things to not be accessible and causes crashes -- unfortunately, it's behind a warranty-voiding-seal panel, and if it comes out for good, you're SOL. This happened to my first HD7 about a week after I got it, but thankfully hasn't happened to that extent yet.

Outside of these things, I really haven't looked back since switching from Android. The interface is beautiful and intuitive, the apps are damn fast, and overall I'm very happy with it.

I believe Mango is going to bring background tasks and IE9. For what it's worth I find that the back/start button combo on Windows Phone 7 beats the app switching on iPhone, even though Windows Phone lacks true multitasking. The music scenario is the one exception. I swore I had at least one third party music app that did background playing but I must have been mistaken.

I find my Windows Phone (LG Optimus) is more stable than the iPhone too. Overall I think Windows Phone 7 is really solid OS. It gets all the basic functionality right and is often better than iOS. However it does lacks the polish and apps that make iOS great.

FWIW, we also found the HTC HD7 to be unreliable in QA. While I like Windows Phone 7 overall, I will not be buying an HD7 for my personal device.

Really, IE9 on the desktop doesn't suck. It's not my favorite interface. Some of the design decisions leave me scratching my head (tabs next to the URL bar, on top but not at the top of the window, etc). But we're finally at the point where it legitimately attempts to compete with the browsers that used to trounce it back in the IE6 days.

Seems like a very typical MS style publicity stunt, where they know full well someone was going to leak it out, but they dont want to be seen as publicly announcing it. I mean its filmed in very high quality for goodness sake and there's no shake on the camera, so a dedicated tripod-mounted camera? I think so.

At the same time, it could also be someone with access to the footage which maybe was intended to remain for company use only who leaked it illegitimately.

The panning indicates that the camera was indeed likely mounted.

Also it seamlessly cuts between two angles.

the video was shot by Nokia, not some random reporter.

Of course, I don't mean doing it like this, but I was thinking about allowing engineers to discuss projects in public non-confidentially without making official promises or announcements may be a good idea when appropriate for a while now.

I just don't believe it "leaked". Probably pro MS fraction inside Nokia let it go in order to diminish N9 success. It looks to me like some people there don't want non Windows phone to succeed.

Feels like an intentional leak, probably wanted to deflect some heat from people saying they should have stuck with the N9.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen something that felt more intentional. No way they handle company secrets by giving a 2 second request to put away cameras before showing off the thing.

I thought the same thing. It would be a huge slap in the face if the N9 turns out to be very popular. This leak feels like "damage control". Which seems silly, there is no reason you can't release phones with WP7 and MeeGo.

The release of the N9 and demo videos really brings Elop and Co's statements about the emperor having no clothes with regards to MeeGo into question. Looking back that appears to be negative marketing to justify the ms partnership.

No one said MeeGo was a bad OS. Nokia just didn't have the money to follow through. They ran out of runway.

That is an attractive device, but so is the N9. Too bad the unlocked versions will be $850+.

It's a high end phone, after all.

Nokia should aim lower. Cheaper Androids are there already

In what way is it high end? I know that Nokias usually have excellent cameras, but other than that, what?

Big touchscreen, multi-tasking smartphone with Nokia quality? Doesn't look like they have many fancier models.

Sure, but a high end phone isn't over $800 (isn't that what you were responding to?). iPhone 4 unlocked is $750 on Amazon, Androids are usually in the $600-$700 range for their high end devices. But Nokias are always in the high 800s and into the 900s.

That's a problem Nokia never solved. Even their fairly mundane phones are more expensive (although better built) than most of their competition.

Isn't this just the usual Nokia Europe-like pricing in North America effect? How competitive are the prices in Europe?

Nokia prices are usually very competitive in in the UK at least.

Which currency is that? USD? I see Nokia E7 at $429 unlocked and Nokia N8 at around $379 at amazon.com. I don't see where that high 800s and 900s is coming from, unless you are talking about a different currency.

Where did you get that figure from?

Nokia should go all in on Windows Phone.

I thought that was what they were doing...

Well, me too but Stephen talk (which by the way was great) seems to imply Meego isn't going anywhere, he talks about both teams has inspiring and inspired.

Well since he just bet the company on WP7 you can't expect him to say anything else. If MeeGo is going somewhere then that undermines his MS deal. That said, It appears that there are two factions in Nokia. One pushing MeeGo and one pushing WP7. And like I said in an earlier comment, this "leak" reeks of damage control btw pro WP7 camp.

It sure does. I'm just not sure about these factions, I mean Nokia has the resources to have two teams on two different operating systems without there being some sort of fight between them.

They pretty much are. At least they're killing off their own smart phone OS.

But, you've given no reason why you think they should do so, and the market has, so far, said that Windows Phone is unexciting. I'm gonna believe the market over a random guy on the Internet, unless you've got a pretty good reason to think two losers will combine to make a winner.

I'm not sure the market has said this so much as it's said "I'm scared to buy anything but Android and iPhone". I have no doubt Microsoft will be able to strong-arm their way into this market the same way they were able to do in search.

Microsoft has a search product?

Microsoft has so far not had a committed manufacturer. All the others (Moto, HTC, Samsung etc) are in the Android camp, just testing the waters with WP7. If you have used it, WP7 is a joy to use.

My needs are simple. I need useful stuff on my home screen. No other OS does it better.

I need useful stuff on my home screen.

I've heard this said of WP several times, and I still don't know what it means exactly, or why I should want "useful stuff on my homescreen". My phone is in my pocket until I want it to do something (make a call, search the web, find some place in maps). The home screen has nearly zero value to me...it's mostly just where I go to find which app I want to use, and I don't want it cluttered. I use a second page for weather and twitter apps, but I can't think of anything else I'd want on the home page. I already get notifications for texts and voicemails, and I don't think I would want them to be more intrusive.

{Disclaimer : MSFT intern. Opinions mine, not MSFT's}

I purchased a new WP7 device recently - my first smartphone (HTC HD7S). The useful stuff on the home-screen is actually v nice (1 tile for weather, one more tile for people etc).

Also, here's an article on how 3rd party apps can leverage the tiles for notifications. It is obv. not WebOS-like or anything but it is a neat approach to delivering notifications : http://chriskoenig.net/2010/08/16/customizing-wp7-push-notif...

Right now, the third-party app catalog is not exploiting the tile feature so well. I expect this to change soon.

If they had, they might have gotten more money from MS (or been purchased outright)... as it stands, Nokia feels "non-exclusive" was worth something to them, and I would tend to agree with what I've seen of the N9 and it's version of Meego.

Dual boot WP7 and MeeGo!

Looks horrid. The mockups they did initially were much nicer looking phones:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/02/11x021...

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