Nokia Lumia 710 Review - T-Mobile's Nokia WP7
by Brian Klug on January 5, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Nokia
- Mobile
- WP7
- Lumia 710
Conclusions
The way the Lumia series is launching in the US is a bit puzzling to me. For all intents and purposes, the 710 is the first Nokia WP7 arriving on US soil, not its higher end brethren, the Lumia 800. Just like I noted with the HP Veer, it’s a daring move to put the midrange product out first, a step ahead of the super high end counterpart. No doubt that high end counterpart is coming at CES in some shape or form (possibly with LTE), but still, a daring move nonetheless. On the other hand, I noted earlier that the midrange is where I wager the volume of the smartphone platform war will be fought and won, and it’s here that WP7 is in a unique position to finally make feature phones obsolete. For $50 after subsidy, you get a device that comes with the same SoC as the other higher-end WP7 devices, a 5 MP camera that produces great photos, and whose only caveat is 8 GB of NAND.
For its first entries into the market as a Microsoft partner, Nokia has done reasonably well. Both the Lumia 800 and 710 are good phones, although neither admittedly has the sort of earth shattering appeal that Microsoft needs to truly win this race. To Nokia's credit however, its partnership with Microsoft was only just announced less than a year ago. Most smartphones are developed on a 12 - 18 month cadence depending on the complexity of the design and the amount of re-use. We won't see what Nokia is truly capable of with Windows Phone until the end of this year at the earliest.
Perhaps that's a good thing as Microsoft still has some work to do on its own. The Mango update to Windows Phone brought about some much needed features, however Microsoft still needs to show that it can deliver substantial updates quicker than the competition as well as embrace new hardware platforms and leverage synergies with other Microsoft platforms. For Microsoft to catch up to Apple/Google's market share it needs to iterate quicker, migrate to faster hardware sooner and truly begin to flex its ecosystem muscle. Break down the barriers between Windows (PC), Windows Phone and the Xbox 360 and Microsoft will have a formidable mobile platform on its hands. I suspect Windows 8 is the start of this, but we need more. If Microsoft can commit to building a world where there's significant overlap between what you can run on your PC, Windows Phone and Xbox 360, I have faith that this platform is destined for great things. I want to be able to play Microsoft published Xbox 360 games on a console connected to a TV, on a Windows 8 PC/tablet or take them with me on a phone.
If, on the other hand, Microsoft doesn't do this - if in two years we don't live in a world where there is mindblowing integration between my Windows PC, my Xbox 360 and my Windows Phone - then the platform deserves to fail. Microsoft will have squandered its biggest advantage.
In conversations with Microsoft the response to all of this is usually a clever smile and a nod. We're usually told that we'll be pleased with what they've got planned. Microsoft has a great hardware partner in Nokia (arguably one of the best in the business) and it has a vast library of content, games and applications that are begging to be ported. Microsoft needs more powerful hardware to pull off some of what we're asking for (ahem, Krait is supposed to be Xbox 360 class at some point, no?) and it needs to execute quickly.
I'm not ready to say that I believe Microsoft will pull this off, but I'm willing to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. Microsoft has the ability to choose whether or not this race is already over.
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augustofretes - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
You lied to us :( XDKTGiang - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
The Nokia Luma710 isn't the "midrange" product for Nokia. The 800 is the "midrange" product and they haven't announced their high end product for the US yet. I do agree that Nokia doesn't make too much sense right now but at the same time I don't exactly own a successful phone manufacturing company.Brian Klug - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
That's true, I guess I should state that at present those labels are relative - only the 710 and 800 are announced. (Though we'll see what happens at CES...)-Brian
KTGiang - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
Yup, you did some good editing for better accuracy. Only people who are up on their Windows Phones news knows that Nokia actually gave a statement saying they didn't release the Lumia 800 in the US because they wanted to make sure they released a proper high end phone to compete in the market over here. Also, they wanted to establish a base and buzz in the rest of the world with the Lumia 800 where they still have phones in the hands of their consumers.name99 - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
You get judged by what you SHIP not by what you plan one day to ship.You know what's a truly awesome phone, way better than ALL this crap Anand is talking about --- the iPhone 7! Man, that thing makes a Lumia 710 look like a Nokia 6235 candybar.
jjj - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
In the US it's all about the high end,the consumer is quite a different beast from most other places and to be fair the price difference is pretty small.Why T-Mo and the 710? Nokia most likely has better relations with T-Mo than with the other US carriers so it was easier to bring the device to market fast and they didn't wanted to give a higeher end device to the smallest of the big 4 or maybe nobody was interesting in heavily subsidizing the 800.As for the device itself i'm not sure it's a better buy than the HTC Radar 4G.
For the ecosystem,it's hard to have faith in Microsoft,they are slow and afraid to innovate,the Windows brand doesn't have the best image and the first steps towards an OS unification are not great.Win 8 might be Vista 2 for traditional PC users.If they don't let us disable the Metro UI on desktops, i know i won't upgrade to Win8,don't need the extra bloat. They'll keep trying to buy their way in,just like they are doing with Bing ( terrible search engine BTW and i use it often) but they need to do better to actually succeed.
dagamer34 - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
Afraid to innovate? Have you SEEN Windows 8??jjj - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
have you,or you just have a vague idea about what it is?Nataku - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
u really just sound like u have a grudge towards microsoft now... i've used the dev preview, i admit its not that great for keyboard/mouse use but definitely works wonders once you get touch screen, but thats only the dev preview and ms said they would do something about it (otoh, the new task manager is great)now about innovation, xbox was definitely innovative, wp7/zune dont get enough credit they are some of the the most innovative product as well, sky drive is fantastic now with the new update and fix they have in place (still hate the 100mb file limit though...)
Microsoft isn't the monstrosity it used to be, they actually listen to customers now and do things right, give them another chance
Samus - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
still a shame the Venue Pro is the ONLY WP7 with a keyboard...