It's still 10 days till MWC 2009 but we already have some pretty impressive announcements and the usual leaks before the event takes place, albeit very early! Two of these leaks are of Samsung's new S60 handsets the (ACME) i8910 and M7600 both of which run on the new Symbian S60 5th Edition Touch OS.
Whilst the M7600 can shout out from the rooftops of it's Bang and Olufsen powered audio, which should be a pretty easy task whilst looking like the lost twin of the Helio Ocean it's the i8910 which caught my eye and many others too.
On Paper the i8910 looks to be a monster of a handset (although the features haven't been confirmed officially) with features like a large AMOLED display, 8 Mega pixel Camera, DLNA, DivX, GPS, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm jack and HDMI out and with the reported ability to record video in 720p HD, (although I would like to see this confirmed first before getting too excited) there's nothing in the market to compare this against. But we have seen this before from Samsung when they announced the i8510 - the first 8 Mega pixel Symbian S60 handset which many just like now where impressed and expected Nokia to retaliate immediately with an 8 Mega pixel handset of it's own - so far they haven't.
The question is whether Samsung can actually keep this up and actually deliver a handset which Nokia will genuinely think about competing against because it is the real deal. There are two issues with Samsung handsets which stop many from purchasing them; after sales support and build quality. Whilst after sales support might by harder to remedy and take longer, build quality should not be an issue for a handset manufacturer which has enough experience making handsets for multiple different Operating Systems.
I have no doubt Samsung can deliver on the issues of high end features before anything Nokia brings to market and much earlier than Nokia would like to be bring to market. This will work in the favour of the consumer, this actually creates genuine competition in the S60 market something Nokia has had a monopoly over and dictated with, by deciding which and when to release features, whilst trickle feeding little features here and there to frustrated customers who still wait for something to replace their 3 year old Nokia N95's with.
Whilst Nokia has recently announced the N97 and will reveal more in MWC after plugging their own leak machines in their departments, it's still a handset which has yesterdays features wrapped in a new shell. It may be an FP2 S60 5th edition device with a new form factor, it brings nothing to the table feature wise which isn't in the market already. Whilst Nokia N97 would be adopters waited in anticipation of the N97 their eyes now have diverted to a handset which actually trumps the N97 in every aspect with the exception of the form factor.
Nokia still I presume has something under it's sleeve which shall be revealed in MWC 2009, and for their own sake I'm hoping it's something actually close to the what the i8910 promises.
Samsung i8901 features:
- AMOLED display
- 8 Mega pixel Camera
- DLNA
- DivX
- GPS
- Wi-Fi
- 3.5mm jack
- HDMI
Samsung M7600 features:
- GPS
- HDSPA
- 3 Mega pixel camera
- 2.8 AMOLED screen
- Bang & Olufsen amp
- Divx
- Full touch screen
- "Dj" with the phone, scratch, add effects and even record
5 comments:
One of the photos shows the video capture menu... 720p is right there! ^_^
@James - Yeah, since writing this post I have also read Eldar confirming 720p video capture.
I don't agree with you in some parts of your text. Nokia appear to be pushing the slide out keyboard and Ovi services, so does Samsung. But the question is: what are consumers looking for right now?
We're not talking about a device to be launched in 2 years, so we must think about what consumers want now, and I think that Samgung devices can do very well all the multimedia stuff that a Nokia devices does, but I think people's main worries when buying a new mobile phone is the camera quality, and in this area Samsung is way far better than any other.
I speak for myself, I own a Nseries and the camera quality is miserable; when I have a Samsung device in my hands I can take awesome quality pictures, and if I want to get access to my e-mail or web it works perfectly too, so.. Which Nokia device has to offer better than this Samsung device, for example? I guess nothing.. Plus, don't forget that this is a S60 device, like any other Nokia smartphone.
Finally, I allways see people comparing Nokia devices to iPhone or Blackberry, maybe you should start remembering that Samgung exists and it is already the #2 on the mobile phones market.
@CarloS Silva - I think you and I have the same desire in handset features, which is why I think Nokia is lacking in the department for high-end features. Nokia may be pushing the slide keyboard and OVI but it's not anything new. The market already has many slide-out keyboards in the market, they just aren't for S60, and in this battle I'd put the G1 over the N97 mainly because of Android.
The point I was trying to make is now that Samsung has joined the S60 wars, it's going to be a good thing for us - the consumers because competition brings innovation which Samsung at the moment is winning. As you stated they are the #2 manufacturer, which they became from taking risks and innovating and bringing high end devices before their competition. Of course the demise of Motorola helped in that #2 slot also but Samsung will have experience in the high end handset market because in Korea, in general their tech is beyond what we have here in EU or the US.
I don't agree with you in some parts of your text. Nokia appear to be pushing the slide out keyboard and Ovi services, so does Samsung. But the question is: what are consumers looking for right now?
We're not talking about a device to be launched in 2 years, so we must think about what consumers want now, and I think that Samgung devices can do very well all the multimedia stuff that a Nokia devices does, but I think people's main worries when buying a new mobile phone is the camera quality, and in this area Samsung is way far better than any other.
I speak for myself, I own a Nseries and the camera quality is miserable; when I have a Samsung device in my hands I can take awesome quality pictures, and if I want to get access to my e-mail or web it works perfectly too, so.. Which Nokia device has to offer better than this Samsung device, for example? I guess nothing.. Plus, don't forget that this is a S60 device, like any other Nokia smartphone.
Finally, I allways see people comparing Nokia devices to iPhone or Blackberry, maybe you should start remembering that Samgung exists and it is already the #2 on the mobile phones market.
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