Nokia Russia has started taking pre-orders on the fabulous Lumia 920 on their webpage; however the pricing seems quite steep, at 25,000 Rubles or $800 dollars. I’m not sure if phones are usually that expensive in Russia but it would seem it’s a lot cheaper to buy one unlocked from bestbuy and ship it over.
I shudder to think what the 920 will cost in Jordan, especially before it’s widely available; seeing how the iPhone 5 here is currently selling at 1000-1100 JOD = $1500 USD!!
Earlier today Nokia India held a press conference where they announced a partnership with Barcelona the Soccer/Football team, starting a campaign called “Tiki Taka with Nokia Lumia”. “Through this association, Nokia India and FC Barcelona will reach out to football enthusiasts through retail, on ground activation, television, digital and social media.” Nokia India have also promised an upcoming FCB App that will bring Barcelona fans all the latest related news.
Check out the video showing the stars of Barcelona’s team congratulating Nokia on the new partnership and welcoming them into the family:
Nokia India brings FC Barcelona to India
Unveils new brand campaign'Tiki Taka with Nokia Lumia'around the association
New Delhi, October 22, 2012: Nokia India, today, announced its association with FC Barcelona at a high octane unveiling in New Delhi. This makes Nokia the first brand to join hands with FC Barcelona in India. The long term association is aimed at creating an engagement platform to bring Indian fans closer to football. Nokia India also unveiled its new brand campaign for this association, 'Tiki Taka with Nokia Lumia', to broaden consumer engagement around club football.
FC Barcelona is one of the most successful teams in the world, being the first team in history to win 6 titles in the same season. The association brings these two brands together in India that share a common belief of leading through values. Through this association, Nokia India and FC Barcelona will reach out to football enthusiasts through retail, on ground activation, television, digital and social media.
Speaking on the association, D. Shivakumar, SVP, Nokia India Middle East & Africa (IMEA) said, "It is a matter of great pride to be associated with FC Barcelona, which is one of the finest success stories in the world of sports today. This association is particularly special for us as Nokia and FCB share similar beliefs and values. Nokia has always believed in connecting the youth with their passions. Today, football is gaining significant traction and the youth is following club football with a lot of enthusiasm. We believe that this association will bring fans closer to football and FC Barcelona like never before."
Commenting on the association with Nokia, Antoni Rossich, CEO, FC Barcelona said, "We value our association with Nokia India very much and are very excited to be here, to engage with football enthusiasts across the country. Asia is a very important region for us. In particular, we are really happy to be in India as football has emerged as the second most popular sport here. FC Barcelona is confident that this association with Nokia India will create an excellent platform for the Indian youth to engage with us, and bring the club closer to its Indian fans."
'Tiki Taka with Nokia Lumia' is aimed at bringing football fans closer to their favourite club, FC Barcelona. The campaign is based on FC Barcelona's famous style of play — 'Tiki Taka'. However, more than the style of play, the campaign embodies the philosophy of Tiki Taka – sharing, connecting people, being spontaneous and social. The consumer campaign, unveiled jointly by Nokia India and FC Barcelona, will run for 6 months, enabling fans to constantly engage with the brands through a variety of touchpoints including digital, television, on ground activation and an exclusive mobile app on Nokia Lumia smartphones. The campaign will form a 'dream team' of 11 lucky consumers who will travel to Barcelona to meet the FC Barcelona players and watch the team play at the hallowed Camp Nou.
About Nokia At Nokia, we are committed to connecting people. We combine advanced technology with personalized services that enable people to stay close to what matters to them. Every day, more than 1.3 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia device – from mobile phones to advanced smartphones and high-performance mobile computers. Today, Nokia is integrating its devices with innovative services including music, maps, apps, email and more. Nokia's NAVTEQ is a leader in comprehensive digital mapping and navigation services, while Nokia Siemens Networks provides equipment, services and solutions for communications networks globally.
About FC Barcelona FC Barcelona was founded in 1899 and is now one of the most popular and supported football clubs in the world with more than 170.000 members spreading across the globe. The club prides itself on its ability to mainly form players with dedication, patience and effort more than buying them. This methodology has proven to be successful as FC Barcelona has achieved more titles than most clubs in the world, including a record 6 championships during the 2008-2009 season.
Earlier this week we contacted the folks behind Nokia Music asking if they had any numbers to share with us, regarding Nokia Music and Mix Radio. Unfortunately at the current time they couldn’t share too much information regarding the number of Mix Radio plays, conversions and downloads but one astounding number we did get was:
“With Nokia Music in India we are seeing over 1 million MP3 downloads a day”
Seriously 1 Million tracks per day in a single country is pretty crazy, I can only imagine what the numbers will look like after Nokia Music picks up some traction in the US.
On a slightly related note what’s you favorite Mix?
Oooh can you feel it? I can’t wait to bump my contract over to the Nokia Lumia 920!
October 29th is the day Windows Phone 8 is officially launched. Nokia will be there in London with the Nokia Lumia 920.
They’ve invited bloggers to attend this event. I saw mine this afternoon, but I’ve had tips from a couple of people saying they’ve got an invite too.
Not sure if I can go but we’ll report on whatever news trickles through. Once WP8 is officially launched and we finally hear what it has to offer, we can get going with our Nokia Lumia 920/920s being available to purchase in stores.
First we heard that there would be app compatibility layers for Harmattan. Then Nitdroid came along, and like it did on the N900, it gave us a near-complete version of Android to use on our N9/50s. Well, now we have a compatibility layer of sorts, that allows you to run a very small number of android apks. This is thanks to the great work of thp.
My Nokia Blog, its bloggers, nor thp, condone the use of illegally obtained apks. This is simple a proof of concept app. If you would wish to try it out, here’s how.
gain root access in terminal (or via ssh)
for harmattan: apt-get install libsdl1.2 libsdl-mixer1.2 libgles1-sgx-img
for fremantle: apt-get install libsdl1.2 libsdl-mixer1.2 libgles1-sgx-img libsdl-gles1.2-1
copy the appropriate binary to /home/user/apkenv and rename it to apkenv (the folder won’t exist so create it)
Vineet Shrivastava emailed us some notes he made after having a chat with some Nokia folks at GITEX Tech week in Dubai.
Quite an interesting discussion. I’ve inserted my own feedback in italics.
Thanks Vineet!
_____________
Caught up with few Nokia folks (Middle East ___________ Manager and Middle East ________Manager) at GITEX Tech week in Dubai. All were 7+ years at Nokia and two were Finnish (one was Arab).
1) Surprisingly, they had Nokia 920 demo units with WP8.0 in their hands and were showing off ‘parts of it’ but on insistence were allowing us to hold it in our hands and have a casual supervised look around (But Joe Public could not come up and go through them). This maybe due to the HTC unlocked video demo by T-Break at the GITEX shopper event about a week prior to GITEX Tech Conference.
2) Pointed out to Microsoft *something* of Developer Relations (din’t quite catch her badge right, it was erm…,dangerously placed) at the adjacent stands that now that we’ve seen WP8, could be have more details? She freaked out and was surprised and just kept saying don’t say anything about it to anyone. Was aware of the HTC fiasco but unaware of Juggernaut Alpha (or feigned very well).Now had two conversations with the 2 main Nokia people (a woman who is the Head of Brand Marketing (HBR) and 2 guys in Retail Partner Training (RPT))3) RPT guy confirmed the 820 inductive charging cases add no thickness and that none of the 920′s thickness is due to the inductive coils (this is not true, the 820 charging cases are about 1 mm thicker). I pointed this out and he said oh it’s tiny, not really thicker. 10.7mm – 1mm = 9.7mm. Much more acceptable.4) RPT guy indicated most of the bulk of the 920 came from the camera assembly and not from the wireless charging feature (I don’t believe him…entirely)
This is the PureView bit below that I found interesting.
5) In a 3 way discussion, they seemed surprised at the feedback towards the OIS and Pureview dilution/Pro issues. Apparently, internally, it was expected that OIS and improved low light photography would be seen as a bigger breakthrough than a larger MP camera. After all, the 41 MPs and oversampling only offer lossless zoom without bulky and noisy optical zooming whereas OIS offers a significant low-light breakthrough. The other image QUALITY improvements in the 808 come from the huge 1/1.2″ sensor and not the high number of pixels on it. Basically a 1/1.2″ sensor with 12 (or indeed 8 megapixels) would offer comparable quality and better lowlight performance (then the 808) but no lossless zoom.
Would PureView V3 see 41mp with huge sensor and lossless zoom join OIS (so your zoom would be super stable at telephoto end) or would it be enough to have a 12mp camera, but with a huge sensor still and OIS? Low light would definitely be something else unheard of in a phone. But for marketing purposes, 41MP would indeed be a killer. You know, if Nokia bothered.
6) Asked HBR if there might be further Symbian products, she said “there could be“. She insisted Symbian wasn’t legacy yet even though I insisted that it clearly was if PR-speak was ignored. She stuck to her guns. I asked if a multi-touch keyboard update (From Belle FP2) will be made available to N8 and siblings, she said she wasn’t sure.
Interesting comment above on the possibility of future Symbian devices or could be PR stuff. They can’t really comment on future stuff though I bet if you asked if there’d be ‘future’ WP they would say yes more instantly…or not?
7) Asked about biggest threat. Named Samsung not Apple (this is true in Middle East in India). Spoke about Samsung replacing basically every Nokia branded retail Store in Middle East and India, she responded by saying they weren’t particularly worried and it makes more sense for Samsung since they sell a full portfolio of electronics as opposed to Nokia. Not sure if cutting back on the retail stores is a concious decision or just that they have a very good excuse for it now that they are forced to.
. 8) Asked about Premium pricing of Nokia flagships and will there be adjustment considering Samsung is a lot more confident in its pricing (hiking it 10-15% twice in past 2 years) and HTC which used to have premium prices is now adjusting downwards in response to the competitive pressure. She responded by saying that once WP8 was out and released, they will assess where they stand in the competitive landscape and price the handsets accordingly. (This was not convincing. Pricing would be sealed at this stage and they know for sure where they stand).9) I homed in on the “where they stand part” and they clearly know what the landscape is like and would have for past 1 months. She re-iterated (very friendly way) that once Microsoft releases full OS they will know since there are still some things unfinished and under development (Again, not convincing. Feature freeze would have happened eons ago. It’s only a matter of polishing n making it work “well”. The exact feature mix would be internally known for weeks if not months).
10) Asked about possibly similarities in pricing to the US market where they undercut competitors with 900 pricing. She said that’s a carrier market whereas Middle East is a unsubsidised market so no connection. (They’re setting themselves to price it high)
11) Asked if Carrier partnerships/exclusives apply to UAE. She said yes, one carrier (there are only 2). I panicked and asked if it will still be sold unlocked and openly at retail. She said yes. Then I asked what’s the difference then because carriers do not subsidize handsets in UAE. She said they will now (hmmm…….not sure if that’s a good thing)
Is this a new thing – carrier subsidies at UAE? I know some people don’t like it but there is definitely value in them if you do your sums, they might work out better in the long run.
12) Asked if vague, tangential marketing campaigns will give way to no-nonsense marketing highlighting best features (Pureview, Maps, Drive, Build quality etc). She said there ads are pretty good! (uh-oh)
No, no, no, no, no. Clearly not. Please let me know of 1 great Nokia ad and I will show you 50 more terrible ones. Go ahead Nokia peeps.
13) Asked about recent problem in supply chain and logistics (Nokia had issues with its previous Distributor – Redington because it wanted exclusivity. Problem was, Reddington WAS exclusive in mobile sector (non-exclusive in others) and was doing a fantastic job. Nokia burned that relationship and guess who took over- Yup, Samsung) She did not seem to know about this, did mention they changed retailer partnership to Landmark Group (Previously was Emirates computers IIRC)
I’m still peeved over this. Samsung seem to step in where Nokia drop the ball.
14) Asked to see her personal device. It was an N9. She was very happy to show it off
I reckon she’ll get a few fans just for this alone
15) Asked if they will offer International warranties to match certain competitors. Nope. In fact it will go backwards from GCC-region wide to being country-specific.
Hmm, there was more that I might recall later. In the few mins I got with the fully functional WP8 demo unit. I looked for major changes (Multitasking view, swipe left for multitasking, grid view for apps) and found none. I also spoke to couple of the T-break guys who got the full video before being asked to take it down. I *REALLY* doubt they have any banner/headline feature to announce at least in the way of UIX. Those guys pretty much explored and combed through the whole thing.
2 more tidbits:I asked them why no microSD on the 920 and said that the “seamless design” excuse doesn’t hold water since a microSD slot would logically be placed at the top or bottom where there are other ports and slots anyway. They agreed, sort of. No excuse offeredI asked why the 1280×768 resolution? Why not 1280×720 since it makes no difference to sharpness but would make the 920 a lot more ergonomic to hold. Again agreed and offered no excuse. Microsoft person later chimed in (the Developer relations person) that the 1280×768 was mostly for aspect:ratio compatibility with earlier 800×480 phones (both being 15:9) and that we wouldn’t be seeing too many 768p phones going forward. Indeed 920 seems to be the only one so far.
The Nokia Asha 308 (the first S40 device to be recognized as a smartphone) is now available in the official Nokia India store for RS 5685 ($105). The 308 comes with a 3″ capacitive screen, a 2MP camera and Dual sims (sadly no WiFi)- find the full specs below:
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