Nokia’s Lumia 920 is lovely, so I’ll buy an iPhone 5

Me on Techradar:

This week, Nokia did half an Apple: it made me look at my current phone and think “hmm, it’s getting on a bit. Time for a new one”. But it didn’t do the other half, which is to actually close the sale: where Apple goes “Boom! This date! This price!” Nokia said “Hmmm! Not sure! We’ll get back to you!”

The Lumia 920 is a really impressive and attractive phone, and if it had launched this week I may well have ordered one – not least because it’s bound to work out much, much cheaper on contract than an iPhone 5. But Apple’s powers are strong, and it’s going to be hard to resist the lure of a better iPhone.


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0 responses to “Nokia’s Lumia 920 is lovely, so I’ll buy an iPhone 5”

  1. You’re so impatient. When you get a new phone, you have it for probably two years, and you use it every day. Something that’s that big a deal, you should be willing to wait a month or two for the one you want. Would you take the same attitude to a car? “I really want a Golf, but can’t find a good deal on one today, so I’ll buy this Kia because it’s here right now.”

  2. Gary

    I take *ages* to make a decision, eg that I’m going to replace X, but once I’ve done that then yeah, I’m unbelievably impatient :)

  3. Heh.

    I’d already decided I need a new camera — I have a nice one, but it’s big, so I don’t generally carry it around. Wanted to get a decent pocket-size one like a Lumix or something for snapping the family. The 920 looks like it might fit that bill very nicely.

    I alos have every intetnion of getting a Surface and upgrading my Windows laptop to Windows 8, so the Lumia’s going to fit into my setup perfectly.

  4. I should possibly also upgrade these damn fingers.

  5. Gary

    Have you seen the fake-pics controversy? Nokia’s really fucked this one up.

  6. Squander Two

    I have now. That is stupid.

    I was thinking about what you’re saying about the crappy timing and how Nokia have had an impressive product launch and then not actually launched the product. It strikes me that their problem is too many iPhone users like you, whose contract-ends are all in sync. They’ve been showing off prototypes of the new phones and it’s clear that they’re simply not ready for launch yet. So they’ve got manufacturing telling them when the phones will be ready and marketing telling them that they have to launch them before the iPhone launch. I think their aim was just to try and persuade a few iPhone users to wait a couple of months before renewing — from that point of view, their timing wasn’t off at all, it was just the best they could do.

    But yeah, the promo video clearly implied that it was shot with a 920, whatever they may be claiming now. That’s incredibly stupid.

    On the other hand, my Lumia would never try to do what this iPad just did, correcting “the promo” to “thermos”. Fuck’s sake.

  7. Gary

    I think there’s a tension between the hardware and software guys too: Windows Phone updates are taking forever. It’s a huge project I know, but rivals are moving at high speed.

  8. Squander Two

    This is now getting thoroughly ridiculous. The new Lumias were going to be launched with Windows 8. Windows 8 is here, but still no Lumias. But they’re still advertising them heavily, offering punters the chance to pre-order them. The whole launch has clearly been based on overoptimistic projections instead of an actual ready date. I really think Elop should have told Marketing not to do a damn thing till Manufacturing said the products were ready. He’s failed to take charge here, and it’s showing.

  9. Gary

    It’s a bit of a mess, yes. Explains why Microsoft is apparently working on its own smartphone, for imminent release.

  10. I do still want a 920. And, on the up side, it looks like I won’t need to fork out for an early upgrade when it’s released in 2014.

  11. Gary

    Haha :)