What does Nokia think it’s playing at? The undisputed king of emerging markets is… innovating.
The company, whose £5.4bn sale to Microsoft is set to be voted on by shareholders in mid-November, has just released two new smartphones and a tablet to boot. And they aren’t bad lookers, either.
The Windows Phone OS devices are sleek and colourful, and look capable of challenging the likes of Samsung, Google and Apple, even despite the latter trio’s vast market shares.
Its phablets, the Lumia 1520 and Lumia 1320, feature 6in displays, meaning more apps can be included on the screen than previous devices, and it should be easier to use the touchscreen keyboards too – often an issue for smartphone users.
The 2520, its tablet offering, is a confusing one. It has a better battery life than the Windows Surface 2, but what with the takeover and Windows’ investments in its own tablets, it’s questionable whether Nokia will continue making or innovating in this capacity, especially with former CEO Stephen Elop’s recent admission that Microsoft might even ditch the Nokia branding for the Finnish firm’s products.
What is certain is that the handset maker is capable of far more than supplying old technology to India and China. On this evidence, there’s life in the old firm yet, which makes its purchase by Microsoft a more exciting prospect by the day.
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