Nokia is planning to launch its Symbian-powered C7 on T-Mobile, in a bid to maintain some presence in the smartphone market while readying its next-generation of Windows handsets.
C7 -- called the "Astound" for T-Mobile -- as early as April, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Symbian-based handset would cost $80 on contract, and feature a 3.5-inch AMOLED touch screen, a 680-megahertz chip, 8.0-megapixel camera and a VGA webcam. Analysts, who describe the C7 as a consumer version of the flagship N8, said the Astound replaces the Nuron.
This will probably be among the last Symbian phones, though Nokia has promised to support the platform for several years to come.
Following its catastrophic failure to recognize demand for touch screen, app-centric smartphones, Nokia's share of the U.S. smartphone market shrunk to a sliver as Google and Apple dominated the sector. Thanks to stronger adoption overseas, Symbian was still the largest smartphone platform globally until the fourth quarter last year, when it was passed by Android, according to research firm Canalys.
Going forward, it is unlikely that any Symbian phone will have much of a following. Users have been abandoning the platform for the user-friendly app ecosystems offered by Apple and Google -- a shift that is likely to accelerate as the popularity of app-ready handsets increases. Potential buyers will also know that any Symbian device has a limited lifespan and that support for the platform is likely to disappear.
But the release of a Symbian phone may be a concession towards Nokia's current crop of developers, keeping them interested and committed enough to begin to develop apps for Windows Phone 7 smartphones later, according to analysts at Forrester Research. The phone also maintains a presence for Nokia in the market, even if the offering isn't entirely competitive. To disappear from the market, even for a short time, could endanger Nokia's presence with U.S. carriers even more.
Last year AT&T decided to cancel the release of the X7, a gaming-centric version of the N8, which would have been released earlier this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment