#LumiaFail

Windows Phone 8 had made it and it was the flagship's turn. Expectations were high even after the release of the Samsung Ativ S and the attention of  geeks such as myself was undivided. Nokia was about to take the stage. What could possibly go wrong?

Fast-forward 2 days and Nokia is covered deep in controversy and the very Lumia that excited us has lost all it's steam. Meet Mr. Controversy and Dr. Killjoy...

Mr. Controversy

One of the highlights of the Lumia 920 was its camera. The PureView 808 was released months back and everyone had seen what it was capable of, although the 920's camera was nowhere near the humongous 41-megapixel of the 808 but it still had some pretty cool tech that made it an excellent camera. Great low-light capabilities and amazing image stabilization. Nokia's first mistake was to brand the camera on the 920 as PureView. 8.7-megapixels is the average camera resolution on phones these days. Sure the 920 carries a lot of cool tech but if it ain't 41-megapixel, it ain't PureView.

Moving on... Now to show off the amazing camera of the Lumia 920 Nokia showed us a video about a girl riding a cycle and a guy who's riding another cycle is filming her with the phone in one hand. The footage turns out to be really smooth and people go wow believing the video was shot using the phone. Turns out that it was shot using a professional rig and some hi-fi cams. Nowhere along the video had Nokia mentioned that the video was simulated, they expected to believe that it was all shot by their phone. Pathetic. Nokia later issued a formal apology but the damage was done...

The fun controversy doesn't end here. Nokia showed off some still images and turns out that they are tainted too. A young man is shown taking pictures of a girl and it is assumed that the photos are taken with the phone itself. Again Nokia had done nothing to indicate that these images are stimulated. Photographer Johannes Grönvall, took a shot of the set which clearly showed the model and also the rig with which the images were actually taken. That's 2 for 2 now...

What is really sad about all this is that the Lumia's camera is pretty great in fact. Low-light images are stunning and the image stabilization really really works. The camera beats the hell out of competing smartphone cameras. Thanks to the blatant stupidity of the marketing team, the controversy has got far more publicity than the products itself. Way to go Nokia.........

Dr. Killjoy 

So people loved the Lumia 920 and 820. The hardware was different, Windows Phone 8 was better than ever and the 920's camera stole the show. It would take some talented idiocy to ruin things and Nokia sure did deliver.

Release? We don't know. Pricing? We don't know. International launch? We don't know. Carriers? Umm... Don't know.

Expensive mistake that. There's nothing worse than announcing something cool and then being completely shussh about when people can acquire it. As I understand, Nokia is all set on the hardware side, it's the software that has once again let Nokia down. There's still a few things Nokia has to sort out with integrating Windows Phone 8 into the device which is causing the delay. I don't blame Nokia, these things take time, but I won't be shy to point out that when Stephen Elop took stage as Nokia's CEO his first promise was to reduce the gap between announcement and actual launch. So far he isn't keeping his word.

Soon Apple will take stage, announce a device and ship it like 1-2 weeks prior to launch. No wonder they sell like hot pancakes. By the time Nokia release the device consumer interest will have waned. People would have already bought iPhones or Nexi. Somewhere in Finland, Elpo will be striking the iron after it has cooled off.


Rant over. I love Nokia. I love Windows Phone. The Lumia 920 is a great device no question. But the way Nokia handled things is distressing. I would love to see more of Microsoft's amazing futuristic UI tied with something elegantly designed as the Lumia, but if this is how the cookie crumbles then I might just stick to Apples for the the time being.

I'll just leave this picture as I silently dream about a world where Windows Phones are the norm...