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Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has vowed to deliver cheap Windows Phone devices, in a bid to “compete with Android aggressively”, the Verge reports.
Elop’s stern words come in the wake of bad news for Nokia, with the Finnish company selling off its Vertu luxury smart phone brand and cutting 10,000 jobs.
Speaking on a conference call, Elop pledged that Nokia would forge Windows Phone mobiles even cheaper than the wallet-friendly Lumia 610 (which costs about £180 SIM-free), admitting that the fight over the low-end market is “an important part” of Nokia’s battle against Android.
Elop said Nokia already had plans to go cheaper than the 610, and the company had figured out “ways to go even further than we anticipated”.
It’s a fact that when it comes to mid-range and budget blowers, Google’s mobile operating system is cleaning up. Excellent value mobiles like the Huawei Ascend G300 or the T-Mobile Vivacity offer robot-powered touchscreen fun for about £100 apiece.
The low end might seem like a natural fit for Windows Phone, where shoppers may be less fussed about things like app selection and processing power, and could be swayed by a slick, colourful interface. Nokia has form in this area too, having spent years churning out affordable phones.
But problems have been known to arise when Windows Phone goes budget. The Lumia 610 can’t install apps like Angry Birds and Skype (which is owned by Microsoft), because it doesn’t have enough memory.
Admittedly Android sometimes suffers from similar problems, but for an operating system as slick and new as Windows Phone, that kind of fragmentation is a worrying sign.
Elop’s vow to create cheap phones is in contrast to another struggling manufacturer. HTC chief Peter Chou recently insisted that the company won’t be making affordable mobiles, because it doesn’t want to harm its brand image.
Would you buy a cheap Lumia? Or should Nokia’s Windows Phone efforts be the preserve of railroad tycoons and wealthy astronauts? Let me know in the comments or on our Facebook wall.
