Friday 12 July 2013

Nokia, Please Stop

Today my worst fears came to pass: Nokia will release a 41-megapixel monstrosity called the Lumia 1020. It is basically a Lumia phone, which is fine, but it has a bright flash, an acceptable lens, and a pro camera app. The only thing Nokia didn’t add was market insight and common sense. Nokia is famous for making goofy phones. It seems there is some predilection towards brief insanity that manifests itself every few months and the last thing Nokia needs right now is to look like it’s out of control. A 41-megapixel phone looks great behind the glass of a mall kiosk, and that’s exactly where it will stay as customers buy Nokia’s actual phones and ignore this chimera.
High-megapixel phones are too cute and clever by half. They are a manufacturer’s attempt to add flair to an other wise drab line up and I guess they serve to make the R&D guys happy and give the marketing guys a new number to put in newspaper circulars. But no one buys them. Samsung recently launched the S4 Zoom with 16MP and optical zoom and I doubt they will sell more than a few thousand at best. Barring the odd consumer who simply must have a good sensor when taking pictures of their pasta, the camera on most phones is acceptable at worst and just dandy at best.
So let’s stop this charade, Nokia. You can power through this time of burning rafts without resorting to theatrics. The best phones, be they Galaxies, iPhones, or Lumias, are the ones that just work, not the ones that pretend to be something they are not.

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