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Nokia Lumia 900 - Conspiracy Theory

The Nokia Lumia 900 black and cyan have been occupying the the Amazon top 5 most of the past week. It's had an overwhelmingly positive review bias since it appeared on the site, even before people could have received the actual phone. I talked to several friends who are not phone enthusiasts and they hadn't heard of the phone nor would they even consider anything other than Android or iOS.

Do you think MS and Nokia employees are flooding websites with positive reviews? Are they buying them and will be returning them? For such a supposedly popular phone it's curious that there wasn't a huge outcry when the software bug preventing data connectivity was discovered.

What do you think?
 
I love conspiracy theories, but I don't know if I entirely buy this one. No question that MS and Nokia are promoting it heavily, but it actually is, by all accounts I've read, a good, solid phone. Plus, it's cheap. You can get a nice WP7 phone for less than an iPhone and less than the top of the line Android phones. People get a really nice phone that they don't pay a lot for and, if they've never used Android or iOS, they're going to be perfectly happy with most likely. I can see where the positive reviews are coming from.
 
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I love conspiracy theories, but I don't know if I entirely buy this one. No question that MS and Nokia are promoting it heavily, but it actually is, by all accounts I've read, a good, solid phone. Plus, it's cheap. You can get a nice WP7 phone for less than an iPhone and less than the top of the line Android phones. People get a really nice phone that they don't pay a lot for and, if they've never used Android or iOS, they're going to be perfectly happy with most likely. I can see where the positive reviews are coming from.
Not to mention it's free after statement credit.
 
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I love conspiracy theories, but I don't know if I entirely buy this one. No question that MS and Nokia are promoting it heavily, but it actually is, by all accounts I've read, a good, solid phone. Plus, it's cheap. You can get a nice WP7 phone for less than an iPhone and less than the top of the line Android phones. People get a really nice phone that they don't pay a lot for and, if they've never used Android or iOS, they're going to be perfectly happy with most likely. I can see where the positive reviews are coming from.


TRUE!!!

when i was in high school, my auntie sent me the first IPHONE from US.
at the time, no one heard of iphone in China, everyone was using NOKIA or SONY ERICSSON, and a few HTC with windows phone 6.5
i told my classmates, in response, everyone said, oh, big ****ing deal, what a rubbish.
but since the day i brought that phone to school, i never heard those words again.

now, i cant see NOKIA anymore, almost 95% of people that i know are using IPHONE, the rest 5% are all android phone
LOL.
 
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I'd guess that pretty much all businesses try to manage their online reviews, at least a little bit. Some probably do it through an informal corporate or department policy, while with others it might just be a group of overzealous employees flooding the e-commerce sites.

That said, I've noticed over the years that Microsoft seems to have a particularly vocal force of online defenders, that get unleashed at almost every opportunity ... and it makes me wonder.
 
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Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketing Head quits after 5 months! I wonder what writing he saw on the wall.

Windows Phone marketing boss leaves Microsoft after just five months

Working for a global market leader in the electronics industry, I have seen a lot of this recently and I would almost certainly feel confident in saying he was probably pushed. That's what happens at this corporate level.

It's not the writing he saw on the wall.... its the writing he put on the wall - that was ignored... by almost everyone who went to buy a smartphone.
 
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Yeah, I think that regardless of the anecdotal sales speculation of the last few days, it's still pretty clear that the overall Windows phone program continues to be tanking pretty badly.

I don't know that it's tanking, but it certainly isn't going anywhere. They don't seem to be taking market share from anyone. It's strange because I've yet to meet anyone using a WP7 phone who flat out hated it. Most people I've met who use them either like them or find them usable on a daily basis. None of them hate them. It seems like a solid product that just came along too late in the game to make a difference.
 
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I don't know that it's tanking, but it certainly isn't going anywhere. They don't seem to be taking market share from anyone. It's strange because I've yet to meet anyone using a WP7 phone who flat out hated it. Most people I've met who use them either like them or find them usable on a daily basis. None of them hate them. It seems like a solid product that just came along too late in the game to make a difference.

Well, "tanking" in comparison with Microsoft's smartphone market share of a few years ago, before Android really started taking off.

Personally, I've yet to meet anyone IRL who owns a WP7 phone, and I don't know anyone who's even considering such a thing. The Lumina seems like a competent-enough device to me, but hardly an inspiring one, and neither the phone or the OS offers anything really sexy that Android or iOS can't. And even if it did, I still wouldn't want to look at those boring little colored squares every time I turned my phone on.

In the broader scheme of things, Microsoft is still a company without its own spirit or sense of direction, and it's been that way for a long time. It seems like for years, their consumer products are only based on attempts to out-Apple Apple, and out-Google Google, and in the public's eye they're not able to do either one of those things very well. They need to get beyond that somehow, but I don't think they ever will.
 
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I think they should have at least kept up competively with the hardware specs. Elop's "dual core sucks" comments remind me of Jobs' "so don't hold it that way" antenna comments.

Instead, they are starting out much like the American auto industry was for decades in which they are selling at a huge discount and rebates. Eventually, consumers will expect the product to always come at a discount or worse yet, free. It's obvious that consumers are willing to pay for a good phone. Look at other countries where subsidies are not ubiquitous and you will see people shelling out 600-800 dollars for a good smartphone. They need a premium product that can be sold at a competitive (not losing) price point.
 
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Meh I've used a WP IRL, its a good product. It is slightly more smooth than even ICS 4.0.4 (amazing considering the HW difference between the Samsung model I used and my Nexus) and given the choice I would absolutely take it over iOS. However, M$ doesn't have the infrastructure set up like Apple or Google and they've got a serious amount of catching up to do in that regard.
 
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Saw an article the other day that said Microsoft were opening stores right across from, next to or near Apple stores. They also appear to be using the 'look and feel' of Apple stores.

Which is exactly their problem! Their entire corporate strategy right now seems to be to look at Apple and go, "ZOMG! We have to do that, too!" And then to look over at Google and go, "ZOMG! We have to do that, TOO!"

That's just not the way to build a brand or attract customers ... especially since MS has consistently shown that they can't "do" Apple as well as Apple can, and they can't do Google as well as Google can.
 
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especially since MS has consistently shown that they can't "do" Apple as well as Apple can, and they can't do Google as well as Google can.

But that works in all directions. They all take from each other and the taker never gets it quite right. Win borrows from OSx. Doesn't quote match up. Osx borrows from win, same result
 
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But that works in all directions. They all take from each other and the taker never gets it quite right. Win borrows from OSx. Doesn't quote match up. Osx borrows from win, same result

IDK, I thought Apple copied Android Notifications and NC pretty well. i actually prefer the little notification banner that flips up at the top of the screen for a few seconds and then disappears. But that is the only thing I can think of that Apple stole outright from Android. I'm sure I'm missing more.
 
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