Nokia Arte or 8800 will never die

Now isn't that a attnetion grabbing title? That's the title of mobile-review's preview of the new Nokia 8800 Arte. The phone definitely looks nice in the flesh (way nicer than the official pics and the spy pics). Here is the final impression/conclusion form the preview.

Release dates, price tags and brief conclusion
Unlike most other models, like the Nokia E61, the Nokia 6500 Slide that normally start shipping in Russia much later than in the rest of the world, the Nokia 8800 Arte will be widely available here already in December. And in this connection how can we not remember the black edition of the Nokia 8800 that was designed exclusively for Russia? Nokia does realize that this local market is a pure goldmine for top-notch products like this one. The Arte’s official retail price for European countries makes 1000 Euro. Let’s see what its price tag will look like in Russia.

Wholesale price, plus customs duty, plus VAT, plus retailer’s 5-percent interest. Around 1100 Euro. But the real question is whether you believe in such a generous retailer’s interest when the Christmas sales are all but here and there is a hot premium handset to capitalize on? I don’t, honestly. When I was going back home from the launch event, I called a handful of distributors and wondered how much they were going to charge for this phone. “We’ll keep it at 2000 Euro per unit, very unlikely that we’ll cut the price, only if we have no buyers at all. We don’t think we’ll have enough of these phones for everyone”. Another point of view – “We are going to stick with the market, but won’t let the price go lower than 1500-1600 Euro, depends on what other retails will be doing, though”. So you might even get one for 1500 Euro, with some luck and some friends working for these retailers, of course. Now let’s take a good look at the market – the Nokia 8600 Luna goes for around 700 Euro, the Nokia 8800 SE Gold – 1100 Euro. Someone is still in doubt whether the Arte will be at least somewhat cheaper than the Gold version of the Nokia 8800? I think the distributors are about to hit pay dirt with this phone and its tremendous margin. At least, for now.

The Sapphire Arte is coming out in February and will set you back around 150 Euro more than the original Arte, and for Russia this gap will make 300-350 Euro.

This phone is an icon, and judging it on its technological talents makes no sense at all – people have always been buying it as a symbol of their status, or at least that’s what owners of all iterations of the Nokia 8800 have come to believe. That’s why the Arte’s extremely grease-prone casing is not going to mar its success. The only thing the maker has to worry about is the audience’s sudden mood swing, when they might decide that the Nokia 8800 is out of fashion, just like it happened to Mercedes Benz 500 and 600, when at some point in time the high society started to think of them as obsolete and vulgar. The same thing is currently happening to the Nokia 8800 owned by students, businessmen, doctors etc, in a word, it has made its way to way too many social groups, and it no longer signifies a thing. What’s interesting is whether this model will finally get to the mass market – its hefty price tag is not much of a limitation in a country where loans are so readily accessible, especially if you don’t pay back (which is the way most backwoodsmen got their 8800).

The European market, however, has never been crazed about this model – basically, it is pretty competitive and reasonably popular (for instance, in Italy, where it is all the rage) over there and that’s about it. No other country has ever hyped this phone so much. And that’s why we are very excited to see how the things will develop for the Arte.