Supernova and more from Nokia

Mobile-review have posted an article discussing Nokia's latest phones. Here is the final roundup.

In this write-up we have lifted the veil of secrecy only from a handful of Nokia’s upcoming phones – outside the scope of this article are still a dozen other phones that are set to debut in 2008. Although there aren’t many milestone products among them. Nokia’s main concern for the foreseeable future is their portfolio, to be more specific, they want to beef it up with a variety of solutions building upon some basic model, yet coming with a couple of characteristic touches here and there. Whereas previously they tended to withdraw that original solution pretty quickly, these days they prefer to roll out 4-5 more iterations of it and capitalize on them, prolonging the life cycle of the phone (even if it means serving it in different wrappings every time). Curiosuly, other manufacturers aren’t into this strategy, with Samsung being the only exception (although they employ it sparingly).

In 2008-2009 Nokia will be aiming to spread N82-esque cameras across the market, effectively making it the new benchmark for the mass-market. And going into 2009 Nokia will hold the leadership in terms of image quality on the mass market. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean will offer unrivaled quality and experience – for instance, Motorola’s upcoming offerings seem more capable and powerful overall – it only means that as far as the price/quality ratio is concerned, Nokia will be ahead the competition.

Another milestone they have reached in 2008 is ubiquitous GPS on S60-based devices, plus it will infiltrate their S40 portfolio in 2009 too. On top of that, one of the most prioritized tasks on Nokia’s list is unification of both platforms in terms of ergonomics and basic functionality, so that the underpinning concepts would be the same across all their platforms.

Touch-based handsets aren’t the ultimate goal for Nokia – for now they are just giving this field a go, showing what they are capable of. As it stands today, the 5800 XpressMusic is a fairly good performer, but nothing out of this world. However, this line-up should start flourishing during the second half of 2009, but until that time, neither the XpressMedia, nor some other solutions won’t look particularly strong on the market and will rather catch the attention of a narrow circle of enthusiasts. Nevertheless, within the company it’s one of their top priorities; ironical, isn’t it – you can’t get it all in one day, even if you the market’s leading company.

Speaking of Nokia’s portfolio for 2008-2009, even the showcased prototypes (that were accidentally leaked into the Web) can serve as a solid proof that the company has some interesting and potent solutions up its sleeve, that trump the competition hands-down.