Wow, buddy, one hell of a double standard you have there. You've been using phrases like "You're just making stuff up now" and "I'm sorry if that offends you. I can't change the truth" for pages now, and you're saying I'm patronizing?
Well what were you expecting? You have no valid counter point so instead you give me a lecture on how contract phone sales work as though I arrived from Mars.
The Cyan Lumia 900 has slipped to third place on Amazon.com's best sellers list to be replaced by the Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX 4G Android Phone. As I was saying before. Nokia and Microsoft need to maintain the momentum.
Two days after the data connection bug was discovered on the Lumia 900, Nokia has released a fix. That's got to be some sort of record for fast turn-around when a bug is discovered in a phone. Certainly much better than what most people expect from the industry. Source? I just went online on the Amazon US page, and the Lumia 900 is still #1 (black) and #2 (blue). HTC Rezound is #3 and Droid Razr Maxx is #4. And four days in, the Lumia 900 is still in the top 100 of cell phones and accessories, at #61, competing against $10 cases and $0.70 screen protectors. The blue is #93. Furthermore, there seems to be a halo effect going on. Remember the Lumia 710 that hadn't made that much of a big splash when it was first released on T-Mobile? Well, now it's ranked #3 and #4 in T-Mobile.com sales (black version and white version) out of the twenty-five different models of smartphones that T-Mobile carries. The Lumia 900 got people's interest, and now that interest is starting to spread to other Nokia Windows Phones.
It was the Amazon USA page. The halo effect is likely to do with the push Microsoft are making with all the special offers and freebies they're giving away. And I'm not talking about a free case or cloth either. Microsoft are spending serious money on promoting Windows Phone 7. Looking at the comments on the Amazon site about the Lumia 900. I'd say there is a fair bit of AstroTurfing going on. Something on the order of the first 80 comments all have 5 stars, all talk about every other smart phone under the sun and how the Lumia 900 is just better. That's not a normal review pattern. And the bad news starts to come in. I like the way the article points out the software patch is "free" as though Nokia are being super kind to their customers. Given how quickly Nokia have given in to customers with complaints and announced when a fix will be available and how to install it, I'm guessing they already knew about this problem pre-release. http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/45230/nokia-lumia-900-memory-management-issue-fix
Everyone has glitches sooner or later (iPhone 4 antennagate, anyone?). The good news is, Nokia released a patch within two days. That's a good response from any company. AikiWolfie, you'd have us believe that the positive reviews on Amazon.com are a conspiracy and the quick response of Nokia to fix a problem is a conspiracy. That's a lot of conspiring for companies you think are incompetent. And as for your allegation of astroturfing with the reviews...even if the positive reviews were all fake, Nokia and Microsoft couldn't prevent negative reviews from being posted on Amazon.com. And there aren't a significant number of negative reviews being posted. And with the patch...they're giving a $100 credit to every affected customer, and the existence of the bug itself has probably created more negative press than the quick fix has generated positive press. So if this was a conspiracy, it's a pretty awful one--it makes them pay out of pocket AND it generates a lot of bad press. I don't buy that a company would do that deliberately. I don't buy either conspiracy theory. It sounds to me more like the phone just has a high level of customer satisfaction and that Nokia was quick to respond to a software bug. No tin-foil-hat needed.
The sheer number of positive comments all lined up one after the other with five star ratings points to astro turfing which Microsoft has a reputation for. Given that bloggers are now reluctantly admitting they suffered application crashes while testing the Lumia 900 in light of this data connectivity glitch. Those reviews on Amazon just don't stack up. They don't follow a normal review pattern. Which does kick in after the first 80 or so reviews where the ratings and opinions are more mixed. Some good, some bad. The software glitch isn't a conspiracy. Nokia simply knew about it before the phone was released. Hence the speedy response. It could be the fix wasn't ready for the initial manufacturing run. I was actually being more critical of the tone of the article which by pointing out Nokia were offering the fix for free, seemed to suggest consumers shouldn't expect a faulty product to be repaired. Which is nonsense. Indeed the $100 credit to customers accounts was commendable. And yes companies do send products to market knowing full well they are faulty. Microsoft struggled with the Xbox for years. Dell sold LCD TVs with faulty control boards (I have personaly experience of that one). Apple also struggled with a display issue for a while on their iMacs and iPhones where the glass was fracturing on it's own. Sometimes companies will ship a product knowing they'll have a fix ready soon. Other times they simply want to off load the fault units.
I didn't get why the article said "for free" either, but in all fairness, that's BusinessInsider.com's words and not Nokia's or Microsoft's. I thought the $100 for affected customers was pretty awesome, especially since the issue had only affected people for a couple days. For the iPhone 4's antennagate, Apple offered affected customers the choice between $15 cash or a $30 case. Of 140+ reviews of the black Lumia 900, only eight of them are less than four-star reviews. EVEN IF the first eighty were ALL fake reviews from Microsoft shills, you've still got fifty-something four-and-five-star reviews and eight less-than-four-star reviews. And the blue Lumia 900 has 65 more reviews, none of which are less than four stars. None. There are 62 five-star reviews and three four-star reviews. Your "astroturfing" theory can't explain the almost complete absence of negative reviews.
Make sure you're looking at the phone itself (from AT&T), not a case for it and not an allegedly-unlocked one from a third-party vendor. As of right now, here are the review scores on Amazon: Lumia 900 (black): 5 star reviews: 142 4 star reviews: 9 3 star reviews: 1 2 star reviews: 3 1 star reviews: 4 Lumia 900 (cyan): 5 star reviews: 63 4 star reviews: 4 3 star reviews: 0 2 star reviews: 0 1 star reviews: 0
From the black Lumia 900 reviews. [ame="http://wireless.amazon.com/customerreviews/B007P5NHJO/ref=cr_detail_histogram_top?pageNumber=8"]AmazonWireless: Customer Reviews[/ame] So what are people not happy with? Not the Windows Phone platform or so they claim. The reason I say "or so they claim" is that Microsoft has kept a tight reign on Windows Phone hardware. So the hardware specs of Windows Phone handsets is in part down to Microsoft. So the absence of important apps seems to be an issue. The fact it still takes substandard photos despite Nokia claiming it has a "Carl Zeiss" lens. Clearly people are feeling a little cheated. No SD card slot. Data connectivity issues, it will apparently only upload low-res photos to Facebook and the fact it can't be customised at all save changing the colour scheme. No TV out of any kind was also an issue. But in fairness my Google Nexus One doesn't do that either. Although that is an old phone now. And the last guy there, "vp", who clearly wears a tin foil hat like mine points out the Lumia 900 offers no reason at all to switch from other platforms like iOS or Android. Which is really the hump Microsoft need to get over. If there's no reason to switch. Consumers won't switch. And if consumers are not switching then those absent important apps will never be ported over to Windows Phone 7. The firs guy I quoted appears to be more annoyed at Amazon for the way they've treated him. Which just goes to show it's not always the product it's self that's being reviewed. It would be interesting to know how many of the people who are buying the Lumia 900 already had a Windows Phone. How To Spot Fake Reviews: http://consumerist.com/2010/04/spot-fake-online-reviews.html http://consumerist.com/2010/04/how-you-spot-fake-online-reviews.html http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/30/9124444-how-to-spot-fake-online-product-reviews http://blog.seattlepi.com/boomercon...o-spot-fake-customer-reviews-on-the-internet/
Yes because when talking about customer reviews on the Amazon site for the Lumia 900 I actually went and read a review for a dead fish.
going by this maybe I'd be better off getting a Nokia N8 (as the camera would be my main usage, followed by a bit of texting, some online stuff if I can afford PAYG data rates and very occasionally a phone call) but don't know how annoying the symbian OS is... the phone I currently use isn't even smart and takes worse pics than my old Vodafone V620 so I know it isn't always about pixels
91.5% of reviews are five stars, 3.5% of reviews are lower than four stars, and you're posting about "So what are people not happy with"? That's funny. As for your argument that 91.5% of the reviews posted so far are fakes. (1) Amazon reviews are historically pretty accurate. They don't let fake reviewers run amok. Maybe one or two are fake, but hundreds of fake reviews with only a half-dozen real reviews? Not gonna happen on Amazon. (2) Look at your own criteria and look at the positive reviews. Most-helpful review for the Lumia 900? A five-star review from this guy, who HAS reviewed other products, including some very positive reviews for Sony products not affiliated with either Microsoft or Nokia. Very positive review overall, but he mentions some negatives, and makes clear that his issue with the iPhone is personal preference (screen size), not objective superiority/inferiority. There's no way reviews like this are coming from shills. Seriously, the best argument you have is that Amazon.com hasn't noticed that for a week, it's best-selling smartphone has been flooded with fake reviews from Microsoft and Nokia employees? Not buying it.
If you like good cameras on phones, you should check out the new HTC Titan II. The Lumia 900's camera is unremarkable. The Titan II's is superb. http://www.wpcentral.com/playing-htc-titan-iis-16mp-camera-low-light-and-maco-samples http://www.engadget.com/photos/htc-titan-ii-sample-shots-1/ Edit: also, Symbian is dying. It was a Nokia exclusive, but now Nokia has its attention firmly on Windows Phone. I wouldn't get onboard a sinking ship. So I'd go for a Windows Phone or Android phone with a good camera...HTC has models with great cameras on both OSes.
We have 2 Lumia 900s in our household and the failure rate is 50%. The wife started up Nokia Drive, the free GPS, and within 5 minutes her phone bricked. This was less than 24hrs into our ownership of the device. We then took it to AT&T to get a replacement and they have no phones in stock. We had them check within a 50 mi. radius and every other store had 0 stock and none showing as being ordered. So I had the sales person call into the warranty side of AT&T to try and get another phone and he was told that since it has not been more than 30 days the warranty cannot be used and that my wife had to either get a refund, wait for the store to have a phone in stock, or wait 30 days..... The +1 that I was giving the Nokia/MS/AT&T collaboration now gets a -1 for this. But on to the phone... I love the UI of the phone and the quickness of pulling up any app that I may have downloaded. The amount of information shown on the tiles is quite something and I enjoy only having to glance to get the needed information. Now, if I do not have specific person on their own tile I will have to open up the People/Social tile to get what's needed. I am not usually one to nitpick the number of apps for a device or OS, but it's quite depressing. It seems that a number of the larger companies that have a huge presence in the other markets are reluctant to make apps for WP7. That could be because they are letting for the dust to settle, or they believe in the next several months the next iteration of the Windows Mobile platform will come out built on Windows 8 (there are rumors concerning this). I miss Swype.... Now the WP7 marketplace does have a few devs that have workarounds for not having apps, such as there is a WPFandora due to no Pandora app, and a few others such as this. Now, once WP allows a user to use SD cards it will be awesome.
The conspiracy is VAST!!!!!!!!! We've even got the Woz! http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht...73595_steve_wozniak_buying_the_lumia_900.html You should come to our World Nokiaist Conspiracy meetings on Friday nights. We have bagels. @GrappleorWrestle-- Sorry to hear that one of your two Lumia 900s was defective. That sucks, and it sucks that you can't get an immediate replacement because all the AT&T stores are temporarily sold out. As for apps, Microsoft is doing what it can to build developer interest (i.e., $$$), but right now, a lot of developers just don't prioritize an OS that has a tiny marketshare next to iOS or Android. And I can get that. But it does lead to probably the most notable achilles heel of Windows Phone. While you can find replacements for most things you want, there are some notable gaps still. No Angry Birds Space. There's a Kindle app, but no Nook app, so if you have all your e-books through Barnes & Noble instead of Amazon, you're screwed. No Pandora, though there are other similar services (but if you already paid for a Pandora One subscription, another comparable service isn't quite the same). Etc. I think they're using Mango to slowly-but-steadily build interest so that the app library is built up by the time Windows Phone 8 drops late this year.
The Nokia PureView 808 is supposed to have the best camera on a phone bar none. It runs Symbian. It's a brand new device. I'm not sure if it's available in the UK. It is available in Europe though. Beyond that the recommendations are the Nokia N8, Samsung Galaxy S II, Apple iPhone 4S, HTC EVO 3D or the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. Obviously as this is now April 2012 and not December 2011 there will be updated versions of these phones around. http://reviews.cnet.com/best-camera-phones/
Nice to see you finally coming around to my way of thinking Edit: Good luck finding a Barnes & Noble app any time soon. Microsoft are trying to sue them out of existence. Barnes & Noble are fighting back and winning. And in the process they had Nokia running scared. Can't have the details of the Nokia-Microsoft deal revealed now can we.
