Is the Lumia doomed to fail?

It’s unfair to say that Nokia’s bid to usurp Apple and Android smartphones is doomed (hell, we loved the Lumia 800), but European telecoms seem all but convinced of the Finnish giant’s imminent failure.

Four of the top European telecoms who have wisely chosen to remain anonymous have told Reuters that the Lumia range of phones just isn’t good enough to rival iPhones or Samsung Galaxy smartphones. Has Nokia struggled to reach even a semblance of respect in the eyes of the geek been noticed? Hell yes. Can Nokia win the hearts of the telecoms? Hell no, says Reuters.

Nokia is currently battling to entrench itself in the US, where it’s currently the reigning loser with its tiny one-percent share of the overall smartphone market. Its shares have also dropped below €3 in Europe.

Vendors have called the Lumia range “overpriced” and “not innovative”. Nokia’s failure to launch in the US market has been put down to battery glitches, software issues and an overall lack of solid marketing. So basically, every part of the Lumia from hardware to its marketing efforts is a bust.

The European operators have eagerly supplied us with Nokia hate, cleverly disguised as marketing doublespeak. “No one comes into the store and asks for a Windows phone. Nokia have given themselves a double challenge: to restore their credibility in terms of making hardware smartphones and succeed with the Microsoft Windows operating system, which lags in the market.”

We know how useful the Lumia is and how well it operates within the Windows environment. The everyman, not so much. Few customers who purchase the Lumia know of its hidden powers, with the telecoms saying that if Lumias came with the Android OS, it would be an “easy sale”. It’s hard to disagree with that, we’d have loved a Lumia 800 with Ice Cream Sandwich. Can you imagine…

What the telecoms want is to offer a “viable alternative” to the almighty dominance of Android and Apple. Nokia was the telecoms white knight, and freely exploited “telecom irritations” caused by Google phones being so data hungry and iPhones being so dominant. The nameless, faceless European telecom (perhaps even a ghost in the machine) says, “It’s good for operators if we can reduce the dominance of Apple.” But it’s hard to push a product which received such polarising reviews.

Some reviews say that the Lumia “looks smart” but the “screen is dire” and “battery life is atrocious”. Apple and Google’s app market both play a large part in the Lumia’s current downfall. Think of it like this: if you’ve spent a small fortune on apps for the iPhone, how are you going to port them over to your shiny new Lumia? It’s two completely different app ecosystems so you can’t, and the many users who are wise to this, outright ignore a Lumia purchase. Despite Lumia’s “smoking” other phones in app battles, the phones remain somewhat of a rarity in the hands of Joe Public.

We’re ending off on a sour note and according to yet another European telecom operator, Nokia’s Windows Phones need to “disrupt the market to create client demand and release innovative products yet so far, they have done neither.” Read the full article detailing Nokia’s slow descent into fiscal hell here. For us, the N-gage will always hold a special place in our hearts. Oh for the glory days.