Nokia 900 Being Given Away Due To Software Glitch 206
joemite writes "On early Wednesday, Nokia said it had found a software bug in the new Lumia 900 smartphone, its big hope to take on Apple's iPhone, and was effectively giving the model away until it is fixed. It is offering anyone who has bought a Lumia 900 phone, or who buys one by April 21, a $100 US credit to their AT&T bill. The operator sells the phone for $99.99 with a two-year contract. Both Microsoft and Nokia still have big hopes for this phone. The bug apparently causes a random data connection drop. Nokia plans to push a patch the phone later in April."
Here's what I read.... (Score:2, Interesting)
"Sign a contract to pay money every month and we'll give you a device for free which currently does not work and you have not guarantee, will ever work!"
That title got my hopes up... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nokia has TWO "900" phones -- the n900, and the Lumia 900. I was excited that Nokia was giving away n900s, the most open phone to date...
Front runner vs. the Competition (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the big difference between the front runner in a market and the lagging competition. When Apple is confronted with claims of dropped calls via "the grip of death" they responded with things like "you're holding it wrong." Only after the problem persisted they provided everyone with free bumpers (still somehow without admitting there's an actual problem).
MS and Nokia, with their drastically lower and non-dominating marketshare, are not in a position to make such claims, and they immediately respond by comping the price of the phone and signaling exactly when the fix will be available.
No matter what your feelings toward WP7 are, you should be able to recognize its presence has a positive affect in overall market quality.
Re:Wrong summary, again (Score:0, Interesting)
Context...
You clearly haven't in mind the former n900 else you would have noticed that I cited its characteristics, in a flamebait way regarding the keyboard which most phones don't have anymore.
The characteristics of a real smartphone can be way different but note my definition of toy: the bottom line is: if the hardware can do it, you should be able to do it. That doesn't happen with many phones, and the n900 was one of them.