HMD Global Starts Manufacturing In Europe With the 'Made In Hungary' Nokia Phone (techcrunch.com) 32
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: HMD Global, the phone maker and marketer behind the Nokia mobile phone brand, has launched its very first smartphone manufactured in Europe. The news comes some six months after the Finnish company first revealed it was transitioning some of its manufacturing to Europe to meet a growing demand from enterprises for locally produced hardware to address security and sustainability concerns. HMD Global hadn't revealed where, exactly, it was manufacturing in Europe, with the company telling TechCrunch in February that it was keeping the facility under wraps due to security concerns.
"Unfortunately, due to our customers being in various security-conscious industries, we're not allowed to tell anyone which countries we are producing these devices in, simply to keep it as secure as possible," HMD Global chief marketing officer Lars Silberbauer said at the time. However, the company has now seemingly had second thoughts on that, and it has confirmed at least one of its manufacturing locations is in Hungary. A spokesperson told TechCrunch that it still can't reveal where exactly in Hungary the manufacturing facility is, though they did note that they will be adding further manufacturing and assembly capacity to additional locales in Europe.
The first device off the line is the 5G Nokia XR21, which is available for enterprises to buy today. This is pretty much the same as the XR21 that launched earlier this year, except the new variant has been assembled in Europe and HMD Global can offer enterprise customers a "higher level of security assurance through customized software and security features," a spokesperson said, adding that they are working with a number of additional IT security partners. Additionally, the company is making 30 limited edition versions of these devices available to the general public through the online Nokia store for consumers in the U.K., France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Finland, with a sticker price of 699 euros. It also plans to launch a standard (i.e., non-limited edition) of the European XR21 smartphone for consumers, which will be available in black.
"Unfortunately, due to our customers being in various security-conscious industries, we're not allowed to tell anyone which countries we are producing these devices in, simply to keep it as secure as possible," HMD Global chief marketing officer Lars Silberbauer said at the time. However, the company has now seemingly had second thoughts on that, and it has confirmed at least one of its manufacturing locations is in Hungary. A spokesperson told TechCrunch that it still can't reveal where exactly in Hungary the manufacturing facility is, though they did note that they will be adding further manufacturing and assembly capacity to additional locales in Europe.
The first device off the line is the 5G Nokia XR21, which is available for enterprises to buy today. This is pretty much the same as the XR21 that launched earlier this year, except the new variant has been assembled in Europe and HMD Global can offer enterprise customers a "higher level of security assurance through customized software and security features," a spokesperson said, adding that they are working with a number of additional IT security partners. Additionally, the company is making 30 limited edition versions of these devices available to the general public through the online Nokia store for consumers in the U.K., France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Finland, with a sticker price of 699 euros. It also plans to launch a standard (i.e., non-limited edition) of the European XR21 smartphone for consumers, which will be available in black.
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And for $499 with all the latest features of a $1499 iPhone17, right?
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What features does a new iPhone have that anyone really cares about? I'd be fine with a phone that has all the features of a phone from 2018, just actually let me replace the battery.
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let me replace the battery.
There are phones with replaceable batteries, but it is a niche feature most people don't care about, so you'll have to pay more for a thicker phone.
I've had the same iPhone since 2016 and the battery capacity is 90% what it was when new, so I don't see much point in a replaceable battery.
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Plus, the average battery bank is bulkier than even two extra batteries.
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Swapping out the battery shuts the phone off, which is a lot less convenient than plugging in an external battery pack.
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I had laptops in the past like that too, you could replace the removable media bay with an extra battery. An extra battery was generally a lot more useful than an optical disc reader.
But in a phone, space for two swappable batteries would increase the size of the device quite considerably.
It's already possible to attach an external battery bank even to a device with non removable internal battery.
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So people instead pay for a thinner phone, then pay extra for a case that keeps them from crumpling up their aluminum foil phone when putting it in their pocket, essentially creating an even thicker phone than it would be if they only got a sensible one?
Never said people were any smart, but this strikes me as a special kind of stupid.
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And in real world on the other hand, where tiny minority of propaganda shills don't have total power over discourse, there is legislation being passed that requires all phones to have replaceable batteries.
EU from 2027 for example. I know, it's a niche feature that no one cares about. That's why it got passed in spite of massive opposition from manufacturers who want to keep boosting phone sales through planned obsolescence through hard to replace batteries.
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Actually, a locally sourced phone for around a grand wouldn't be too bad. In fact, I wouldn't mind if it had an older, or underclocked CPU so it would dissipate heat better. A phone doesn't have to have the latest bells and whistles to be a good device. In fact, look at what Palm did when the PDA was around. They focused on simple, usable apps, rather than tons of colors and flashy graphics. Even though Palm devices did evolve to color screens, it was about an ecosystem that worked and did the job even
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And for $499 with all the latest features of a $1499 iPhone17, right?
Well considering it'll be the current version of Android it will have more features and functionality than an Iphone in 2 years, even if Nokia didn't provide 2 years of updates and 3 years of security patches.
Want to know what Apple will be doing in 2 years, look at what Android is doing now and forget half of it.
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And for $499 with all the latest features of a $1499 iPhone17, right?
I'd pay $499 today for a new, US made phone, that mostly resembles my iPod touch, just with phone and text features. That was a second generation touch. There's not been a single advance outside of the gs 3g, 4g, 5g that matters even a tiny little bit to me, nor most. Give me a compact phone that can text, mail, phone, and search the web. Done. And if it happened to be thicker than a couple sheets of paper for the sake of durability? That's OK too. It won't turn on the kids, but us old fuddy-duddies that ar
Re: Can we get a mainstream phone in the US like t (Score:2)
I have the XR21, not made in Hungary. It's pretty ok and not as quirky as the Samsung phones where they have messed up and lobotomized the settings.
Most annoying thing on the phone is that it has an indicator that the screen is at ultra brightness when you are out in the sun and that indicator can't be turned off. Pretty useless info.
I do miss the IR camera that the Cat S62 has. The fingerprint sensor on the Nokia is useless too.
Still nicer than a Samsung.
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It would be nice to see a mainstream phone that is made in the US
Or at least in a non-fascist country that isn't undermining democracy and pandering to Putin.
I will not buy a product made in Hungary.
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Big difference between Hungary and Russia is that the situation in Hungary is still fully reversible. Orban does manipulate the public's opinion through owning the media but the Hungary is a democracy. Last elections were in March 2022 and Orban owed his re-election the new war context, which as a general rule benefits the incumbent. We'll see next time in 2027.
Hungary has high quality electronics fabs. If you are in Europe and you do electronics prototyping or small-scale production, it's likely your contr
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That says nothing about Hungary, and everything about your utter lack of knowledge of what fascism is.
Because Orban is factually one of the most anti-fascist leaders in Europe today. He's very much against the ethical state as described by Gentili on a fundantal level, rather pragmatic that most of the more left leaning European leaders are, where and when they are. Let's not mention the whole ecofascist project of NetZero which specifically banks on nations becoming ethical states.
Orban is a fascist. (Score:3)
He's a nationalist, an autocrat and is concentrated at amassing personal power.
Some argue that what he is practicing requires some new label, such as Orbanism or autocratic nationalism [lse.ac.uk].
Which is just overthinking and overphilosophizing in order to find another way of saying "nationalist who wants to be a dictator" - i.e. A FASCIST.
Cause fascism is nothing else but a tool for acquiring ultimate, authoritative, power - on the backs of the masses, who are promised a return of the nation to some great, legendary
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Nationalist, yes. Autocrat, patently no. Concentrated in amassing personal power, yes, just like every other politician, since their power is based on personality first.
The reason why "some argue that he needs a new label" is because "some" are neo-Maosts, who's genocidality and starvation for power is only rivaled by their utter inability to gain democratic legitimacy. Notably, not my opinion, but their own. The main reason why this particular political movement has successfully penetrated much of the elit
Should come with a background... (Score:3)
... of Viktor Orbán giving you a thumb's up
Re: Should come with a background... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Orban is on the list of people that I think should get an ulcer.
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Hungary is in that middle value manufacturing sweet spot in EU, where culture of excellence is sufficient to guarantee quality but salaries are low enough to make manufacturing possible without massive inflation. It also helps that their policies to stabilize birth rates and block most of the illegal immigration from entering and de facto encourage what little is forced on them by EU to just pass through to Austria. Which leads to more functional demographic structure that doesn't need as much policing, imp
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... of Viktor Orban giving you a thumb's up
That's not a thumb.
*sigh* (Score:4, Interesting)
When all we had was CRT, we would try to adjust them so that all of the display was visible, because the corners had a radius.
Then, came LCD/TFT and they had _perfect_ geometry. The entire rectangle area was _by design_ visible and not only visible, but had the exact same clarity.
Now I see pointless cropping of content from curved corners. Also, there's a hole in the middle of the display. The fuck?
If they _dedicated_ the top and bottom edges to be explicitly for soft-buttons and status information, that would be cool. But they're not. When in landscape, the softbuttons _do_ remain on the bottom of the phone, near the charger (that is, they do not change position) but the status bar moves to the long side of the display? And now, the right side (the one with the softbuttons, as you hold it in landscape), is nicely properly rectangular... but the _left_ side is cropped _and_ curved? So I lose both the screen estate from the status bar _and_ the screen estate from the black bar on the left
I miss my Z ultra :(
(coincidentally, sony is the only major manufacturer that still has a CORRECT screen. That is, no holes, no curves)
Beware of HMD/Nokia kit (Score:3)
I bought a Nokia Tough phone for a car spare. Absolute garbage both hardware - slow - and software: KaiOS, borderline unusable, full of bugs and the occasionally total lockup.
The best bit was no physical reset button so when the phone did lock up I had to wait for the (non removable without a fight) battery to die in order to be able to use it again. After the 2nd time this happened it went into the cupboard never to be used again.
Its a shame because old Nokia produced great dumb and feature phones but their current kit appears to be cut to the bone junk.
De-Googled? (Score:1)
As soon as they will support flashing de-Googled versions of Android as LineageOS or /E/ I will promptily buy one!