As part of the Nokia keynote at MWC, it was announced that WP7 will have lower hardware requirements to allow for cheaper phones, but is that a good move? While Microsoft is promising the keep fragmentation down, developers now have to do more testing and will have less of a potential WP7 market if their apps do not work on the lower end devices. This very thing still plagues Android and was part of the poor user experience with the older Windows Mobile phones. Sure they will run WP7 but most likely very slowly with lots of response lag. With all the subsidies that are provided, I, personally, do not see a good reason for this beyond a quick and dirty way for Microsoft to get more market share. But if it comes at the expense of the user experience, then it will be a grave mistake. Nokia has already announced the Lumia 610 with this lowered specs, and by the time you have read this article, they will probably have announced its successor. read more

According to the internets, all of them, HTC is about to concentrate on making fewer, better phones. If so, other phone makers should follow suit to save themselves. Yes, its true that most people do not want to have a phone that everybody else has, and this is the exact reason why some have chosen iPhone alternatives (of which there are none….but I’m not biased at all). Because, lets be honest, as flexible and configurable as Android may be, it is no where as user friendly as the iphone, nor as responsive or usable. In fact, my own Nexus S is just collecting dust since it was an absolute pain to deal with… inaccurate clicks…inconsistent UI, slow, etc, etc. So the only reason anyone would get any other phone than an iPhone would be not to have the phone everyone else has. Case and point, a very close friend admitted to this very fact, but finally reason took over and he got an iPhone. Back to the point here…as I mentioned in an earlier post, one of Apple’s successes with the iPhone, IMHO, is that it concentrates on fewer hardware, and supports said hardware for at least 2 years. The other phone makers, just roll out newer versions of their phones instead with different screen sizes which has been another pitfall for Android….and don’t get me started on BlackBerry. As for Nokia’s refocus……..it is about to release the Lumia 900 Series only a few months after releasing the 810 and 710. In fact, all these phones have been released in less than a year. What do you think will happen with the older phones, when there is new hardware out? They’ll be forgotten and de-prioritized. Lets hope HTC is serious here and gets back to its roots. read more