Nokia's Present & Future

[Mintmaster]

All you have shown us is the "driver model" quote from Motorola. That does not mean that the drivers are ABI or even API compatible. But it is probably pretty easy to port them from WP8 to W8 and vice versa.

That Motorola link was just for your convenience. The table and info is pulled from MS documentation:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=303992
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~acr31/p36/WP8 Development Cambridge.pdf

For someone developing an app, some APIs are a bit different, but core APIs are the same, and for hardware vendors low level drivers are the same.

 

[Mintmaster]

The margins in a device like this are razor thin. Don't look the total price, look at the difference $4 makes on the final profit. Companies are rarely willing to increase the sticker prices for a feature that most people don't care about.

First of all, I don't believe that $4 figure. AFAICS, all you need to do is run some traces from the MSM8960 (which has IO pins for SD/MMC) to something like this:
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/101-00581-59/101-00581-59-2-ND/2187087
Nokia will get even better pricing. Add a 20 cent cover, and you have $1 at most.

More importantly, nearly every review lists the lack of a microSD slot as one of the main negatives of the device, so even 5% more sales will more than make up for that lost profit.

I really think there's an ulterior motive here.

 

[silent_guy]

Which doesn't explain why lower cost Nokia devices which probably have even lower margins have such features which higher end models lack.

Agreed. Adding that connector to a lower end model is complete stupidity.

 

[orangpelupa]

maybe its the way they arrange the component on their mainboard?

on cheap lumia, the slots are located in the middle of the divice, near battery.

on expensive lumia, they cant do that because its using unibody. they got no more space to add mSD slot on top/bottom.

solution: scrap the unibody. its annoying and did not offer water proofing.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Wow, just looked it up and the 808 Pureview has both mSD and a user replaceable battery. In some sense that makes the 1020 a downgrade.

I can understand the battery. After all, you have tons of internet forumers, bloggers, reviews, etc. all criticizing Nokia for the thickness of their Lumia phones, especially on their high end devices, where for some reason people want thinner phones (I personally want thicker phones with larger batteries).

A removeable battery and battery cover would add a little bit of thickness. Perhaps not much but it likely goes against their design goals for a thinner phone.

I can't imagine an SD card slot would add much to the bulk of the camera, however. But then again perhaps it's like someone else said. It's a carrier choice. Having no SD card slot means you have to rely on online storage more (for the general consumer) which means a data plan to support it. For budget phones like the 520 and 620 where people are more cost conscious, they are less likely to use as much data and likely far more resistant to spending their data allowance on online storage as that means a much larger per month cost. SD cards make sense there as you'd be far less likely to sell a smartphone without an SD card in the budget/midrange than you would at the high end.

Still seems incredibly short sighted, however, to design a phone around a camera that is meant to take high pixel photo's and not provide an easy means of storing a lot of photos.

Regards,
SB

 

[Mintmaster]

Superficially, at least, there is space on the top:

and bottom:

I find it hard to believe that there's no solution to shuffle stuff around inside to accomodate something that occupies less than 1% of the space.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Google, Microsoft and apple want people to depend on online services (cloud storage, music/movie streaming, etc) because that brings lots of revenue directly to them.
Having music and movies transferred to the mass storage, even if they're coming from legal means, brings them nothing.


That's why most flagships, iphones and nexus devices tend to scrap the mSD and have very limited internal mass storage. Some cases are ridiculous, like the Nexus 10 only having 32GB of non-expandable storage.
Plus, the people who spend more money on an expensive smartphone is also more likely to spend money on media services.
People who spend $150 on a mid/low range smartphone are less likely to have money to spare on media services, so they can get all the mSD love they want.

Samsung is a nice exception, though.


In the end, greed is what's stopping flagships from having mSD slots, not hardware cost.

 

[Mariner]

I'd have owned a Nexus 4 for some time now, had it not been for the preposterous non-expandable 8/16GB capacity.

However, I'm sure Google et al have worked out their figures well enough so that what they lose in buyers who require microSD support is not of huge importance to the bottom line.

 

[Mintmaster]

Google, Microsoft and apple want people to depend on online services (cloud storage, music/movie streaming, etc) because that brings lots of revenue directly to them.
Having music and movies transferred to the mass storage, even if they're coming from legal means, brings them nothing.

Yup.

The other thing is product segmentation. Get people to set their mind on a model, so that competition is less of a factor, and then get the richer folk spend another $100 for $5 worth of NAND chips.

I hope Samsung sticks with expandable storage and creates a smear ad on this issue:
"Got the new iPhone with 32GB"
"Oh neat, how much did that memory cost?"
"$100 for the extra 16GB. What's that you got there?"
"Oh, just a memory card for my Galaxy S4"
"What did that run you?"
"$30 for 32GB"
"Oh."
<cue violin...>

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yup.

The other thing is product segmentation. Get people to set their mind on a model, so that competition is less of a factor, and then get the richer folk spend another $100 for $5 worth of NAND chips.

I hope Samsung sticks with expandable storage and creates a smear ad on this issue:
"Got the new iPhone with 32GB"
"Oh neat, how much did that memory cost?"
"$100 for the extra 16GB. What's that you got there?"
"Oh, just a memory card for my Galaxy S4"
"What did that run you?"
"$30 for 32GB"
"Oh."
<cue violin...>

Samsung is in a unique spot where the carriers and to an extent Google need them more than Samsung needs them, so they can do whatever they want.

AT&T I'm sure would prefer a Galaxy S4 without a SD card slot. But it's not like they can demand Samsung make one without, what are they going to do? Not sell one while their competitors rake in the sales and users?

Regards,
SB

 

[eastmen]

Samsung has a 16 and 32 gig s4. Its a $50 difference I believe. Newer android verisons don't allow you to install apps to sd cards

 

[Mariner]

Newer android verisons don't allow you to install apps to sd cards

Nonsense. A handful of devices don't apparently support it with the stock ROMs (blame the manufacturer for this), but most others do with one of the Apps2SD applications.

Failing that, if you have root access, you ought to be able to use the Link2SD app. I also understand that Titanium Backup offers the option to move apps to the SD card as well.

I must admit I've not really needed to look into this for a while as I've been using a phone with 16GB internal memory (alongside a 32GB SD card) and haven't installed any big games so memory space hasn't been an issue.

 

[Laurent06]

Nonsense. A handful of devices don't apparently support it with the stock ROMs (blame the manufacturer for this), but most others do with one of the Apps2SD applications.

Anyway the issue here is not to store apps but photos you've shot with the camera.

 

[Mariner]

Anyway the issue here is not to store apps but photos you've shot with the camera.

Agreed.

I'd imagine the 1020 is pretty decent at recording video as well? This makes the lack of expandability even worse.

Up until a few years ago, all higher-end phones (Apple aside) supported microSD expansion so it seems perverse that more people don't complain about this stuff these days.

 

[orangpelupa]

older WP phone have hidden sd card slot.

maybe hack a day will post a way to solder sd card slot to 1020 :/

 

[Mize]

A comment on the SD App storage on Android...yes, it's possible but it's a major pain in the butt that is akin to artificially renaming volumes and mount points to confuse the OS into thinking the internal "SD" is the external "SD" and it's a joke that such "tricks" are necessary, period.

 

[Mize]

Agreed.

I'd imagine the 1020 is pretty decent at recording video as well? This makes the lack of expandability even worse.

Up until a few years ago, all higher-end phones (Apple aside) supported microSD expansion so it seems perverse that more people don't complain about this stuff these days.

Actually Consumer Reports ranked the 1020s video lower than iphone or galaxy. Strange.

 

[orangpelupa]

SD card swap on android are easy to do. you just need to edit the vob.stab (agh forgot the exact name) and swap it around.

but the easiest method, by flashing .zip from CWM.

about video lumia, its here?
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2013/07/nokia-lumia/index.htm

they say its grainy. but their review are weird. i cant find the video or photos they took.
the only thing available is this overly compressed JPG
http://static4.consumerreportscdn.o...nics/CRO_electronics_objects_highres_0724.jpg

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The Lumia 1020 doesn't have the custom ISP from the 808 Pureview, so the integrated ISP from MSM8960 is probably just using a 1920*1080 grid of single 1.1um pixels with no oversampling.

Reviews are also saying that the Lumia 1020 is very slow at taking pictures, a lot slower than the 808, because apparently the oversampling is done on software after the picture is taken.

Again, Nokia suffering from Microsoft's inability to provide support for several hardware combinations in WP8.

And it looks like Nokia is starting to be vocal about their disappointment too.

Maybe we'll see a Nokia Android before the company dies. I'd pay a lot for an Android with that camera module and the 808's custom ISP.

 

[Alexko]

Agreed. Adding that connector to a lower end model is complete stupidity.

It sure comes in handy if you want to use your phone as a music player.