Where’s The Nokia?
Obviously I’m a Nokia fanboy, and I’m also a heavy user of Bluetooth headsets, car chargers, and the like. I’ve recently reviewed two sets of Nokia speakers here on Symbian-Guru, as well as the Nokia Car Mount setup that I’m particularly enamored with. I spoke so highly of it to my buddy PseudoFinn at Nokiausers.net, he decided to try to pick one up, and hence, this post. Nokia makes some fantastic accessories. The build quality is great, sound quality is stellar, they’re just extremely well built. The problem, however, is that they apparently don’t sell these accessories, at least not in the U.S.
The picture above was taken by me at Fry’s Electronics, one of the larger warehouse-type electronics stores in the U.S. This is an entire aisle of Bluetooth headsets and misc other Bluetooth accessories. There’s entire sections, starting with some off-brand and moving into the Jabra, Plantronics, then to the Motorola and even Sony Ericsson Bluetooth headsets along this wall. So what’s missing?
Where’s the Nokia Bluetooth headsets and other accessories? A quick visit to Nokiausa.com shows that Nokia currently offers a total of 25 different Bluetooth headsets and Bluetooth speakers. How is it that only a few of them are available to purchase, but you can’t find them in retail locations? A similar check of BestBuy.com. Walmart.com lists 4 out of 25 Bluetooth headsets, though all are online-only.
Why doesn’t Nokia push these accessories into more retail locations? Americans buy cellphone accessories like it’s going out of style. I hope to continue to review these accessories for you here on Symbian-Guru.com, as I think they’re excellent options to get even more out of your handset, but Nokia has to help me by actually making these products available to purchase!
Being a Nokia fanboy in U.S. is not easy oh, boy
I guess it feels like being an Apple fanboy in Russia…a minority…
And yes, Nokia, please bring’em headsets and stuff!
On the headsets - I had to buy Plantronics Pulsar 590 and I like it, no Nokia alternatives were available past summer here in Russia. Nokia should certainly target this as competitor, they became way too popular.
It’s pretty much the same here in Germany. Since I got the N95 i bought five Nokia-accessories and I could only find one (car charger) in a store. The other four I had to buy via internet.
This was really annoying in one situation, when I needed the car charger AND the car mount because I wanted to use my N95 for navigation on a long trip the next day.
And if you need something the next day, even amazon won’t help you (As I started my trip early in the morning, even over night delivery wouldn’t help as they deliver around 11 am. Apart from that, over night delivery wasn’t available)
I forgot one: the DC-8 Extra Power
After half an hour of searching the web without any result I decided to buy the Energizer Mobile Charger instead.
This is big pet peeve of mine with Nokia ever since I got the first S60 phone 7650 and i wanted to get the official leather case and couldnt find it anywhere.
Nokia dont seem to care about selling their accesories. The have so many good ones but the only place i can find them are Hong Kong imports on Ebay which just end up to be alot of hassle obtaining. Its absolutely crazy.
Why cant i walk into a local carphone warehouse and pick up a Nokia bluetooth keyboard, a Nokia mobile speaker set, a Nokia stereo bluetooth headset? Sonyericsson and Motorola dont seem to have a problem.
Don’t let Fry’s catch you snapping photos in their stores, they’ll less than kindly insist you delete the photos and if you try to protest they will then show you the door. I guess there is some new tech out there that allows you to transport items captured in photographs outside the store or something… Some of them watch entirely too much Sci-Fi… thats the only explanation I can come up with.
And Ricky, I know you saw the wall of accessories at the flagship store in Chicago.
I’m all for selling the stuff there, however expanding beyond that sure would help. I work (well I’m on leave now) retail management and floor space is at premium. Companies often pay for for space to peddle their wares inside of a retail chain’s stores. Profit margins on the accessories (from Nokia’s point of view) generally takes a pretty big hit as well. Online shops can afford to take a smaller chunk of selling price as they don’t have near the same operations overhead. Nokia probably isn’t willing to give up and extra 10-20% on their products.
Its the same case in India also. I live in Chennai which houses a Nokia Factory, but still I dont find many Nokia Accessories here.
In fact I dont find the latest Internet Tablet the N810 also in India. I have been trying the Nokia BH-500 for the past 1 year. I also tried searching for the Nokia LD-3W/4W GPS module, but I had to settle for a Holux reciever.
And I thought that I was the only one!!
malauem- Yes, I understand that floor space is expensive and that it would dig into Nokia’s profit margin, but there are a couple of points to consider. First of all, just as someone here has mentioned, they tried to find a Nokia accessory, failed and ended up getting some other product- and this was on the Internet! So that’s zero profit right there. Profit gone to another manufacturer. Another point is that I think it would go a long way towards Nokia’s exposure here in North America if there was a rack of Nokia accessories in every major retail chain. Honestly, Nokia is one of the most recognized brands in the world- but I run into people all the time in the US that actually don’t even know what ‘Nokia’ is- and the majority of those who do seem to have a very odd impression of Nokia, thinking that Nokia only makes cheap-o budget devices, because that’s all they see from the carriers- and you don’t find Nokia accessories, let alone handsets in the US elsewhere. If Nokia really wants to get back the market share that they have screwed themselves out of in the last three years, they need to think about spending some of that nearly 3 billion dollars made in profit according to the Q4 reports on brand recognition in North America.
We hear a lot of talk from Nokia on how they are going to take back America by force, and I see little to no action every single miserable day I spend in NA as a Nokia fanboy. Indeed, it is tough to be such a consumer with regards to my geographical location on this planet.
It be nice to even be able to find a damn wall or car charger in a store anywhere in Michigan- a task I would be hard pressed to complete.
Brand recognition is a problem in NA for Nokia- I don’t know how anyone can argue that- and it’s not going to change with cheap talk. It’s gonna cost Nokia to get market share in NA, I don’t know why they don’t get that.
Hi Ricky:
Since the fabled Nokia mobile mount is such a “fantasy” item in the States, I’ve found an alternative that is great, well-made and works with the N95’s and the N82, etc.
http://www.boxwave.com/products/mobilemountingkit/index.htm
It even comes with a vent mount. Phones easily mount and power recepticle is usable on both of my phones (great for GPS use of course). Boxwave c/s is very responsive and ships products promptly.
So for anyone looking for a good mobile phone mount, and can’t wait for the Nokia item, I strongly suggest the Boxwave as an alternative or as a primary choice (sorry Guru).
ALAN
hmmm is anyone at nokia reading this…??? Please hear our plea… I am trying to find a Nokia E51 without camera and a BH-500 bluetooth headset, but nooooooooooo….. Its not available in India at all…