As you know, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has been available throughout the rest of the world for a few months now, but the NAM variant just launched at the 2 Nokia Flagship stores this past week. This touchscreen smartphone features a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, removable storage, WiFi, a built-in GPS receiver, sizable battery, and A2DP Bluetooth support for stereo headsets. It has every feature to top the other dominant touchscreen smartphones in the U.S. Even the price, at $359 unlocked, is a heck of a deal. Unfortunately, Nokia has completely botched its launch, at least in the U.S.
First, the stores received stock on Wednesday, and were supposed to begin selling the anticipated smartphone that afternoon. Sadly, someone forgot to set the 5800 XpressMusic NAM up in their inventory systems, so they weren’t able to actually sell the phones. Rough stuff.
Then, we got reports from Boy Genius Report that many customers are actually returning the devices, due to connection issues with AT&T’s 3G network. The only 3G network in the U.S. that this phone will work on. DEFINITELY not a good situation.
Third, this phone is only on sale at 2 locations in the entire United States, or online. What makes this a bad point is that other high-end Nokia smartphones, like the E71, N82, and N96 are all available for purchase in most Best Buy locations (that’s 965 retail outlets, as of August 2008), unlocked AND with a T-mobile contract (read = subsidized price). Imagine if Nokia had gotten the 5800 XpressMusic into those Best Buy stores, all nearly 1000 of them, priced at $350 retail, $150 with a T-Mobile contract? The word ‘hotcakes’ comes to mind.
So, we have a hot touchscreen smartphone, with better features AND a better price than the other popular touchscreen smartphones on the market, and yet Nokia can’t sell them, they can’t connect to AT&T’s 3G network, and even if both of those were fixed, you can only buy it in one of 2 stores (or online) in the entire country? All this for a phone that originally showed up in The Dark Knight, product placement of the YEAR, to which Nokia responded ‘Er….um…..that’s not a real phone, it’s something we’re looking at.’ Come on, let’s get serious.
I have a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, European, that Nokia sent me. It’s a great phone, I’ve been using it as my primary for the past several days, and it works OK. However, I’m getting nauseous at Nokia’s simple inability to successfully execute in the United States market, and I’m getting even more bored hearing OPK and other execs. continually insist that they’re ‘focused on the U.S. market’ when they simply can’t really launch a phone here. As TheNokiaBlog.com points out, in the UK, they had Paris Hilton at the store. In Malaysia, they actually held a concert. In Thailand, they had a street fair. In the U.S., we get to stand around waiting for their inventory system to catch up, so they can sell a phone that has connection issues in 2 stores throughout the entire freakin United States. Sheesh.
