Nokia to produce $150 Windows Phone 7 smartphone?

[Hands0n]

I have been reading an interesting article on InfoWorld about Nokia's choice of ST-Ericsson's dual core NovaThor chips for future WP7 smartphones. The premise is that this will save Nokia a bundle on manufacturing costs by not having to use Qualcomm processors. I have to say that sounds all good to me.

The full article is here http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/nokia-picks-new-chip-vendor-dual-core-windows-phones-177825

What particularly caught my eye, however, is the closing two sentences of the article

Nokia will probably start shipping lower-priced Windows Phones next year, according to Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner.

"It should aim for a price point around $150," said Cozza.

Given that Nokia have a stated intention to push WP7 smartphones out to the emerging countries and economies that would make a lot of sense.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Nokia will be able to meet the Chinese head on in 2012?

[Ben]

I'd like to think that Nokia will rapidly produce a diverse range of WP7 devices to suit all pockets and markets. The Lumia announcement was a good sign I think. But it's just a sign, there's an incredibly long way to go yet and I'm not sure Nokia can go the distance up against new and yet surprisingly established competitors like HTC and revived competitors like Samsung.

I just don't think they've got the, cough, balls.

[miffed]

If Nokia ARE going to return to their former glory , then this is the way that they'll do it - after all isn't this the way it always was with them ? Other than the N95 Boom Nokia were all about a few upper end handsets , back with droves of lower end stuff to bulk the sales up. you only had to look in the accessories shops to see which the popular models were !