To be honest, Nokia’s would-be RAZR-killer did not look much of a beast at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Though smaller and thinner than the RAZR, the Nokia lacked the RAZR’s ‘I want you in my hand’ instant appeal.
Though I have not seen one, early reports say the Apple iPhone creates the same itchy palms.
The Nokia might be a jolly good phone, but that’s not the point nowadays.
The RAZR is sleek, shiny, colourful and futurish. Nokia’s aspiring assassin looked dowdy by comparison, like a duck beside a drake.
Real phone freaks change their handsets two or three times a year. Their top three criteria for choosing a new phone are style, style and style.
Mr Freako is more likely to go for the Apple iPhone than the new Nokia, because it will create more interest among his mates, because it’s cool, because it’s news.
With Nokia resigned to a saturated cellphone market in the developed world, it knows it can only keep getting people to buy phones if they can make them sexier and sexier.
Adding new features doesn’t help much. The only one which really caught on was the camera.