Nokia N96: Where's the Touch Screen?

Nokia's (NOK) new N96 big-screen mobile phone announced today looks nice, but what's with the absence of touch-screen technology? Well, according to Nokia, they want to avoid 'gimmicky touch'.

Oh, I see. All those iPhones with their touch-screens are right up there with pet rocks. Tawdry crap. Bet the things show up on a future edition of VH-1's "I Love 2007".

Comments

[Jon T:]

Ha. And all the shrieks that there would be many many iPhone competitors within a few months.

Obviously not that easy then...!

2008 Feb 11 01:52 PM

[samij:]

Yeah Paul, we all appreciate you being economical, reading only one partial sentence of a interview and not wasting precious bandwidth to provide source. Though if you bothered to read and understand the context you wouldn't have had such a great blog entry to write?

The "gimmicky touch" referres to sony's g900 and similar phones where "touch" is there only for the sake of marketing, it doesn't improve the functionality or usability in any ways.

2008 Feb 11 02:22 PM

[KPO'M:]

Talk about missing the point of a press release entirely. Nokia indeed has a very advanced touch interface in development, and have previously stated that they will have touchscreen phones out by the end of 2008. The "gimmicky touch" comment was meant to say they weren't going to do what others have done and take an existing phone and just bolt on a touch screen that doesn't add much (e.g. Voyager vs. ENV). True, Apple caught them off guard, but I'm happy they are taking a long term view rather than release a touchscreen before it is ready.

2008 Feb 11 02:52 PM

[Tom B:]

Nokia has a chance in the low end, low margin handset business still. They are already doomed with regard to the high end.

2008 Feb 11 05:09 PM

[Stefan Wyler:]

Nokia has good margins for a phone manufacturer, it is Palm or Motorola that is doomed.

2008 Feb 12 05:46 AM

[brewer:]

Looks like a Zune to me. How do you dial with no keypad and no touch screen? Does it have a keyboard underneath, or what? What is it then, 2 inches thick?

Obviously Nokia needs a lot of time to figure out how they can possibly compete.

2008 Feb 12 11:39 AM

[contreras:]

@Thomas: Taking a look at the sales of N-Series (multimedia) and E-Series (business) worlwide. What makes you think the Nokia is doomed in regard to the high end? or are you talking about US market only?. When you see such a helathy business worldwide with 40% market share, and with great revenues, is hard to take into consideration such comments.

@Brewer: you were kidding, right? you do realize that it's a double slider, don't you?

2008 Feb 14 08:24 AM

[contreras:]

@Paul Kedrosky: Thanks for the article! It has such a lack of content that it's a funny "opinion"

2008 Feb 14 08:26 AM

[User 217503:]

just got my n96 today... and i have to say that it is the most advanced/gadget filled phone i have ever used. also the gadgets are very easy to use...almost any1 with half a brain can get used to most of the important gadgets within a day or 2. Even though it does not have touchscreen it feels alot more solid in your hand than an iphone which i also have

2008 Jun 27 12:55 AM