Nokia are on course to break more hearts in the US over the next few months by releasing a slew of crippled versions of their new S60 3rd Edition range for the US market. Recently there has been a lot of noise on the internet about the upcoming Nokia E62, a cut-down version of the E61 which gets rid of the Wi-Fi and WCDMA support, and it looks like it won’t be the only S60 handset to get parts cut out from it. *
Nokia seem to be planning crippled version of 2 of their N-Series range, the N91 and the N73, as well. Unlike the E62 these device aren’t getting their own name but will have different version numbers instead (Nokia have added an extra number to their N and E series devices on their packaging and on the name found under the battery. e.g. E61-1 or N80-3). The N91-5 and N91-6 will lose the Wi-Fi and WCDMA support found in the N91-1 which is sold in the rest of the world and the N73-5 and N73-6 will lose the WCDMA support found in the regular N73.
There’s no official word from Nokia as to why they are doing this but I suspect it’s mainly to do with pressure from the operators in the US. Americans are no strangers to crippled devices; Bluetooth support was removed from a range of devices a few years ago. This kind of thing has also been happening in the UK to a smaller extent, the latest being the Orange SPV C600 which is an OEMed HTC device that dropped the Wi-Fi support from the specs.
Anyway, as annoying as this is right now, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before consumer demand out-weighs the Operators fear of lost revenue due to VOIP. It happened with Bluetooth, It’ll happen with Wi-Fi, and it’ll happen to the next technology that comes along that might scare the Big-Cat-Telcos. For now though it looks like the US S60 fanatics are just going to have to order their devices from Europe.
*UPDATE: Cingular have released the E62 at a price point of $150 making it the most competitively priced S60 device ever to be released in the US. Looks like the reduction in features has meant a reduced cost to the consumer which is a fair deal especially if you consider how usefull WiFi and 3G would be to the average user in the US. Will this help Symbian conquer the US?
Cutting WCDMA out can reduce costs noticeably by eliminating the need for WCDMA-related patent licensing. The removal of WCDMA is hardly “crippling” a device if it’s destined for T-Mobile USA, either, since there’s no domestic WCDMA network its customers can use.
The removal of WiFi sounds like a Cingular decision, as T-Mobile will soon launch a UMA service, so it’s got some incentive to release compatible devices. The decision to remove WCDMA as well is slightly puzzling, but could be explained by cost considerations based on the small coverage areas of their 3G network… or perhaps there’s some problem implementing WCDMA in the US band in these devices?
The “crippling” comment was really aimed at Wi-Fi to be honest
I mentioned WCDMA with Cingular in mind as I figured that is where these devices will most likely be heading. Even though their converage area is small it would make sense to at least have one model with 3G support no?
Going back to the WiFi, I did notice that Cingular didn’t get rid of the WiFi support on the Cingular 8125 Windows Mobile devcie so it doesn’t look like they’re totally against it. Perhaps, as you say, it is all a cost cutting measure to make the S60 devices available to a larger market…
At the end of the day I still think it’s a shame that US users might miss out on some of the new specs these devices have to offer. Though I imagine the average user won’t miss the WiFi or the 3G