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Nokia Lumia 900 bitten by software bug

by Mark Tyson on 11 April 2012, 12:13

Tags: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Windows Phone, Nokia (NYSE:NOK)

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The new Nokia Lumia 900, introduced over Easter weekend in the US, was a great sales success. Since its debut, the phone has been on top of the Amazon.com sales chart and also selling out in several high street stores. However a bug has already been found within the handset that makes the internet connection to the phone erratic and unreliable. Nokia stressed the problem isn’t in the hardware, or with the network operator AT&T: "This issue is purely in the phone software, and is not related to either phone hardware or the network itself." The problem has actually been pinpointed to the memory management software in the phone. A fix is on its way and the software update will be available by the 16th of this month, just 5 days away.

The Lumia 900 4G phone, which was selling for $99 on top of a new AT&T contract, is now going to be available free to all AT&T contract customers until 21st April. Customers who have bought the phone already will be able to get a $100 rebate direct from Nokia. If you aren’t happy with this arrangement you can replace your quite new Lumia 900 for a brand new one at AT&T retail stores from 16th April.

These price cuts and rebates are a pretty good buying incentive for what is already a very popular phone. In balance it’s probably good enough news to quash the bad news about the bug being present in the first place. Just putting up with a bug, which may or may not affect your day to day mobile usage for a week, for $100 rebate, is pretty good pay back. The swift fix and rebate both point to Microsoft’s and Nokia’s determination to succeed with the Windows Phone platform. As mobile phone underdogs right now, that’s the way it’s got to be.

 

Nokia 900 compared to the Nokia 800

A Nokia Lumia 900(left) compared to a Nokia Lumia 800

 

In the UK we will get the phone too late to ‘benefit’ from this bug/rebate. For those readers wishing to know the difference between Lumia 800, already available in the UK and Lumia 900 have a look at this specification table. In summary the Lumia 900 is 4G, has a slightly larger and more colourful screen, has a gyroscope and secondary camera fitted but is also bigger and heavier.



HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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I think i've seen somewhere that also the HTC 4G Windows phone had a problem too.
Any one want to place bets on how long until Microsoft buy Nokia? After its just what google have done with motorola!
I think Nokia made a mistake going with Microsoft for their software.
Ah well… its all to be expected and the blame lands firmly at the feet of us the consumers.

In our desire for the latest quad core this, bigger screen and higher resolutions it appears that we are the beta testing teams now for all the major handset providers.

I'd be happier with a new release every 2 years that is tested and stable as opposed to lots of incremental updates with very small changes to the specifications.
Lee @ SCAN;2034
Ah well… its all to be expected and the blame lands firmly at the feet of us the consumers.

In our desire for the latest quad core this, bigger screen and higher resolutions it appears that we are the beta testing teams now for all the major handset providers.

I'd be happier with a new release every 2 years that is tested and stable as opposed to lots of incremental updates with very small changes to the specifications.

Agree. Had both, Samsung Galaxy S2 and Nokia Lumia 800. Both great phones in terms of hardware (with some minor flaws). But OS is different story all together. Kind of get it why so many users go for iOS. More polished software, more unified, less hardware variations. Sweet spot.

I don't think major manufacturers have consumer in mind. It's all about capitalising and short term gains (seems like anyway).