The Boy Genius Report: Crippled Nokia N75 to launch in April?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Mar 19th 2007 2:47PM
posted Mar 19th 2007 2:47PM
Word on the street now has the hotly-anticipated Nokia N75 -- the first phone out of Espoo with UMTS 850 and 1900 in tow, not to mention the first new S60 device officially launched on an American network in quite some time -- should finally hit streets in April. The bad news? The delays appear to have been caused at least in part by AT&T's request to remove the ability to stream any music not being hawked by the carrier itself or one of its partners -- Yahoo! and Napster, that is. Worse yet, there will allegedly be no ability to add apps to do so (at least for a few days after launch, at which point we suppose it'll be unceremoneously cracked for all to enjoy). For what it's worth, some folks in Nokia are apparently not terribly pleased with Cingular's demands; may we recommend a fully unlocked version be waiting for us in Nokia's flagship stores around the same time as the carrier-subsidized launch?
SO we load Nokia's firmware replacing the AT&T dreck? Will that be a necessary strategy.
When we load new firmware, sans restriction, can we add a restriction to disallow music & ringtones from the AT&T store?
I'm hoping that there will be an unlocked version, and from the looks of it there could possibly be. They carry the unlocked version of the E62 at the Nokia Store in NYC so that means that Nokia is aware of Cingular's crippling ability and might just oblige its consumers with an unlocked N75... let's keep our fingers crossed tightly!
Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that the delay was due to a particular Nokia software that allows you to remove the copyright protection from ringtones and games downloaded from Cingular, which would allow you to share them with other mobile phones through bluetooth.
I would have been excited if this phone came out like it was supposed to 4 months ago.
The reason is delayed is not because AT&T is restricting streaming music.
Really this author needs to get better sources.
The reason it is delayed is because Nokia has to wait for Microsoft Play For Sure certification before it can allow AT&T to sell them.
I hope Nokia throws out their unlocked version. I'll buy just to piss Cingy off!
#7: you're not going to piss cingular off by buying the unlocked version...you'll actually be saving them money because they wont have to take the hit up front on the price of the phone. sure you're not in a 2 year contract, but they're still getting ur money
Dave,
The beauty of blogging is that you don't have to check the facts.
I don't work in the industry so I have no ax to grind either way, but I am amazed at the anti-US carrier feelings evident on so many sites.
I've been working on an N75 for the past 2 weeks. Although it has some nice features, it has a big time battery problem. It rarely lasts me one full day and I'm not a "power user" either. I hope it's shipped with 2 extra batteries!
#8.
I'm not an idiot I know that but if the phone doesn't sell well they'll have a lot of stock. That's not so great for them.
Furthermore US customers need to stop accepting crappy crippled devices. Why is it that US cutomers are denied functionality only because US carriers cant use the functionality to pull money from their wallets.
I'd think more customers is the key not nickle and diming your customers to death.
US carriers wouldn't survive with the crap they pull in the European or Asian markets.
Xultar: Cing Customers are a captive audience for a decent smartphone. T-mobile 3g??
While one can buy any phone from 3rd party sources, its back to Cing for service. Cing saves the phone-discount-carrot and still gets the customers for the 2 yrs, without contract, but nowhere to go.
So, yes, it ends up that we must spend effort to avoid the CING nickel&diming, pathetic as it is.
T-mobile has already announced that they are going 3g in mid 2007. Let's stop Cingy in their tracks. Buy unlocked N75 use T-mobile simcard. Here's the linkhttp://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20061006/084438&cid=129
http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20061006/084438&cid=129