Good ol' Finnish Nokia is blundering. My first digital mobile phone was a Nokia and I have stayed faithful to the brand. That is from 1997 (if my memory is correct). I just got my 4th Nokia cellphone thanks to Pierre, who hand delivered an E61 model from Belgium, which is not available in China yet (and maybe never will be, if you believe the Nokia sales people).
It's a top-notch cellphone, with lots of applications. With just a few clicks and no configuration hassle whatsoever, I browsed the web and send e-mails. The full-scale keyboard makes writing an e-mail a charm. Nice indeed.
Well, there's always a but. My phone, being bought in Belgium, came with a Dutch/English language pack. Living in China, I also want to be able to read SMSs in Chinese (writing Mandarin would be a plus, but is not essential). Guess what? Adding or changing languages is against Nokia's rules and regulations! Even asking the question how you could add a language is against the rules on Nokia's discussion website.
This is Nokia Apartheid. If you buy a cellphone in Flanders, you can only use Dutch and English. If you buy one in China, you only get a couple of East Asian languages (plus English). So what about Dutch-English-Chinese? Or Urdu-Swahili-Dzongka?
We live in a globalized world. Any combination of languages should be possible and somebody somewhere will need it. Adding an additional language is easy on Sony-Ericsson and Motorola phones. Why not on a Nokia?
My advice to Nokia: stop this nonsense or lose customers!
No comments:
Post a Comment