Nokia gets back to Korea. Stupidly
By Ilinca Nita on 31 Jan 09Nokia hasn’t shipped any new phones to Korea since 2003. But now that the WIPI regulation is about to be lifted, the Finnish giant thought it would be a good idea to return to said East-Asia country.
The problem is that, apparently, Nokia’s comeback will be done in a silly way.
The Finns intend to launch the Nokia 6210 Navigator – which, even for Korea’s standards, is a good-featured smartphone.
However, it looks like the 6210 won’t be able to make use of its navigation capabilities after it gets launched in Korea. And, well, without these capabilities, the handset kind of loses its value.
According to Telecoms Korea, the country’s regulation require Nokia to “embed a server with stored map information” in order to offer navigation services on a phone. But Nokia wants to use a map server based in Singapore, not in Korea, and this fact will make its Navigator phone unable to use its navigation features.
Without GPS, Nokia 6210 could be of interest to Korean customers only due to its Symbian S60 platform. But is this enough to make them choose the handset over the ones manufactured by Samsung, LG or Pantech? I guess we’ll find out the answer in the months to come.
If you liked the post, you might find these interesting too:
- Nokia 6210s launched in Korea without navigation capabilities
- Nokia smartphones to come with free GPS navigation – now official
- Nokia sees poor handset sales in Korea
- South Korea scraps WIPI, opens the mobile market to foreign competition
- Nokia 6210 Navigator approved by the FCC
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