For more than a decade, Nokia has become one of the most respected and well-known brands in the world. It has sold hundreds of millions of handsets through the years to become the world’s most popular cellphone manufacturers.

However, in recent years, the game in the handset market has started to shift from regular feature phones to smartphones. Apple has joined the crowd to quickly gain recognition and market share. Google followed suit and rallied dozens of partners to create the biggest smartphone operating system and Microsoft was forced to re-think their decade-old strategy in the handset market.

While all of these were happening, Nokia was still adamant that they can do better with their hardware design and software platform and Symbian was still at the heart of it all. And then by surprise, Nokia partnered with Microsoft to carry the Windows Phone 7 platform for their flagship handsets.

One of the first products that came out of this deal was the Nokia Lumia 800. It was a total departure from how Nokia would have done it if, it weren’t for all these market forces in play. The design was similar to their first Meego handset they launched last year, the Nokia N9, and the hardware specification, while pretty good, still doesn’t match the hardware specs of top handsets of other competitors.

Nokia Lumia 800 specs:

• Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon 1.4GHz
• Adreno 205 GPU
• 3.7″ AMOLED display @ 480×800 pixels (252ppi)
• Nokia ClearBlack display
• 16GB internal storage
• 512MB RAM
• HSDPA 14.4Mbps, HSUPA 5.76Mbps
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1
• 8MP autofocus camera, Carl Zeiss optics, dual-LED flash
• 720p video recording
• FM Radio tuner
• GPS w/ aGPS support
• Li-Ion 1450mAh battery
• Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 Mango

In any case, this collaboration between Nokia and Microsoft is very interesting and is something that might help Nokia get its groove back.

1) The Lumia 800 represents Nokia’s ability to develop finely crafted devices. It’s simple yet beautiful and with great attention to detail. It’s design and color preference is fresh, hip and young that can attract consumers from both ends of the spectrum (both gender and age).

2) Windows Phone 7 Mango (v7.5) offers a fresh new interface and ecosystem that will attract a lot of consumers. The number of apps available in the Market might not be as big and expansive as the one in Android Market or the iTunes Store bu Microsoft has strong developer relations and could quickly resolve this issue.

3) Nokia is still in the dominant position in terms of total handset share and with its wide distribution channel and marketing experience, it can reach markets that few other manufacturers can. That, and a very recognizable name brand.

4) Nokia’s has learned a lot with price positioning and they could use this to their advantage to offer the Lumia series somewhere in the mid-market to the high-end market to undercut similar handsets in the same category.

Nokia Lumia 800 Review

I’ve got a review unit of the Lumia 800 and have been using it for a couple of weeks now. While I have already used Windows Phone 7 handsets in the past (mostly from HTC and LG), the Nokia Lumia 800 stands a bit different with its fresh new look and updated Windows Phone 7 Mango.

The only question remaining now is when Nokia will eventually release it and for how much. Only then we can absolutely say if Nokia’s got its groove back.

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