It seems that there is no model called the Nokia Lumia 200 from the house of Nokia of the Lumia family. The Lumia family had plenty of models, such as Lumia 520, Lumia 920, Lumia 1020, etc. They entered the market between the years of 2011 and 2015. It had run on the OS of Microsoft’s Windows Phone, which competed against the renowned Android and iOS phones at the time. Since there was no Lumia 200 in this range, I shall focus on the bigger picture-the Nokia Lumia series as it rose and fell and how it shook the smartphone world.
Nokia Lumia Series: A Daring Foray into Windows Phone
The Starting Point of the Lumia Series
Nokia launched its Lumia series in 2011. In fact, this is where the company shifted from Symbian OS to Windows Phone OS after a strategic tie-up with Microsoft. The Nokia Lumia series of phones became Microsoft’s primary attempt to take away the space of themselves by the iOS and Android juggernauts in establishing an ecosystem based on Windows Phone. Nokia was a legendary name in mobile phones, which hoped to capture lost space with this move but wasn’t going to be an easy job for them.
Early, the first models of Lumia, such as Lumia 800 and 710, impressed with their design and saturated colors and good integration with services of Microsoft: Office, OneDrive, and Xbox Live. The ones were running on Windows Phone 7, with Live Tile interface, where images really animated instead of static application icons in Android and iOS.
Major Models and Influence
While it was true in the cases of the Lumia 800 and 710, it is in later models that one really finds the proper Nokia breakthrough. Among them, one of the most famous Lumia models are the following:
Nokia Lumia 520: Released in 2013, it was the cheapest smartphone in the Lumia range of devices. With the Lumia 520, Nokia brought the windows Phone experience to budget consumers who had never tried using a windows smartphone device before. It is one of the highly selling Windows Phones in the world to date because of its low price, decent performance, and compact design.
Nokia Lumia 920: Late in 2012, Nokia released the flagship Windows Phone, the Lumia 920. This marked the arrival of a wireless charging feature, a fantastic PureView camera and also a generous optical image stabilization feature. At last, this is the best camera phone one could have. The phone featured an excellent solid polycarbonate design and the Windows Phone 8 interface was good and smooth as well.
One of the products of Nokia, which was named Lumia 1020 and came in the market during 2013, particularly became a camera-centric phone with a 41MP PureView camera in it. This model focuses on trying to revolutionize the photography of smartphones with advance technology in the cameras, especially from smartphone photography enthusiasts. Yet, with an impressive camera, overall marketplace reception was lukewarm because of Android and iOS ecosystems’ rising domination.
Nokia Lumia 1520: With the Nokia Lumia 1520, Nokia unveiled its first phablet. This one came with a massive 6-inch screen and was powered by the huge Snapdragon processor. It was supposed to be a high-end option for running Windows Phone and compete with Samsung Galaxy Note family of Android devices that is on the large screen; however, like all Lumia models, it couldn’t do much for market share.
Although pretty impressive was the hardware of Nokia, challenges befell the Windows Phone OS before it could succeed in its wide adoption:
- Developer Support: Developers were not likely to place an investment in developing apps for the Windows Phone ecosystem, as it currently has a much smaller market share than both iOS and Android OS. This, therefore, resulted in the vicious cycle that whilst it failed to expand into the same platform, appeal for Lumia devices kept on declining.
- Market Saturation: Meanwhile, iOS and Android had already overwhelmed the world market. Close to impossible for the Windows Phone to carve out something unique without the adaptation of flexibility and customization options by Android and the seamless integration of offerings from Apple.
Decline of Nokia Lumia
Despite the innovative hardware of Nokia and some early success, it did not achieve the results expected from the collaboration with Microsoft. By 2014, Nokia’s mobile business was in shambles, and Microsoft finally bought Nokia’s business of mobile phones for $7.2 billion in April 2014. After acquiring Nokia, Microsoft used the same gadgets with the brand name Microsoft Lumia, so the name Nokia was taken away from smartphones.
Although the brand name, Lumia, was retained under Microsoft, things did not work out long. Novelties released along with Windows 10 Mobile operating system in 2015, Lumia 950 and 950 XL, failed and remained unsuccessful since it also couldn’t make things change with regards to availability of apps and support from developers. It was also revealed that Microsoft would cease its development of new features and hardware for Windows phones as Windows 10 Mobile still didn’t possess the essence like its peers.
The End of the Lumia Era
By 2017, Microsoft had almost abandoned all hope on its smartphone ambitions and thus, in effect, ended its Lumia brand. Windows Phone and Lumia failure made that an important point in the history of the smartphone because Microsoft refocused its business onto software and cloud services rather than still insisting on hardware. Nokia licensed the brand to HMD Global, which started producing Android-based Nokia smartphones.
This pretty much shows that software ecosystem can make or break the smartphone. Innovations in Nokia, in terms of hardware design and camera technology, would have been useless if the company hadn’t built a competitive app ecosystem that led to the downfall of the very smartphone, Lumia.
Lessons from Lumia’s Journey
The story of Lumia embodies some big-time lessons for the smartphone world:
- Ecosystem Over Hardware: No matter how good your hardware is, ecosystem decides things. No such ecosystem along with developer support and apps pushed Windows Phone into being dominated by iOS and Android.
- Timing is All Everything: Nokia entered the market when it was already too late to play catch-up. Area: Android and iOS dominated for too long and Microsoft and Nokia could hardly do much.
- Innovation Alone Is Not Enough: While the Lumia 920 and Lumia 1020, with technologies as innovative as they may be, including cameras that have truly unmatched capabilities and the integration of such groundbreaking features as wireless charging, all help put together a cutting-edge package, innovation alone will not be enough to compel the Android or iOS user to switch
Conclusion
The Nokia Lumia was certainly a dramatic foray by Nokia and Microsoft to simply create yet another viable mobile operating system which may one day have the potential to challenge Android and iOS. Even with good hardware and plenty of innovation, though, it wasnt quite a ticket for a staple app ecosystem by any stretch of the imagination. Today, Lumia is instead known in nostalgic terms for many techie buffs; it is also an interesting story of lessons learned within the world of smartphones.