US citizens have been conditioned to think no more than a few weeks ahead at a given time. Many succumb to this, which works to the advantage of carriers who subsidize.

I totally agree with you... I think I was talking to you in another thread about how I never thought I'd go for a contract again, but a provider here in Finland gave a deal that just can't be turned down if one was planning on getting the n900.

for 57€ a month (2yr contract) you get:
Nokia N900
3000min of talk time (In Finland our minutes work differently, 3000min means you can call out for that amount of time, but answered calls don't count)
3000 txt messages (Same thing as above, only outgoing msgs count)
Unlimited access to 3.5g (or worst) internet, and tethering allowed.

If one was to order all these separately it might end up costing the same amount of money, except now you don't get the phone =)

Now, the only time I have ever seen something done this way was with the iPhone, which like it or not was received very well.

I just don't think that N.A is able to grasp the concept of how much better it is to have phones unlocked.

I salute Nokia for being stubborn and not pushing their phones for N.A market. That being said; with the choices of Nokia phones that North Ameicans have, they must think that Finns are bunch of idiots and the best Nokia phone that came out of Nokia, was one you can find on the stand of an ATT store. Sad =/

It's seductive, isn't it.

I can see myself using the N900 for 2 years...

Go to Verizon/ ATT/ Fido/ Rogers homepage now and tell me if you can find a phone you wouldn't mind using for 2 years?

Go ahead, I'm waiting... =)

edit: Yeah yeah, iPhones don't count

Thanks for the helpful critique. The tech articles in the New York Times scare me, because they make me wonder how bad the reporting might be on subjects about which I know much less.

OT question: Are the tech articles in major media outlets so bad because few geeks go into the newspaper business? Or are these sloppy tech pieces an indication of the poor quality of the reporting in general?

Not sure. This guy just stopped short of following facts all the way through. It's overtly slanted against Nokia. But if he had a decent technical background, I would like to think he'd have used it.

I've taken Nokia to task, too, on my own blog (some might call it payback for the layoff ) but I try to visit all angles of the story. Seems to be less and less of that though these days...

Cool, didn't know you have a blog... off to reading

Actually, its more because most persons who'd have something intelligent to say on the tech side, mire the conversation in too much jargon and have a hard time following general writing principals.

Those who are able to make the transition end up becoming more journalist than technologist and therefore lose a bit of that edge in technical knowledge, because the demands as a writer are just as much as if they were coding/developing/prototyping/managing.

I say this from direct personal experience. Its just very hard sitting in both worlds and doing them equally well, unless you have a team/org/company behind you that allows you the freedom to, and the push from, to grow in both areas.

When media companies change to adjusting to the pace of technologist writings, then you'll notice a difference for the better in terms of the quality of pieces. Hopefully, those companies which have writers also working as technologists would be able to hold onto and culture those writers, so that items like the Post and Times can actually have something intelligent to say.

I'll tack on, mobile as a field is very wide and deep. There are very few people, let alone orgs, that have a wide-enough view to always report things well. Not counting this article of course, as there are items that could have been stated better if simple research was done. But mobile is big, and there's a lot happening with it that's well and beyond most person's personal and professional scopes.

On the other hand, there were journalistic errors in the article that had nothing to do with technology.

Perhaps. Seems like it because article talks about future (LTE), then says 'should help Nokia to sell more phones'. Now I'm gonna play mr smartass: LTE is all-IP & Nokia N900 is not a phone . On a serious note: we're gonna see GPRS more and more applied on non-phones, its already happening, and the term smartphone is becoming less accurate because the device can do so much more than using GSM to phone that it becomes one of the features instead of main feature. I'm not sure about the exact statistics though. What is clear is that Nokia doesn't cater only to (so-called) smartphone market. More on that later.

If I understand your quote then the article also doesn't take into account Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia N97 which are arguably successful. They're not flops, that is for sure. Although I don't know about US-specific. The mistake 'analysts' make is that they're trying to compare one product from Nokia portfolio to one product from Apple portfolio (latest iPhone) but Nokia has a wide array of products, a very diverse portfolio which from an international point of view reaches a wider spectrum of market segments. IOW, it assumes the Apple iPhone is the correct product, which must be topped by a single other product from a competitor. Plain wrong. iPhone does not cater to market segments S40 phones perfectly well serve; even in US. There is a market for non-touchscreen phones as well, and this market won't collapse any time soon. The article also tends to focus too much on smartphones.

There is much more than smartphones: dumbphones, netbooks, laptops, mid, and all kind of other embedded devices using GPRS + GPS hardly visible to the 'analyst'. Such as anti thief devices in expensive cars.

I'm still flabbergasted by this. Here, if you take a contract with phone, you do get an advantage. Quite a big one, provided you use the minutes. But in the USA that is not the case, and its more like a loan?! Nokia overestimated the intelligence (ability to apply basic maths) of the average American...

However, also notice who is quoted here:

Surely he wants to ridicule the only folks in the market who tried to cut him out of middleman but this is hindsight. Coward to not mention his name, but I also don't see audi alteram partem applied...