palefrost
08-24-2006, 06:11 PM
Why do countries in Europe and Asia have cooler gadgets than us?
By Ray Cha for MSN Tech & Gadgets
A woman is getting ready for a night out with friends. She looks at her clunky PDA/cell phone and her small clutch purse. Clearly, this is not going to work. She opens the back of her phone and removes the small SIM chip. Then she picks up what looks like her lipstick but is actually her Nokia 7380 phone and replaces the chip into it. She turns on the 7380 to make sure her friends' mobile numbers are in the address book stored on the SIM. Doing a final make-up check in the tiny mirror on the back of the phone, she slips the 7380 into her purse and leaves her apartment.
On his drive to visit a factory on the city’s outer limits, a business manager looks at his dashboard-mounted Vitas Global Positioning System (GPS) to ensure he’ll arrive on time. He matches the buildings on the small screen to the buildings in front of him and pulls into the correct parking lot. Seeing that he is a few minutes early, he switches on the Digital Multimedia Broadcast (DMB) service on the device to catch a few minutes of a World Cup match. Noting that the screen feels a bit sticky, he concludes that his daughter has been playing Flash games on the device again.
You might think these fictional scenes are taking place in Manhattan or Silicon Valley. But the woman is in Helsinki, Finland, and the man is on the outskirts of Seoul, Korea. These stories were not set in the U.S. because the manufacturers of the Nokia 7380 and the Vitas 750 GPS/DMB have no plans whatsoever to sell the devices here. Apparently the saying, “location is everything” applies to gadgets, too.
In fact, many of the leading-edge consumer electronic products from Europe and Asia never get officially sold in the U.S. market. Why? Let’s examine some of the reasons.
Americans are still one cell-phone users
On the other hand, Europeans and Asians are accustomed to the idea of having more than one cell. Nokia’s 7380 is a great back-up phone. It’s slim and elegant design makes it a fashion accessory as much as a communication tool.
But the surprising part of this phone is not the features it comes with (Web, camera and voice recognition), but rather what it lacks—a typical 10-button keypad. Instead, the user makes calls using only a few buttons and a “spinner” interface, which makes entering phone numbers the traditional way or sending long text messages impractical. Users are more likely to rely on their address book or “recent call” list to dial numbers, exactly what the manufacturer intended.
Because the 7380 is marketed as a second phone, Nokia doesn't have the incentive to spend money to release it in the U.S. when Americans are unlikely to buy it.
By Ray Cha for MSN Tech & Gadgets
A woman is getting ready for a night out with friends. She looks at her clunky PDA/cell phone and her small clutch purse. Clearly, this is not going to work. She opens the back of her phone and removes the small SIM chip. Then she picks up what looks like her lipstick but is actually her Nokia 7380 phone and replaces the chip into it. She turns on the 7380 to make sure her friends' mobile numbers are in the address book stored on the SIM. Doing a final make-up check in the tiny mirror on the back of the phone, she slips the 7380 into her purse and leaves her apartment.
On his drive to visit a factory on the city’s outer limits, a business manager looks at his dashboard-mounted Vitas Global Positioning System (GPS) to ensure he’ll arrive on time. He matches the buildings on the small screen to the buildings in front of him and pulls into the correct parking lot. Seeing that he is a few minutes early, he switches on the Digital Multimedia Broadcast (DMB) service on the device to catch a few minutes of a World Cup match. Noting that the screen feels a bit sticky, he concludes that his daughter has been playing Flash games on the device again.
You might think these fictional scenes are taking place in Manhattan or Silicon Valley. But the woman is in Helsinki, Finland, and the man is on the outskirts of Seoul, Korea. These stories were not set in the U.S. because the manufacturers of the Nokia 7380 and the Vitas 750 GPS/DMB have no plans whatsoever to sell the devices here. Apparently the saying, “location is everything” applies to gadgets, too.
In fact, many of the leading-edge consumer electronic products from Europe and Asia never get officially sold in the U.S. market. Why? Let’s examine some of the reasons.
Americans are still one cell-phone users
On the other hand, Europeans and Asians are accustomed to the idea of having more than one cell. Nokia’s 7380 is a great back-up phone. It’s slim and elegant design makes it a fashion accessory as much as a communication tool.
But the surprising part of this phone is not the features it comes with (Web, camera and voice recognition), but rather what it lacks—a typical 10-button keypad. Instead, the user makes calls using only a few buttons and a “spinner” interface, which makes entering phone numbers the traditional way or sending long text messages impractical. Users are more likely to rely on their address book or “recent call” list to dial numbers, exactly what the manufacturer intended.
Because the 7380 is marketed as a second phone, Nokia doesn't have the incentive to spend money to release it in the U.S. when Americans are unlikely to buy it.