ZTE is a Chinese company that’s in the exact same boat Huawei was in just a few short years ago, and that HTC was in going as far back as the late 1990s. All three of these Asian companies make mobile phones, but their first customers weren’t people, they were the corporations we so lovingly call wireless operators. It took a lot of commitment from HTC to develop their own brand and eventually the Sense UI that differentiates them today in the Android world. The same can be said for Huawei, who just recently announced that they’re going to open up a design shop in London and will be selling their branded devices unlocked in retail stores. ZTE is still a baby in this respect. Today one of their devices, the ZTE Tania (pictured above), is launching in France, but people aren’t going to have the slightest clue who makes the 270 EUR Windows Phone they’re potentially going to purchase. SFR, the operator offering the Tania, is calling the device “The Windows Phone by SFR” (pictured below), which should tell you everything you need to know.
Should Nokia be scared? Windows Phone is after all an operating system that’s so tightly controlled that it’s pretty much impossible to ruin the experience of the OS, even if you tried. Whereas Nokia offers the Lumia 710 for 270 Euros without tax, the ZTE Tania will go for 270 EUR all in, and spec wise it’s both better and worse. It’s better because it has a larger 4.3 inch screen, those seem to be all the rage these days, and it’s worse because it has a slower 1 GHz processor compared to the 1.4 GHz in the Lumia 710. Will consumers care enough about the Nokia brand that they’ll get a Lumia compared to a “Windows Phone by SFT/AT&T/Verizon/etc.”? That remains to be seen.
[Via: Unwired View]