Last month, in the mother of all public relations stunts, Microsoft put a 55 foot (16.76 meter) tall Windows Phone in New York City’s Herald Square. Now it’s Europe’s turn to experience the same type of over the top marketing: Nokia just erected a 32 foot (10 meter) tall Lumia 800 in Paris, France on the famous Avenue des Champs-Élysées. And, in the spirit of showing the masses that Nokia is open to making phones in colors that other handset vendors shy away from, the Godzilla sized smartphone is magenta (read: pink) colored. Will this thing encourage people to pick up a Lumia 800? That’s tough to say. There are demo Lumia 800 units at the base of the giant smartphone, so at least people will have a chance to see Windows Phone for the first time and get a feel for it and how it’s so radically different compared to Android, iOS, and Symbian. We’re not actually going to know how well the Lumia 800 did this holiday shopping season until Nokia posts their Q4 2011 financial results, which are scheduled to show up on the 26th of January.
To put things is some perspective though, the Lumia 800 is a rushed product built in 9 months that’s nothing more than the same generic Qualcomm hardware platform that Samsung, HTC, and others use, in the body of the Nokia N9. We’re not going to get a real sense of what Nokia can do with their special relationship with Microsoft until the latter half of 2012 when the next generation of Windows Phone, codenamed Apollo, is scheduled to hit the market. The Lumia 800 is a solid device, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s not like you’re getting something new compared to what’s already been out there in the Windows Phone world for over a year now.
We say wait until this time next year to get a Windows Phone.