Nokia, which announced several devices [E7, C7, C6, C3] at their annual Nokia Event last week, and who most recently said that their N8 is on target to ship by the end of Q3 [read: October], making it a full 6 months from the April 27th announcement to handset availability, has made the C7 available for preorder for the insane price of 439 EUR. Take into consideration that the N8 is only 60 EUR more and chances are if you’re interested in either of these two devices you’re either: A) well to do enough to be able to spend and extra 60 EUR or B) live in a country where your operator is going to subsidize your device and make it free if you sign up for an 18 or 24 month contract.
I understand the need for product segmentation, but just like Peter Skillman, who was one of the original creators of Palm’s webOS and is now working for Nokia as the head of design for MeeGo, said in an interview with Zurb: Companies today are heavily relying on segmentation instead of focusing on core features that their entire portfolio should contain.
What are the differences between the C7 and the N8? The design for one thing, but specification wise you get an 8 megapixel camera versus 12, 8 GB of internal storage versus 16 GB, and you don’t get HDMI out on the C7. If you’re penny pinching and want to save 60 EUR then that’s all you’re really losing. Same screen otherwise, same radios that let you use 3G all over the world, same operating system, same 680 MHz ARM 11 processor, same … you get where I’m going with this.
If you really want to save money then pick up the C6-01, which has a smaller 3.2 inch screen, fixed focus 8 megapixel camera, same operating system, and is about 150 EUR cheaper. The only bad thing is the thickness, coming in at around 14 mm thick. You can’t win them all.