Nokia 'XL' Vs Nokia 'X' Vs Moto 'E'!

(On coming Saturday, Indiblogger, in collaboration with Microsoft, has organized a Nokia XL APPTEST event for bloggers community. The event would be held at ‘The Oberoi, Delhi’, where celebrity host-gadget guru Rajiv Makhni & master chef Vikas Khanna would be hosting the event. It would be a gala event- not to miss out!)

Nokia ‘XL’ is launching in India. We checked with couple of e-portals, but there’s no official launch date announced or none of them taking pre-orders as on yet, although according to IBT, the phone is available in India (EMEA markets) at price of Rs 9110.

Nokia ‘XL‘, as name suggests, would be bigger in size (better?) as compared to present Nokia ‘X’ Smartphones. Nokia has recently launched its first customized Android OS Smartphone, Nokia X, which is already available at Rs 6955 (ex-Flipkart) in India. The phone carries quite significance, especially post Microsoft acquisition of Nokia (Handset division), as it comes pre-loaded with rival Android OS, although in customized version. Nokia has long stick to its Symbian OS platform, which failed to catch with market conditions, thanks to Apple iPhone onslaught (post 2006). Later the company had decided to partner with Microsoft, where MS’s Windows 7.5 & Windows 8.0 Mobile OS, are now running on Nokia hardware. Nokia has always shied away from going with rival Android OS for long and finally chose to customize Android OS, instead of going with Google’s own Android version releases. That’s probably the first cut differentiation it has maintained against rival OEMs.

The benefit is obvious for Nokia. It helps to position its Smartphone in lower range segment (especially below <10k INR), which is highly price sensitive. This was the segment Nokia dominated for years before losing it to rival Samsung & other OEMs.  I always believed that Nokia has far better hardware as compared to its rivals, but its Mobile OS lagged behind market/user demand/experience, especially post iPhone/Android era. The company’s fortune dwindled and it had to give up on Symbian Track to embrace Windows Mobile as choice of Mobile OS platform for its all future devices. The attempt was also significant, especially in bipolar world of Mobile OSs, dominated by Apple’s iOS & Google’s Android. The partnership took shape recently with success of Nokia’s Lumia series, but in mean time Nokia has never lost sight of its lower range Smartphone segment, once it held dominant position.

Lower range Smartphone segment (< 10K) is typical. It sells on volume with low margins. You can’t bet on licensed OS (iOS or for the sake of Windows).  Although, after taking over as Microsoft CEO,Satya Nadella has opened doors of Windows Mobile OS to low range Smartphone, this development is only recent. Nokia has only Lumia 520 series phone pitted against rivals in this segment. So there’s urgent need to tap this segment with free Android OS loaded cheaper phones. And that’s where it’s significant to see how Nokia tries to win back its lost market share in lower range segment, which also gives the company required numbers (sale volume) and market share, both.

There are number of key players in this segment, including Samsung (DUOS, Galaxy S), Micromax, Karbonn, LG, Lenovo, Spice, Lava and others. With entry of Motorola ‘E’, the dynamics of the segment has become quite interesting to watch. Nokia has certainly a tough job at hand, where I believe, few years back it’s just cake-walk. Differentiation doesn’t have much value here and users demand quality at low price. How do you gain ground then? Android OS, good hardware & probably some significant Apps might play trick. But you need to watch closely what rivals are doing.

Here is quick comparison of some key features of Nokia ‘X’, ‘XL’ & Motorola ‘E’, which I believe are (will be) now fighting for market share in same segment.

Based on above feature set, there are couple of points to note:

• The choice of Qualcomm SoC with GPU impacts the performance, especially we believe Snapdragaon A7 (Moto E) would perform little better as compared to Nokia X/XL’s S4 A5.
• For GPU, performance would be little better on Adreno 302, but won’t impact the choice from user perspective.
• Nokia XL has inbuilt 768 MB RAM (pitting against Samsung DUOS?), while Moto ‘E’ (1 GB) has significantly better performance over Nokia X/XL, when it comes to memory intensive play.
• Moving from X to XL, screen size is bigger (by 1 inches), but phone has become bulkier, thanks to improved battery life of Nokia XL. We expect XL would be better compared to Moto ‘E’ & X series phone in terms of battery performance.
• Nokia has added front camera, improved rear camera, but Moto ‘E”s camera performance would be still better or even equally comparable.
• Customized Android might be little challenging compared to Android Kitkat, especially in terms of performance.

As mentioned in my previous post, Moto ‘E’ is power packed, high quality feature Android Smartphone, priced brilliantly. Moto has positioned the phone quite interestingly, directly competing with Micromax (Canvas/Bolt), Samsung & even Nokia X/XL.

Nokia could have done better with XL launch, especially avoiding some common pitfalls. The phone is equally power packed, but performance might get impacted at some occasions. Especially when it comes to higher price tag, users tend to find performance issues due to low RAM. We find Nokia XL proposition is attractive, but still not as eye-catching as that of Moto ‘E’.

Upgrading X to XL is little attractive, especially only good reason would improved battery life & better camera.

Moto ‘E’ seems to be clear winner here!