At the N96, N78 and N82 Black launch event in South Africa, we had the chance to speak with Henri Mattila, Head of NSeries Go to Market Sales for Middle East and Africa.

We asked a lot of crucial questions regarding the phones, their competitors, and Nokia’s strategy for NSeries. We didn’t get some of the answers that we were really looking for, as some were more appropriate for the Product Managers, but Henri’s arguments provide a perspective of where Nokia is going, and where it’s coming from.

• We got to know why consumers aren’t getting more battery juice for the N96;
• Why only N95 8GB and N96 get movies;
• Why Dual LED instead of Xenon flash on the N96;
• Why isn’t there optical zoom on the N96’s camera;
• Nokia doesn’t think we need more than 3.6mbps on HSDPA speeds;
  
• If N96 and N78 are toys for us to play while Touch UI devices are coming;
• Why the N82 Black came so late.

Check the full interview after the jump.

The N96 is being announced in a time when the iPhone 16GB has been announced to released in South Africa and some more countries as well, through a Vodafone deal. How will this release from Nokia [the N96 launch], and this release from Apple [the iPhone 16GB] affect Nokia’s business?

The launch of the iPhone is good for the industry, as it’s driving people to convergence, driving people to use the internet on their mobile device, so I think it’s good for the industry, as it’s not only Nokia pushing for convergence, but there are other players.

Was there a strategic timeframe for the N96 to be announced in South Africa at the same time as the iPhone 16GB, or was it just a coincidence?

The N96 was already released globally quite a few months ago, and this event was just planned as there are some other things happening in South Africa, so I think it’s just a coincidence that it’s happening at the same time.

In the past NSeries phones we have seen some gifts with phones, for example: on the N95 8GB the movie “Spiderman 3” was offered, and you told us today that the N96 will come with the movie “Transformers”. Will we see such an offer on the N78 and N82 Black?

Not on the media content. The reason behind the offering on the N95 8GB is the big display and the good video capabilities, so we are showing those capabilities by having some content. The same way if we launch a music player, we want to have some music on the device, so that people can experience it right away. The same thing here with the N96 thanks to the good video capabilities.

Will any of these devices benefit from the campaign “Comes with Music”?

No.

Will NSeries be in future be incorporated in the campaign or will only the XpressMusic phones?

That will depend on the country organizations, on which device they want to implement the music store.

The battery issue has caused a stir among mobile bloggers and even consumers. The N96 only has 950mAh while the N78 has higher than that [1200mAh]. Is the software battery management going to help the N96 stand all its power, and why is there such a big difference between the N78 and the N96?

The battery discussion is something that is never going to end. The technological features of the device are developing faster than the battery technology, so I think that is the never-ending race. For example: if you earn more money, your expenditure goes up, and then you have to earn more money to cope with the expenditure. It’s a challenge, but mobile devices are becoming more and more like computers, so people might start to slowly accept this. In my case, I carry my laptop and a backup battery, so I actually have two batteries for my laptop, and I understand that if I have a big colour display and run a lot of applications, it will consume a lot of power. Behind it you have the laws of physics, in certain space you can only put a lot of power.

If you make a device bigger and insert a bigger battery, it’s going to be bigger, and it’s going to weigh more. People still want to have a small device but extremely good battery performance, and big colour display, so it’s like a mission impossible really to get all these three features into a package.

The flash was also a motive of discussion about the N96. The N96 has a dual LED while the N82 has a Xenon flash. The product manager of the N96 told us that this was due to the N96 being focused to video recording, while the N82 is dedicated to image capture. Shouldn’t there be a feature balance, for example to included a LED flash and Xenon to make every customer happy?

The N82 was made to be the best imaging device in the Nokia range, that’s why we wanted to include the best kind of flash, as for the N96, video is the key, but you still have a good camera, and Dual LED isn’t bad, but of course, it isn’t as good as Xenon. There are also other things that we have to take in account: one is the size of the component, by including a Xenon flash you would make the device naturally bigger due to the capacitors needed for that; the other reason is the power consumption. So again, we are trying to balance.

You told us that the microUSB port wasn’t available for charging, while on S40 phones such as the 8800 Arte, it is available for charging. Why did Nokia make that choice?

I think that the USB charging is coming, from our perspective if you only have one USB port and not a USB port and a power block the device will be smaller in size, so USB charging will be coming in future. The question is about educating the consumers slowly in order to start using USB charging, so it takes a bit of time to get to that phase.

Nokia has been using a Texas Instruments A-GPS chipset, which without internet connectivity for Cell tower-based triangulation takes a lot of time for a GPS lock as it won’t use the A-GPS feature. With the A-GPS the lock can be achieved within 15 seconds according to our tests. The Sirf Star III GPS chipset which was recommended by bloggers to be included in the Nokia phones that have GPS, as it has a very sensitive GPS receiver.

In some countries there is limited internet connectivity, so for example: if you want to Geotag a picture, it will take five minutes just to find the co-ordinates, so why does Nokia insist on not using the Sirf Star III?

Unfortunately that is too detailed component matter which I am not aware of.

Nokia made a revolution on the N95 by releasing it with a 5 megapixel camera and GPS. They missed optical zoom, and again they missed it on the N96. Optical zoom was there on the N93. Competitors to Nokia such as Samsung have released optical zoom on phones such as the G800. Why is it not implemented on the N96?

A moving component will have a size penalty, and the N96 is seen as a video and entertainment device, and not so much as a camera device, so that is the reason why we selected not to have the optical zoom.

Currently many networks are HSDPA 7.2mbps ready, and many competitors of Nokia especially LG has released many phones capable of that speed, but Nokia phones seem to be limited to 3.6mbps. Why this restriction?

We are talking about a theoretical speed, so in the real speed we never really hit those numbers. My experience is that I’ve had a better speed in EDGE network with one operator, than HSDPA with another operator. 3.6mbps isn’t that slow, but faster connections are coming with future devices, it’s just the question of how much new stuff you want to implement in just one device.

Nokia has recently incorporated 2.8” displays on their phones. The N95 8GB and the N96 have it. Somehow they are limited to QVGA resolution which has resulted in disappointing reviews from bloggers as the quality is low, and you should understand that consumers should enjoy more pixels with displays of this size. Why is Nokia still stuck with QVGA?

I’m not familiar with the component level of the devices, so I’m afraid I cannot inform you on that.

Is Nokia waiting to implement new resolutions on Touch UI devices?

I am not aware of that either.

The first S60 Touch UI should arrive second half of 2008, and everything points to the end of this year. Were the N96 and N78 just another toy for the consumer to keep busy while Touch UI isn’t made available? Or better, why was the N96 released and not Touch UI?

The N96 and N78 have a very clearly kind of target, the N78 is clearly following the N73, which is one of the best selling devices in the enterprise package edition in South Africa. While the N96 is a clear follower of the N95 and N95 8GB. There is a very clear path that these two phones are following, just to upgrade those two devices. Bringing the GPS to the N7x series and again improving quite a lot of features with the N96, so I think those are really linked to the Touch devices.

The N96 is not regarded as a revolutionary device, but rather as an evolutionary device unlike the N95. Every phone in the N9x series was a revolution, from the N90 to the N91 to the N93 and to the N95, there was always new stuff. On the N96 there is double of the memory, there is a Dual LED flash, but there is nothing striking about it. There is convergence but there isn’t anything new which consumers haven’t seen.

You cannot bring a revolution every half year, sometimes the revolution can be that we are improving a lot of small things, and not necessarily introducing many new things.

When the N82 was announced, the Product Manager told us that a black version was likely to come, and it did. Why do consumers have to wait for new colours to be released? With the N95 8GB it was understandable as it came with a larger display and 8GB of internal memory, but the N82 simply got a new colour.

Colours are part of life-cycle management, so it is quite similar to what happens in other industries. For example in cars you introduce few colours and some other time you release more colours. All life-cycles are directed to improve sales, but here the link was to the new software release. It’s not only the colour, but we also introduced Geotagging to the N82.

The S60 v3.2 Feature Pack 2 is directed very much to email. On ESeries phones and S40 5^th edition you can simply enter your email address and the phone will retrieve the settings automatically, while not even NSeries have this feature.

We will see a lot of improvement in the area of email in the near future, and that will probably be addressed.

That is all Henri, thank you very much for chatting with PhoneReport.

It was a pleasure, and it was very nice to meet you!