Simon Lee-Smith, Telefonica’s European General Manager for Devices, considers devices offered by Nokia way “too expensive.” So even the fact we’re stating they’re included in high-end lineups coming with advanced features, doesn’t change the situation.

The expert thinks “if Nokia wants to sell in volume, they need to bring out devices which are cost-competitive.” At the moment some of these devices are pretty expensive, including the 12 megapixel camera Nokia N8 and the MeeGo Harmattan Nokia N9. For the upcoming device, the Nokia 800 Lumia, Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop announced a price of 420 EUR (around $584), without taxes and subsidy.

The expert from Telefonica gives the following advice: “They need to be able to subsidize their high end smartphones, because they’re too expensive. All device manufacturers seem to think that a €400-plus device is the norm. Well, it isn’t. Customers and operators won’t pay that cost for a device, which doesn’t differentiate sufficiently.”

The expert’s assessment, however, doesn’t touch upon the prices best suitable for devices of this range. I guess he expects to see a handset coming at a price varying between $300-$350 at the most.

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I like praising Nokia when it comes to NFC technology because the Finnish manufacturer is the most interested one on the market. Though recently HTC announced it’ll launch smartphones with a similar functionality, we understand Nokia’s been there for a long time now and its cards are better. However, this doesn’t mean Nokia will clutch at a single payment system.

Though Nokia has the most NFC-enabled devices and in the near future their number will increase, the company doesn’t consider it clever to commit to one payment system. In an interview with Electronista, the company’s VP of Location and Commerce, Michael Halbherr said Nokia’s open for various mobile payment schemes. Moreover, Nokia may create its own version of the mobile wallet down the line.

As you guess Nokia’s serious, and considering that this technology will be used mostly in the U.S. and the “main smartphone markets,” we assume Nokia has real plans on how to win U.S. smartphone users’ hearts. Altogether, I think many things will depend on how the first Windows Phone smartphones will be sold in the States.

Today even a glance at the smartphone market would be enough to say that most of the smartphones are packed with processors made by Qualcomm. It refers to Nokia handsets, too. And now Nokia’s signed a contract with ST-Ericsson, and from now on ST-Ericsson will provide chips for Nokia’s future phones.

ST-Ericsson is a chip maker, but Qualcomm has overshadowed all similar manufacturers. So the cooperation between Nokia and ST-Ericsson can be a good example for other companies, too. Unfortunately, we won’t see new chips on the upcoming Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, because their specs list is already known. They’ll be packed with a 1.4GHz Scorpion processor with Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon chipset, 3D Graphics HW Accel and Adreno 205 GPU.

On the other hand, Qualcomm has no reason to worry about, because Windows Phone is controlling only 2-3 percent of the market, and phones based on them won’t change anything. Neverthless, there is one thing worth attention — Nokia’s started this cooperation to buy cheaper chips, which will undoubtedly affect Nokia smartphones’ price. So if everything is OK, and Nokia smartphones prove to have really good performance, then I believe a lot of phone makers will express readiness to cooperate with ST-Ericsson or similar companies.

Well, time will give all the answers. And let’s not forget about the U8500 dual-core SoC; very likely we’ll see it sometime soon. If this happens, it’ll be absolutely impossible to stop Nokia.

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We’ve already talked about Nokia’s future plans, which are also very much based on the US. Though it’s very difficult to reach the peak of the glory, Nokia will do its best; the Finnish company’s already been there and felt its taste. This is why these days we have concentrated all our attention on what Nokia‘s doing, what acquisitions it’s making and how much its partners are investing. Another thing that we are very curious of is the strategy Nokia will pursue to fulfill its cherished goal.

Nokia’s good in featured market and is the sole leader there, this is beyond doubt. Nevertheless, mid-range and high-end smartphone market is inhospitable towards Nokia. But things seems to be changing; if earlier Symbian^3 was the main reason for such an attitude, now the company has switched to Windows Phone, so there’s no any real reason.

Well, we all know Nokia’s working hard to involve U.S. carriers; it’s the main task at this moment. But it doesn’t mean Nokia will make an offer, that will make carriers refuse their existing relationships with other manufacturers. On the contrary. Nokia’s Executive Chris Weber said the company is aimed at first-time buyers. I guess that’s a good decision, because regardless of the fact Android is a too complicated platform for smartphone users, those users as well as Android and iOS lovers will hardly ever give it up and go for another operating system, which is less popular, but more effective (while Windows Phone offers easier ways to achieve the level of functionality).

If you’re a Nokia fan (or a neutral smartphone user) let us know whether Nokia has made the right decision or there’s still something missing.

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During Nokia World 2011 the manufacturer announced about its further developments of the NFC capabilities. Nokia also made a statement concerning the agreement with MTA to use NFC tickets. This means that in 2012 the NFC  will include other payment features.  The first test will include the Nokia 603, which will get the chance to use NFC emulation card update allowing to have secure mobile payments. If the test reports good results, the rest of the devices will undergo the same process. Note that the manufacturer’s planning to port this feature to all of its Symbian devices.

The most common use of the NFC technology is definitely gaming (including the popular Angry Birds). It allows the users to have additional characters and levels for their games. Among the latest additions are the Foursquare integration and the possibility to share location info with friends. The manufacturer hopes the users will get used to NFC and will make use of its main capabilities.

Microsoft is currently planning to add NFC capability to its devices, which means that in 2012, there’s a chance that upcoming Nokia Windows Phone devices will also get this feature.

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Nokia has announced its first smartphones running Windows Phone Mango, the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 710. We are all aware of it. What we don’t know is how the company will have back its glory. Seems easy? Don’t be mistaken. The days when a phone with a stunning design and a pair of eye catching features was sure to guarantee success for the manufacturer are left in the past. Presently the smartphone market’s growing at the speed of light; the leading software companies monthly release about 50 handsets in different designs, features and for all types consumers. But Nokia has a CEO called Stephen Elop, so let’s try to guess what this man thinks concerning this.

If you wonder, I decided to talk about this inspired by a post written on TechCrunch, and I have some ideas on how Nokia will conquer the US. There are many people who don’t believe and trust in Nokia; these are people whose brain is controlled by Android/iOS. So the first thing to do is to change the attitude towards its products. Look, there are currently only two carriers (AT&T and T-Mobile) in the U.S. offering Nokia’s smartphones, and they are all low-end or mid-range devices. So it’ll be better to involve more and more carriers, retailers and other interested parties.

Second, Nokia shouldn’t focus on backbiting any platform, because that’s a market and there are different companies with different offers. Nokia is one of them and is offering its own products. I believe this will be a good direction for Nokia to take. Of course, it’ll need much money on promoting its smartphones, but it shouldn’t be a big deal considering Microsoft’s announcement. In case you don’t remember, Microsoft announced it’ll spend £20 million on marketing campaign for Nokia phones.

These are just two versions or ideas, call it however you want. I know many of you don’t agree with me, so I wouldn’t mind listening to your ideas.

eBuddy has reached the 20 million downloads milestone in Ovi Store. This means we’re dealing with one of the most popular applications on the market. This is why Nokia decided to strengthen their cooperation and gave the app en extra push, making eBuddy the “preferred messaging partner.”

eBuddy will be released for all Nokia handsets regardless of the platform they run on, S40, S60, MeeGo and Windows Phone 7.

I guess this is a right decision, because if the app has been downloaded more than 150 million times, it means one thing — users like it. So why not give it a chance to become an official partner? On this occasion Nokia’s Reno Marioni said:

“eBuddy’s success and experience in the mobile messaging field have made this partnership a natural step for Nokia. We are excited about the introduction of eBuddy XMS to Nokia platforms and look forward to having Nokia users enjoy the reliable and rich messaging experience that eBuddy XMS provides.”

Moreover, due to this cooperation Nokia won’t have to consider how to improve its native messaging app, and will focus its attention on  more important features. On the other hand, eBuddy developers will improve their product, because it’s not easy to be one of the main apps on Nokia’s phones. So we must state that the cooperation between Nokia and eBuddy is in favor of both companies.

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Nokia Asha 303 is included in Nokia’s new Asha lineup. This lineup is designed for the low and middle-range feature phone fans. The lineup devices run on Symbian^40 OS, but their version of the OS comes with a list of enhancements and improvements (such as Angry Birds and WhatsApp messaging App), which were missing in earlier versions of the S^40 device series.

The Nokia Asha 303 is considered the top model of the new series, coming with a capacitive touchscreen display and a QWERTY keyboard. The manufacturer decided to place the display slightly higher than the keyboard to avoid accidental button presses. The features of the handset include a 1 GHz processor, a 2.6 inch display, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. The device also comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera, which is great. The bad thing about the device is that it doesn’t have autofocus.

The feature phone is pretty light. The materials used for the device make it not-slippery, thus comfortable to hold.

The feature phone comes with N0kia Browser, which allows to use cloud storage capabilities. The handset is the most expensive offer in the entire lineup coming at a price of 115 Euros (around $160). The color options for the handset are Pink, Silver and Blue. The release date of the smartphone is expected to be sometime before the end of the year.

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Nokia just introduced the Nokia 710 and Nokia 800. Both of them are Windows Phone devices, and sadly won’t be available in the U.S. But as we see Nokia still has some plans related to the Northern American market. Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia, stated that they will introduce an entire lineup of LTE devices, plus there will be several CDMA devices designed specifically for Sprint and Verizon carriers.

Nokia CEO also mentioned that this will not be anytime soon. The manufacturer will be missing the Holiday season, introducing novelties starting early 2012.

This info makes us believe that Nokia’s finally on its way to improve relationships with the U.S. carriers, as earlier the relationships had reached a level when Nokia had to close its stores in the U.S. and move back to Europe.

A leaked info states that Verizon representatives were also present at the Nokia World 2011 event. One of the Staff members was spotted next to the Nokia 800 booth. So here goes an assumption that one of the first carriers to start cooperating with Nokia might be Verizon.

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Yesterday Nokia announced the financial results for Q3, 2011. Though the company is not in the first position, there are areas Nokia showed unexpected results. Well, we all understand things will change by the end of the year, because the Finnish company will launch the first Windows Phone smartphones. However, what we have now is not so good as the analysts predicted.

In the period between July-September Nokia sold 16.8 million smartphones, which takes the company to the third position after Samsung (20 million) and Apple (17.07 million). This number is 34% less compared with the same period last year, but it is 1% more than the last quarter indicator. This can’t completely show Nokia’s losses, because the market is growing and Nokia’s still losing its market share.

Second, Nokia sold 89.8 million feature phones, which is 8% more compared with the last year and 25% more than last quarter. So even if Nokia’s not performing that good in the high-end smartphone market, it’s still a leader among low-end phones.

Nokia’s operating losses make up €71 million, but in some sense the company shouldn’t be unhappy with it especially if we compare it with last quarter’s indicator, which made up €487 million. The company’s operating profit makes up €252 million, which is less than what it had last quarter (€391 million). Net sales made up €8.98 billion, down 13% year-on-year and down 3% from Q2.

We have to mention all these indicators are based on the Average Sales Price (ASP), which was €131 for Q3, that is 8% less than last quarter and 2% less than last year. The feature phones’ AVS was €32, down 11% compared with Q2, and 20% compared with last year.

As you see Nokia must do its best to get back its fame. It’s already taken the right direction, so I believe Q4 results will be much better.