Disagree. It's likely that Nokia, like many manufacturers, used the minimum specs possible to get a certain experience level. It could be that WP7 required lower specs to get the same smoothness that Android could achieve. That wouldn't be hard to believe, as Android wasn't even focusing on feeling "smooth" until long after the Galaxy S2 had come out. Nokia isn't somehow incapable of sourcing competitive parts aside from Samsung's AMOLED.
I dislike the "Windows Phone or become a commodity Android OEM" argument because it holds no substance. First of all, if Nokia is successful at executing WP, then other manufacturers will license WP and Microsoft sure as hell won't let an OEM customize WP, so how does your argument hold weight? Nokia would only be able to compete in build quality, which it can do regardless of OS, so why not jump in with the popular, entrenched option?
As for differentiating as an Android OEM, if they had gone that route, that common argument always seems to ignore the fact that every single manufacturer has had no issue making their own skin. In fact, one popular OEM's schtick is that they provide a near-stock experience. Shit, if Nokia had done that coupled with their reputation for good build quality (something that aforementioned popular OEM lacks), then they would be doing better than most of the guys on the market now. At the very least, they'd be doing better than how they actually did.
I LOVED Nokia at the time, so I followed news of their phones closely. No one will ever be able to convince me that it was a good idea to pick a dead end OS (it was obvious even at that time) over a popular juggernaut, publicly destroying their current OSes before even implementing their dead OS properly, destroying the N9 which had pretty much only great reviews, and then undoing all of that in the span of a few years. I hated it when it happened and I hate it now.
I dislike the "Windows Phone or become a commodity Android OEM" argument because it holds no substance. First of all, if Nokia is successful at executing WP, then other manufacturers will license WP and Microsoft sure as hell won't let an OEM customize WP, so how does your argument hold weight? Nokia would only be able to compete in build quality, which it can do regardless of OS, so why not jump in with the popular, entrenched option?
As for differentiating as an Android OEM, if they had gone that route, that common argument always seems to ignore the fact that every single manufacturer has had no issue making their own skin. In fact, one popular OEM's schtick is that they provide a near-stock experience. Shit, if Nokia had done that coupled with their reputation for good build quality (something that aforementioned popular OEM lacks), then they would be doing better than most of the guys on the market now. At the very least, they'd be doing better than how they actually did.
I LOVED Nokia at the time, so I followed news of their phones closely. No one will ever be able to convince me that it was a good idea to pick a dead end OS (it was obvious even at that time) over a popular juggernaut, publicly destroying their current OSes before even implementing their dead OS properly, destroying the N9 which had pretty much only great reviews, and then undoing all of that in the span of a few years. I hated it when it happened and I hate it now.