Vodafone: Nokia Lumia 920 was just too heavy
Nokia bashed at Nokia press conference
Vodafone launched a surprise attack on the Lumia 925's predecessor while one stage at a Nokia launch.
Patrick Chomet, Director of Terminals for Vodafone, was talking about how much he liked the new phone when he dropped the surprising bombshell that previous phones weren't acceptable:
"The [Lumia] 925 is one that's close to me personally, and one that Jo [Harlow, Nokia's Executive VP] and I have discussed at length.
"I loved the Lumia 920, but I always said that it is heavy [for the European market] and you can do better.
"So Jo came back in September and showed early designs of the 925 and I said, this is really great…an all-purpose phone that fits both male and female audiences."
Shooting from the hip
While it's not usually news for a network executive to pass a comment on a manufacturer's device, it doesn't sound as though the comment was cleared by Nokia beforehand.
Even so, the launch of the Lumia 925 shows that the company is committed to moving away from the powerful-yet-bulky designs of yore.
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With a new metallic design and slimmer dimensions, the Lumia 925 certainly manages that. And it's had the desired effect on Vodafone, which has taken an exclusive on a Nokia device (at the more palatable 32GB internal capacity) where it hasn't really been interesting in the Lumia range to this degree before.
And don't worry Patrick – you were just saying what we've all been thinking for the past six months.
Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.