yeah and it was the popular phone for rich people back then here in Indonesia (Before LG Prada the popular rich people phone was the nokia 8800 series)
I remember watching a video few days back about the history of Nokia and how it started off as a wood pulp mill and later strengthened its presence in other industrial domains by manufacturing rubber, tyres, cables, wires, TVs etc. It’s interesting to see that how companies like Nokia and Blackberry have built such a great reputation for themselves that despite having minimum to no presence in the production of mobile phones at present, one can always put their trust in the operations of its other subsidiaries as well… (at least I do!)
The Motorola Rugged phones story is even weirder: they are build by Bullit (as you said), but they seem to be based on Motorola Mobility designs. The 2021 Defy had a XT2083-9 model number, similar to the Moto G9 Play it's clearly based (XT1083-1).
so in that case it's more like one of those car conversion companies, lenovo gives them the parts, they make the changes, and then both of them license out via Motorola.
It is worth pointing out that, just like the Nokia brand story, the same happened with Motorola: the one renamed Solutions after the split IS the original parent company (and a big one at that). Mobility was just one of various branches, which was sold to Google then landed at Lenovo. Another similarity: Nokia made home network stuff (like home routers and modems), at least until the dawn of the ADSL era. Motorola did too under its Home division and lasted longer, until 2012 when Arris bought it all. So if you have one of those very popular cable modems, chances are its just a rebranded/evolved Big M device.
Also like Sony and Ericsson. After the "merger" on mobile phones and we got SE devices way back, Erickson is a network hardware company that builds our mobile networks.
Such a brilliant and extremely informative video Michael. I completely agree with you. As someone who worked in retail for a long time, I made it my mission to help customers by trying to provide this kind of information. Customers need to be aware of what they are buying. Myself personally, I spend days if not weeks and months researching before I buy anything. Where a product is made, who it’s made by etc…
My 5130 XpressMusic still rocks. Nice loud speaker, MP3 player buttons, good old J2ME java games and a decent 2MP camera were and still are quite good.
In Brazil, initially Nokia phones were manufactured and branded by Gradiente, the largest electronics company in the country at the time. Yeah, the same Gradiente that tried to sue Apple for the iPhone trademark a few years back. But that's another story. Nowadays, you can find VAIO and Compaq notebooks and Infinix Phones in many stores, all built under license by Positivo Tecnologia.
Interesting -- especially with regards to VAIO, who as a company still sells designs and sells notebooks themselves in other regions (though outside of Japan in Asia, is licensed to the Hong Kong based _Nexstgo_ ).
Blackberry’s QNX OS (which they used in their final products) was an intelligent purchase. It’s used in millions of critical products around the world.
The brand Vertu went into bankruptcy, and then a Chinese coompany bought the branding and makes phones, however they misleadingly say the same "Made in England" branding, but the Vertu factory was demoished and has since been replaced with a shopping centre and Vertu now has no footing even in Europe, meaning they are lying. You can only find Vertu being sold in China, Russia and the middle East.
As someone who is part of the newer generation, this is a well informative video, astounding and confusing that these stuff exists, What if the device we are currently using now is another one of these licensing stuff. Damn, so much to learn. If only these were the questions in an exam or test. Haha.
They started off really awesome. Android one software, fast , guaranteed, and consistent updates of android firmware and reasonable pricing and compromises on mid range smartphones. I had the Nokia 7.1 and prior to google creating the Pixel A series it was basically the cheap pixel experience. Currently however, they make junk and have pretty much squandered all that good will. I wouldn’t touch one of their android phones with a 10 foot pole.
@@bernielomax4702 Ugh, sorry to hear that. The 6.1 is/was a great phone (currently in a drawer 10 inches under my left hand) but I jumped ship for the Pixel 4a. It's dying battery is hard to live with but I can't use a >6 inch screen phone. I will probably sell my soul to an Apple mini or SE. Pray for me.
During era where they released 6.1, 7.1 etc phones they were really good and they did a lot of things right. Current Nokia phones are just low quality underpowered and overpriced garbage. Funny thing is that they can't get right even clear Android. For example Nokia 5.3 is impossible to reset to factory setting after android 12 update that came more than a year late. For some reason the update deletes recovery partition meaning that the phone deletes it's OS but it can't restore it so the phone is bricked and with bootloader being locked there is not way to fix it. Rest of the phones have so many bugs they are barely usable and the promise of monthly security updates? Yeah if you are lucky you'll get one in 3-4 months.
Really fascinated by the collection of your vintage phones that make special appearances in between these videos… that means all these will also be featured in the upcoming episodes of ‘When Phones Were Fun’, right? 😃
@@TheMrMobile Thanks for always delighting us with such amazing information about some of the most awesome gadgets ever made! 🙏 You are the best at what you do! 😃👍
Miss my Nokia 5185i from yesteryear! I had that activated on PagePlus Cellular as recently as 5 years ago too (they would still activate them as they picked up the Verizon 1x service) 💯
I'm surprised you didn't mention Phillips! Phillips doesn't make lights, airfryers, and TVs anymore. Even though in many sectors it's the most famous brand, all of the products are actually created by different companies.
@@monkeydluffy9011 My point was that those products (apart from the medical devices you mentioned) are NOT made by phillips. They're made by other companies licensing the brand name, similar to what was mentioned in the video. I do not really have an opinion about the quality of those products, though my hue lights, airfryer, computer monitors, and shaving device work fine.
Weirdest one for me recently-ish was LG, they announced their last phone (the LG wing I think?) using LG UK, funny thing was, its been impossible to get an LG phone on a network over here for quite a few years before that, if you knew, it was a strange choice, if you didn't you'd just think "LG still release phones?"
There were a few variations after the Wing, according to GSMArena. But I still want to believe it was the last one, since it is probably the most perfectly unnecessary screen design ever, which fits very well with LG.
I know for sure AT&T and zte have a similar licensing relationship. If you look at the product catalog, the AT&T /cingular branded devices are actually mostly made by ZTE
Nokia is better but has a minimal chipset choice, Motorola (Lenovo) lags at updates and TCL still makes mediocre forgettable devices without the "Blackberry" brand name
I'm actually interested in the quircky nature of the JDM phones especially when phones branded by their respecticve carriers and wondering who made them
Same thing happened when IBM stopped making PCs... They still make computers just for commercial use like a cash register for Golden Coral I saw a few years ago in the 2010's. Also Radio shack and toy's R' us are still in buissnus just more limited then they were beofore.
Right. One of my first PCs was a "Packard Bell," a brand known for televisions and radios before it was acquired by a totally different company to make discount PCs.
While I already know most of the stuff in the video, you presented it in such an easily digestible way that I now don't have to explain the stuff myself and just refer people to this video. Nice.
The whole thing about providers branding products from Sony, HTC and all the others was also very confusing. Especially if they put different software on it to make it "Tele-Com" or "Sprint" or "Swisscom" here in Switzerland. They even rolled out software updates by themselfs rather than by the manufacturer (or not at all).
I was thoroughly impressed with how informative and well-researched your video was. Your deep knowledge of the mobile industry was evident throughout the video.id like to see more of this type of content. Greetings from Ireland. 🇮🇪
Blackberry 10 was the best software that ever came out. Full functionality and without the clutter and bloatware of Android nor the restrictions of iOS. The gesture based buttonless UI paved the way for iphone 10 and whatever followed in Android after that. If Apple had bought them would awesome. Lets not forget QNX may be the most efficient and stable multitasking software on the planet that is why it is on all VW group cars. Maybe im hopelessly romantic but i still believe a full BB10 overlay over stock Android would make an awesome phone. Android versions of the hub were a failure so far. One can dream 😆
I had a Blackberry Classic when I was in high school. I'll never forget it. BB10 was fluid, logical, elegant and bespoke. There were so many little details in the UX that made it a more comfortable experience than iOS and Android, even now. Like the swipe-based functionality, or bedside mode and its warm red clock face, or the hub, which piled the notifications in from all your apps into one place. Even the font choices and the aesthetic of the icons, which were this clever fusion of iOS flat design and Android material. It had so much potential to make an iconic smartphone, but it was let down by lack of support and a stuffy brand image.
@@AskTheo_ probably not. Nobody talks about BB10, let alone BlackBerry at all. There's no cache or appeal in the name, and it's more of a shorthand for dated, out-of-touch tech used by old businessmen now. But hopefully some functionality and ideas will have carry on into bigger OSes in the future.
Think Imma look into that Delete Me, I've deleted my accounts with Facebook Twitter and Discord over the last couple years because of their overreach. I got one friend that keeps ragging on me for it (calls it a lost cause) but I just don't like the idea of everybody in my business.
The weirdest branding ever was probably the Escobar Fold, which was just a pirate rebranded Royole FlexPai. The first foldable phone ever. And FlexPai at the same time was probably just a re-engineer phone from other company, since Royole wasn't a phone company at all, just an startup to develop flexible screens (and hinges). Crazy story. I still love the FlexPai, it has a much better aspect ratio than any other foldable. Unfortunately it is as fragile as it gets.
All of this reminds me of Volvo, they are the perfect example in the automotive world. The consumer part (Volvo Cars) is own by Geely, a huge Chinese automaker since 2010 (They also own Lotus) and Ford since 1999, but the trucks, buses and heavy equipment are still owned by the original Swedish Volvo, the official name is AB Volvo. Everyone thinks they are the same, but they are not.
Almost 3 years ago, I bought a low-end android phone branded sa Hyundai, in the box the label obviously marked as licensed from Hyundai Korea and I think it was licensed to unknown Chinese electronic company.
Great video, I always had a soft spot for the OG erricsson phones before Sony got hold of them , quick question though, whet is that circular screen you’re wearing on your lapel ?
@@TheMrMobile looks cool, perhaps you do a video on it, do you find in recent years it seems the problems seem to lye more with software glitches rather than the hardware itself
speaking of it , BBK is a chinese company that owns oneplus, oppo,nothing,vivo,realme,iqoo trc so when u buy any of those brands u really buying a bbk phone and not a phone from a swedish or british startap as ur led to beleve looking at u oneplus and nothing
Some budget Sony Ericsson phones (the W395, for example), were actually produced by Siemens. Those were often, if not always, further crippled in software, e.g. lacking support for custom themes. As such, SE has licensed their own hardware platforms to other manufacturers at some point too.
Same thing happened to Sony's VAIO computer brand and camera manufacturer Olympus, they branch off their well known lines into a new company but still retains ownership and licenses out of their name to aforementioned new company.
Funny thing, back in 2014, at the beginning of the LTE Voice tests, mostly know nowadays by VoLTE, I was working in the biggest Telecom Company in Portugal. I had in my hand for some months, while testing, a brand new, never released phone from Microsoft/Nokia, based in the Lumia 1520, with the Initial VoLTE hardware and software for testing and a ton of laser engravings on the back for identification of who leaked the images of the never released phone (it is normal even for Apple, who I also had models to test before releasing). That company had all the Core Network and 3G antenna controllers branded NSN, that was the Nokia Siemens Networks, the Nokia that nowadays have the new Logo (who also made another rebranding before, changing their main logo from Nokia Siemens Networks to NSN and now this rebranding).
Here's an example for you (on Nokia) The original Bugatti company still exist, they're making airplane parts and are located next to the VW Bugatti that makes cars
I love your vids! I really just love tech and cell phones in general and your videos are just INTERESTING. I don't watch them for a class or for some business venture, I watch them to be informed on what I like and you deliver every time. Great channel sir.
we definitely should be aware of the real company that we're dealing with and putting our trust in when buying their products. Such an intriguing video, thanks for sharing with us Michael.
Mr Mobile, I'm going on an intercontinental vacation in summer and thinking about buying a new phone over there. I'm a corporate business user, happy with my Flip 3 but wondering what else is out there in Europe and east Asia. Maybe a recommendation video topic? I miss my BB KeyOne and Passport, would be open to a Nokia.
I bought one of the first Nokia branded hmd mobile phones a few years ago and it sucked. That's when I found out the name had been licensed. I was livid.
I had a Nokia E90 long ago and used it daily. After a long time I bought a Nokia G21 and it was astoundingly Bad. No Bluetooth after an update, no wlan after update, too slow and so on. Never ever again.
"Hey get it right! We're Nokia, not Nokia, we're the self owned cellphone brand not the original company called Nokia who makes other network devices that connect to your cellphone, thats not confusing at all"
This video was fantastic. And I shouldn't be surprised because you make such great videos all the time. But this video's topic was extra interesting because it legitimately cover a topic I've never seen explored. Thank you! Bravo!
![MrMobile [Michael Fisher]](http://yt3.ggpht.com/Bf8B_79jyHxP6CVnjV5WKws93l9Vxlk0d7aPmcBygTBDKzgsGrpazdJRFUrfg1sUNlo8YX8rji8=s48-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj)