Nokia's not that interesting attempt at
capturing the hearts of the
public in the
cold north. RinGo was a
NMT900 standard
cellular phone with minimium
features, made to be "easy" enough for laymen.
It was not really a success; Only the advent of GSM networks made cell phones popular. NMT900 is not what I'd call a nice mobile network; GSM allows all sorts of k3wl stuff that the peelos like.
Hmm, I remember the TV commercial: A little boy and the telephone shop deliveryman were stuck in an elevator (with a huge load of these phones in boxes that this deliveryman apparently desperately tries to move from point A to point B with the help of this elevator), and this boy takes one of these phones from the pile and calls for help. Then, comments on how easy this phone is to use... Sorry, can't quite place the year.
Many think the only thing that killed RinGo was the fact that it got the public image of "idiot phone"; While there was probably some potential market niche for RinGo, everyone knew RinGo was a phone made for idiots, so it never quite took off. Interestingly, though, Nokia got accused of same thing when the first popular GSM phones from them came about. Yet, in that case, Nokia's ease of use probably weighted more in the eyes of people and Nokia became the worldwide leader in cellphones.