If you ask anyone who has been around the Nokia users’ market for any length of time at all, you will have come across the tremendous storm of controversy over country branding on phones. Darla Mack posted a long time ago about N95s being either “Made In Finland” or “Made by Nokia”, and that, depending on which you get, the phones have different build quality and come with different accessories.

A fount of silliness at the Mivadika forum goes on and on about the perceived differences in build quality (Made By Nokia phones are allegedly inferior) and completely discounts the software bug present in some Made In Finland devices. Of course, the fact that Made by Nokia phones get more accessories is lost on people.

The purpose of the post is really to ask, why does anyone CARE about the “Made In Wherever” label? Why, especially, on a mass-produced item like a phone would anyone care? Read on after the jump for my thoughts.

“Made In Finland” is a defining factor of a Nokia phone. Nokia’s basically the only company many Americans associate with Finland, and so a potential explanation for the Finn-love-in is that a Nokia phone not made in Finland isn’t really a Nokia phone at all. This attitude seems common on HowardForums posts (not linking – if you want to find the cesspool that is HowardForums, Google it.) Nokia also knows that certain countries, whether deserved or not, have a negative reputation among some consumers. Trying to sell toys in the US that are “Made In China” would probably be a losing proposition at the moment.

But cell phones aren’t toys. Most consumer electronics have been made in China for quite some time, and half the time it’s an afterthought in reviews or completely ignored. Look at any Apple product and you’ll see “Designed by Apple in California”, not “Made by Flextronics in Taiwan, ROC”. Why are Nokia phones so different? Why are people so continually fiercely insistent that “Made In Finland” is a mark of quality that would only be surpassed by Mr. Nokia* himself coming down and saying “This phone is good”?

  • I am fairly certain there is no such person as Mr. Nokia, but you get what I’m saying, I’m sure.

The answer, I think, boils down to elitism, and not necessarily deserved elitism, but even the appearance that there’s a distinguishing factor between you and someone else is all it takes for an idiot on HF to go on and on about how they have a “Made In Finland” (MIF, of course — it isn’t worth the effort to type out all those extra characters) versus you, you plebe, with your “Made By Nokia” (MBN) phone. This occurs even with phones that do not have different features, software, or build quality based on region, like the E51. I have an MBN E51 and it operates exactly like it should, with rock-solid build quality. That doesn’t stop HF users from having avatars or signatures with such lunacy as “i.rok a nokia E51 MADE IN FINLAND BABY.” These are the same kinds of people who buy fake “Type-R” stickers from AutoZone and glue them to the back of their cars because they think it’s just the perception of performance that’s necessary.

I hate to break it to our fanboys in the audience, but nobody has ever shown, that, except for the N95, that there’s any difference between MIF or MBN phones. Modern manufacturing techniques involve robot assembly of PCBs and devices. Parts are sourced from all over the world and assembled in one location, and that location is where the device was “Made”.

US “Made” Saturn cars have parts from everywhere around the world. Do the MIF fanboys really think that the parts for “Finnish” phones grow on trees in Espoo? Of course not. The processors, antennae, radios, all come from the same place and are shipped off to Nokia’s factories worldwide.

To those of you reading, I beg you: stop the “Made In Finland!!!!” pride hysterics. All you’re doing is making yourself look like someone is more obsessed with worrying about being a “phone collector” than someone who actually uses their phone.