Mobile phones are not like computers where you can buy a generic hardware & mod the looks of the software to make it look & work the way you want. 95% of the users out there use there Mobile phone at default settings only.
When it comes to a mobile phone, the selling point is hardware. In marketing terms 12 MP with Xenon flash, 3.5" touchscreen sounds very tempting to a casual Joe Buyer out there. It doesn't matter for him if the Phone has Symbian or Windows Mobile or Android. All he knows in India that Symbian OS comes with Nokia phones & there are many software available for Nokia Phones, & Idou also runs the same Symbian OS which means many software are already available for Idou.
Frankly speaking,
indeed 12 MP is overkill & just a marketing gimmick. For a mobile phone 5 MP is indeed enough. Even a good quality 2 MP camera phone is enough. I would rather prefer to have a 5 MP Mobile phone camera with quality similar to a 3 years old 5 MP Cybershot digital camera instead of having a 12 MP phone camera with bad quality. Megapixel isn't everything which is something you all should no if you are into digital pictures. Its time that instead of selling megapixel count the phone manufacturers should provide features like Mechanical Shutter, better color algorithm or even better, the same DSP used in Cybershot cameras 3 or 4 years back.
Motorola did a very good thing by using the Kodac Digicam algorithem in Motorola ZN5.
Since SE is using S60 5th edition & Nokia has already released Nokia 5800 xpress music, SE just has to make the hardware & UI of the phone good as by the time Idou is released the collection of touch optimized applications will increase a lot due to Nokia's initiation.
I have been a long time SE fanboy just because SE phones are easier to use compared to Nokia's Symbian implementation. Sure Symbian is very powerful compared to Firmware based SE phones but most of the users don't need the capability of smartphone.
You compare pics of Nokia N97 with HTC Touch Pro 2 which are similar class product with keypad & tell me yourself which product looks better. Touch pro 2 is much more sleek & sexy looking compared to Nokia N97 & trust me dude, Looks matter when someone is buying a phone.
SE Idou has everything to be the be all end all phone. It is already evident that SE is going to brand Idou as a Cybershot phone as it has Xenon Flash & 12 MP camera. From the speed & specification I see (rumord hardware OpenGL ES support) & the fact that currently only nVidia Tegra has support for 12 MP mobile camera, it could be very well based on either Tegra or something similarly powerful like Snapdragon Platform or ARM Cortex A8. This means a lot of hardware processing power...a lot.
It could very well support 480p or 720p video recording. 720p is more possible as Samsung already has released Omnia HD with 720p recording, so SE has to do something to compete. Since SE phones can easily capture at VGA resolution & 30 fps, it should not be any hard for SE to provide atleast 480p video recording (720X480 pixel)
The future is Touchscreen devices which double up as portable media player. 3.5" screen is sufficient for these needs. Combine to that a fast touch optimized UI as seen from the Videos & the fact that SE does makes there phones easy to use even if they use something powerful like Symbian OS...Idou is the best phone out there. SE has already stolen the limelight with the unveiling of Idour in MWC. The only other things making noise are Idou, Omnia HD & Windows Mobile 6.5/LG's partner ship with MS.
The only reason I bought a Nokia N79 because I need a PC in my Pocket now (or something like that) which isn't available from SE. Physically none of the Nokia phones stand a chance in front of SE phones in terms of looks, a Nokia N82 does looks pathetic compared to a K850i

. With Idou SE is giving me the power of a PC & sleek looking hardware which is a USP of SE combined with an awesome & fast UI. I am buying Idou the day it comes under 20k & selling my N79.