by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Nokia Lumia: Meet the new king of smartphones

The Nokia Lumia range was launched on Wednesday morning at the annual Nokia World event in London. Along with the Asha range of budget Series 40 phones for the next billion internet users, Stephen Elop’s company unveiled the Lumia 710 and the flagship 800. This announcement would be the most important event in the history of Nokia. Symbian was seen by many as a disaster (THE FONT!) and MeeGo only appeared on one device before becoming Tizen. For Microsoft it was important as well. Windows Phone 7 has been well received, but has failed to gain traction in the overcrowded (by Android) smartphone market. Together they could rejuvenate both their brands with affordable, premium devices, full support, backing and promotion from networks and a multi-million pound ad campaign everywhere you look.

And that’s exactly what they’ve done.

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by Henry Hunt

WP7 AOTW: Torchbear

From now on I will be doing (roughly once a week) a post on a good Windows Phone 7 app and what I think about it. For the first post I am going to do a free app called Torchbear.

Torchbear is a ‘social game’ in which the users create a torch which can be passed on from player to player via their phone’s location services. A torch can be passed on to any player within 1.6 km and each player can only carry one torch at a time. Each torch must be given a description of what it is for. The first torch that I created contained a link to this blog but others are created to spread a message, promote a cause or for people to post pictures on the torch on a specific subject.

The only problem that I have with Torchbear is that there are not enough users for passing on a torch to be easy. In order for me to pass one on I have to travel 9 km into Brighton.

Torchbear is a fun app that, if you have a Windows Phone, I recommend you download.

Torchbear, Windows Phone 7, Free

Download on the Marketplace or visit the website

by Henry Hunt

Nokia Lumia first impressions

The two new Lumia phones both look very good. The Nokia Lumia 800 for a start looks fantastic. With a 3.7 inch AMOLED display, a huge 1.4GHz single core Snapdragon processor and 16GB of internal storage (along with the 25GB of free cloud storage that comes with all WP7 phones via SkyDrive) it can compete with most other smartphones. It also has a 1GB RAM and a wonderful 8 megapixel camera with 720p HD recording and Carl Zeiss optics. The Lumia 800 is looking to be a great phone.

The Lumia 710 is the mid range Nokia WP7 device but in spite of this it still seems to have impressive internal hardware. With the same display as the 800. The camera is a decent 5 megapixel, and it also has the same 1.4 GHz procesor. However from the pictures we have seen the 710 looks quite cheap and tacky compared to the sleek look of the 800. However the idea of the swappable covers is good and the fact that Nokia are making them the same colours as the tiles on the home screen for Windows Phone is pretty good too.

Both Lumia phones look to be successful in my opinion.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Nokia World keynote liveblog

Tomorrow morning at 9am, the ExCeL centre in London will open its doors and play host to Nokia World. We know from Microsoft’s Andy Lees that Nokia’s long awaited Windows Phone handsets (plural!) will be unveiled. We have seen the teasers showing an N9 body, multicoloured tiles and a Windows soft key. We have seen leaks of the Sea Ray and Sabre. Hell, today we even saw more of these devices with the names Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 and maybe even 900. The Mangoes are coming, and Henry and I am liveblogging here so click past the break to see the fruits of Elop’s labour.

P.S. There might also be some QWERTY Symbian action, so it might not all be good!

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by Henry Hunt

Two Nokia Windows Phones leak AGAIN (Update: A dubious third one)

Two new Nokia smartphones have been leaked just hours ahead of their expected announcement at Nokia World in London tomorrow. These are the Lumia 800 and the Lumia 710, both appearing to run Windows Phone 7. The recent teasers that have been adorning British TV have clearly been showing the Lumia 800, while the Lumia 710 appeared earlier this week code-named Sabre.

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by Henry Hunt

Windows Phone 7.5 Mango review

First things first, this review will be from the point of view of a Microsoft enthusiast and will largely include my opinions and hatred of Android that all writers on this website share.

I’ve had a Windows Phone for around a year now and I love it. Last year for Christmas I received my HTC HD7 and it was the best thing I’d ever been given. The UI amazed me, the fact that it had Microsoft Office was so cool that I could hardly put it into words. I even wrote this epic review on the 4.3 inch The best bit of all was that it connected to my Xbox Live account and my games got me achievements. However after about a week usage I began to notice a few major flaws in the first version of WP7.

However it was announced within a month or two that NoDo, the first big update to be announced for my new phone, was to be released in March and that Angry Birds (the main reason that I had wanted a smartphone) was to finally be on Xbox Live. I was very excited as all of the things that made WP7 inferior to Android and iOS were going to be fixed. In reality all we received was copy and paste. And Angry Birds was not released for another four or five months.

After this series of let downs when Mango was announced I was not expecting great things but I looked on the WP7 website and liked what I saw. Groups seemed like a good idea. And the social network integration looked like something that I would use. On the October 15th I finally downloaded Mango. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. Read on past the break to find out why.

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by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Nokia Windows Phone teasers air in UK

Well here’s a new one. Nokia have already begun to air teasers for their Windows Phones on UK TV. I spotted them during the ad break of Harry Hill’s TV Burp and My Nokia Blog have isolated the ads for easier viewing. Continue reading →

by assortedletters

Galaxy S II X 4G announced with rounded edges, Apple lawyers know to sit down

The iPhone 4S wasn’t what we hoped for, internal improvements and Siri aside, still merely on a par with the Samsung Galaxy S II. But no longer; Samsung’s back and wielding your favourite sandwich. The 4G Samsung Galaxy S II X (or the Hercules – no, seriously!) just blasted your shiny new iPhone out of the water. The specs that you care about are below on the picture but I’ll just point out a few things.

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by Xavier Voigt-Hill

PPF: Asus don’t recommend Transformer Prime

Hello and welcome to PPF: Product Placement Fail. In this feature we will highlight failed bits of advertising by tech companies. Please feel free to send yours in to digixav@gmail.com.

This time, we have a page from the Asus website providing potential customers with a taste of the forthcoming Eee Pad Transformer Prime. The supertablet is the first to be announced with Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chip, codenamed Kal-El, with quad core power and superb gaming capabilities. The tablet looks set to ship with Android 4.0, codenamed in traditional Android fashion as Ice Cream Sandwich. Many see this forthcoming OS update as fantastic – but Asus don’t seem to agree. Their site-wide header, shown above, clearly shows that they recommend Windows 7. Jonney Shih needs to take a look at this fail or ship the Prime with Windows 8. I’d prefer the latter.