Tag / 900

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop talks Lumia and Windows Phone

At Nokia’s Lumia unveil in New York today, The Verge got an interview with their CEO Stephen Elop. In the video below, Josh Topolsky probes Elop regarding their launch strategy for the 920 and 820, how Lumia 900 owners should feel after being told that their devices were obsolete and would not get Windows Phone 8 just months after launch and whether the PureView branding is being diluted with the 8.7MP sensor in the 920, compared to the 41MP 808 that pioneered the branding. Elop’s responses in the interview are intriguing, and you can watch the video below.

Source The Verge

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

The best of MWC

Time takes a look at the best new devices to turn up at MWC this week, from the insane camera of the Nokia 808 PureView and the convertible Asus Padfone to the downright bizarre LG Optimus Vu and Samsung Galaxy Beam.

by Henry Hunt

Nokia Lumia 900 to launch in the UK in June at Carphone Warehouse

Carphone Warehouse, the largest mobile retailer in Europe, have announced on their website that they will be stocking the new Nokia Lumia 900 in the UK from June this year. This is great news for people like me who absolutely love the Lumia 800’s design but need a larger screen. On the ‘Coming Soon’ page of the site, the phone appears alongside the 710, the magenta variant of the 800, the Sony Xperia S, a couple of BlackBerries and the Prada Phone by LG 3.0. A dedicated landing page provides you with the specs and at the very bottom of the page it says expected in June 2012, however this date is subject to change. Carriers have not yet been announced, but 3 are not expecting the device which should be available unlocked from Carphone Warehouse stores.

The Nokia Windows Phones are, according to CEO Stephen Elop, the first real Windows Phones. They look and feel great, have amazing software and the polycarbonate design is one of the best out there. Now that finally there is a Lumia with a larger screen, I cannot wait to get my hands on it, hopefully with HSPA+ support. Look out for me on launch day!

by Henry Hunt

Nokia Lumia 900 for AT&T confirmed by New York Times

The New York Times has quoted sources that confirm that the Nokia Lumia 900 is to be officially announced at CES on Monday. Apparently AT&T will be carrying the phone in America but there is no news about anywhere else in the world, except for an earlier tweet from 3 and an O2 representative telling us that he does not expect the 900 to be stocked there as they already have the 800. There has been no confirmation on the specs but what we [sort of] know is that it will have a 4.3 inch WVGA screen with 512MB of RAM, LTE in eligible territories and an 8MP rear and front-facing camera. All in all, we at the Digixav team are very excited for Monday.

Bring on CES!

 

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

The incompetence in tech retail

Let’s face it. We all buy technology of one form or another. Many of us buy our gadgets online for savings and sheer convenience, but sometimes you need to actually try something before you buy. High street stores are everywhere these days, complete with friendly and ‘knowledgable’ salespeople to guide you to the right products and decisions, but not all is as it seems.

Circulating around Digixav are numerous stories of employees at leading British retailers not having a clue about the products and services that they are trying to sell to the public. Here I have compiled a list of some of the worst of our experiences for your entertainment and warning. Remember that all of these stories are true and have been witnessed by the Digixav team.

  • A hand scribbled description note for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc in a Carphone Warehouse store stated that the phone was sporting an ‘8.1 mega pixle’ rear camera.
  • Advertising material in a Carphone Warehouse store shows BlackBerry Curve specifications with a dummy model of an HTC Salsa, thus confusing two smartphones that could hardly be more different.20120107-213406.jpg
  • After his chain had been featured in an advert for the new Motorola RAZR, a Phones4U employee had no knowledge of the device other than its name despite the fact that people had come in requesting it.
  • A label for a Lenovo desktop PC in Currys states that its 2nd generation Intel Core i3 CPU is 2.7x faster than your old PC. This is very misleading as the i3 chip is in fact slower than many processors that have been available for a number of years.20120107-213452.jpg
  • The entire sales team of one Currys store had no idea of how the Kindle 4 lighted covers worked as the contact points had changed from those of the Kindle Keyboard. How can they try and sell a case for £50 if they have no idea how it works?
  • A dummy Samsung Wave II is on display in the Carphone Warehouse with no explanation as to what it was.
  • A Currys employee was left confused as he had no knowledge of what a flash drive was. He had to be reminded that it was the correct term for a memory stick.
  • Another upside-down price tag in Currys. I see these whenever I visit my local branch.
  • In December 2011, a Carphone Warehouse employee said that he did not expect the Lumia 900 to launch in the UK as, in his words, ‘it has been out in America for ages’. I played along with this, and he stated that it was just the 800 with a ‘4G’ LTE radio inside and at the exact same size of 3.7″. This is clearly incorrect as Nokia and AT&T are set to unveil this device at CES at Las Vegas on Monday. Another Carphone Warehouse employee since informed us that the database confirmed an 8MP rear shooter, a 4.3″ screen and 512MB RAM, but we cannot be certain if these specifications are genuine.

In conclusion, don’t believe everything you hear in tech shops. If you are in such an emporium and you hear an incompetent buffoon misleading a fellow consumer, don’t be afraid to butt in and steer them on the right path. Not all salespeople are terrible but the retail industry lacks people with a passion for technology and this is a sorry state for it.

If you have your own high street tale of woe, leave it in the comments or email it to us here.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Exclusive: Three confirm Nokia Lumia 900, no plans to stock device

A representative from Three UK has confirmed to Digixav that the network are not planning to carry the Nokia Lumia 900, a rumoured device that is expected to be announced next week at CES in Las Vegas. When we asked on Twitter about the carrier’s upcoming release of the mid-range Lumia 710, no new details were available. When we enquired about the prospects of the leaked 900 however, the representative appeared to confirm that the device is real and that the network have passed on the opportunity to stock it. This news, along with a similar Twitter leak by Swisscom late last year seem to provide strong evidence that the 900 is right around the corner.

See Three’s leak below or on Twitter.

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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