Tag / smartphone
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.
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
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.
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.
BREAKING: Asus announce Tegra 3 Transformer Prime, PadFone with ICS
Speaking at AsiaD, Asus CEO Jonney Shih made two surprise announcements. The long awaited Transformer Prime and the PadFone will both ship in Q1 and more details can be found past the break. (Hint: we have quad core and Ice Cream Sandwich!)
I love Nexus
Apologies for not being with the liveblog, I had an… altercation.
Anywho, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. It is beautiful. While maybe not as thin as the Motorola RAZR, it still packs some key features.
Samsung Galaxy Nexus/Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich first impressions (Update: ICS updates, pricing announced)
The keynote is over, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is official and Ice Cream Sandwich finally has a version number, but how does it all look?
Firstly, the phone. The Super AMOLED HD 1280 x 720 16:9 screen sounds fantastic, even if at the mahoosive size of 4.65 inches. The 8.49mm deep handset houses a full gigabyte of RAM, a 1.2GHz Texas Instruments dual core chip and 2 cameras. The 1.3MP front shooter is standard fare but one expects better than a 5MP lens on the back, especially in comparison to the fantastic cameras on the Samsung Galaxy S II, Nokia N8 and of course the iPhone 4S. An NFC chip is incorporated for Android Beam tap-to-share and of course Google Wallet whenever it launches on this side of the pond. The phone will ship with Android 4.0 and will come in both LTE and HSPA+ variants, depending on location and demand. No pricing has been announced, but NTT DoCoMo will be carrying the phone in Japan along with it being another Verizon exclusive stateside if earlier leaks are to be believed.
Samsung/Google Ice Cream Sandwich/Galaxy Nexus keynote Liveblog
Well today is the day that Samsung and Google are set to hold a delayed keynote in Hong Kong. We’ve seen the Ice Cream Sandwich Android on the invite and plenty of Galaxy Nexus leaks, including on Samsung’s own site. But Chris, Henry and I will be liveblogging on this very page at 3am BST to let you know what is happening – if you are awake. We have Pepsi and chocolate to get through this so here goes!
Motorola RAZR first impressions
First things first, why have a Kevlar back on a phone. Now I’ve got that out-of-the-way, I can get down to the actual phone. the first thing you notice about the phone is that it is incredibly thin, just 7.1 mm in fact. This makes it the undisputedly the world’s thinnest smartphone. The specs for this new phone are very good. With a powerful dual core 1.2 GHz processor and 1GB of ram it can handle most of what you can throw at it. It is also equipped with a Super AMOLED screen of qHD (960 x 540) resoluion and an 8MP camera capable of 1080p HD video. Also you can stream music, films and more from your computer from anywhere using MotoCast.
Digixav 