In this feature, we offer you a comprehensive, in depth guide to the additions and improvements that are arriving on Windows Phone 8 thanks to the advent of the Microsoft Update 3 and Nokia Lumia Black software updates. Both Windows Phone 8 Update 3 and Lumia Black updates have started rolling out, but are not yet available for all devices. The majority of Windows Phone 8 devices are expected to receive the update before the end of February.
I've been around smartphone imaging for a while. I've seen the peaks, the pinnacles of phone cameras - usually with Nokia's name on them - but I think we're done. And you are too, at least if you own a Nokia Lumia 1020. Over 24 hours, I tried every scenario I could think of and the 1020 with the new 'Black' oversampling algorithms and revised image processing came through with such flying colours that I just had to share the shots and comment here. Seriously, 'perfection' (for a phone-hosted camera) has now been achieved - if you have a 1020 then you never need to look for another smartphone if imaging is important to you - if you don't have a Lumia 1020 then you're missing out...
If there's anything worse than being talked about behind your back, it's not being talked about at all. Looking over the timetables and the presentations coming out of the Las Vegas Convention Center and this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the three leaders of the main mobile platforms (Apple, Google, and Microsoft) were not present. Look at the headlines and you have Android's continuing march to become the default platform of the decade, every peripheral manufacturer addressing the iPhone, and Windows Phone... er... well, there lies a bit of an issue.
We've already looked at the impact of the Nokia Lumia Black software update on still photo capture on the Lumia 1020, but some of the changes to the image processing algorithms also apply to other devices in the Lumia range. In this feature we compare some before and after photos captured using the Lumia 925 in order to demonstrate some of the changes and improvements.
The subject here is Store bloat. And it's something which I've been ranting about now for four years, on various sites. Yet the people in charge of the main smartphone app stores haven't learned. In fact, if anything, they're getting worse.... at letting in 'apps' which mainly serve to dilute the world's overall impression of that particular OS and ecosystem. Here are three questions that the QA employees concerned should be asking themselves before hitting the 'approve' button.
You may remember that, almost a year ago, I reviewed Accurate Tuner Pro here on AAWP? I rated it highly, but there have been plenty of new competitors, of varying degrees of quality, released since. In the spirit of starting 2014 with options for you, the Windows Phone enthusiast (and musician), here's my round up of tuning utilities for the platform - for the guitar, at least. Other instrument round-ups may follow in due course!
Snapping away at a New Year's Eve party with your Lumia 1020? One of the few drawbacks of having a 'proper' (i.e. Xenon) flash on a smartphone camera is that there's inevitably some 'red-eye' reflection from the eyes of people you snap. Here's how to fix the 'red-eye' on Windows Phone, i.e. fix it on the device and then share from there in time for the big 2014 countdown. With a lot of solutions in the Windows Phone Store, surely one of them would do the job?
Yes, yes, these colour combinations are getting crazy.... With the Lumia 1020 (on Windows Phone) having started to get its long awaited 'Nokia Black' firmware update, and with the imaging enhancements in this update essentially targetting lower digital noise and more accurate colours, there has been a lot of demand for one (really) 'final' imaging showdown between the 1020 and the Nokia 808 PureView, famed for the purity of its images, with almost no noise. Can the 1020 really match the 808 in this essential attribute? With Black under its belt, how does the Lumia 1020/Nokia 808 balance sheet now stand?
With the Lumia Black software update, Nokia Lumia 1020's gain the ability to capture photographs in DNG (RAW) format when using the Nokia Camera app. The new dual capture mode, "JPEG (5MP) + DNG (34MP)", is in addition to the existing "JPEG (5MP)" and "JPEG (5MP + 34 MP)" capture modes. In this feature, we offer some sample captures from a recently updated Lumia 1020, including download links for the DNG files, building on our earlier look at the imaging improvements that arrive with Lumia Black.
