There was a lot of chat earlier today about a BGR article commenting on the Kantar Worldpanel data for May 2014 that I already reported on. The title was typically provocative: "Why Windows Phone cannot rebound" and it's perhaps a good opportunity to respond in kind and explain why I/we think the OS can indeed rebound. Yes, being AAWP, it's of course going to be our natural position, but there are some sensible points to be made here.
The Android-powered LG G3 is the hottest thing on the smartphone block, not least because of the QHD screen, the first in a really mass market device. In fact, with a 5.5" screen diagonal, it's technically in 'phablet' territory - in which case, how does it compare to Nokia's own flagship phablet, the Lumia 1520?
In a world full of iOS devices and an avalanche of Android products (including Microsoft's Nokia X2 Android handset), it's important to remember the vital role that alternative operating systems offer. That includes BlackBerry's BB10, Jolla's Sailfish OS, Mozilla's Firefox OS, and of course Windows Phone. Which is why it is such a shame that Windows Phone is becoming more like the alternatives with every release.
The relationship between services and mobile devices has been through a few changes over the years, of course. The first iPhones didn't even support third party applications, while Windows Phone is widely perceived to have an 'app gap', despite there being hundreds of thousands of titles in its official Store. In both cases, it's the Web that picks up the slack, for those 'niche' services that may not (yet) have an official offering in the Store.
Consider this a kludge of sorts, but sometimes you just don't want to see all those square tiles on your Start screen, however prettily translucent. Sometimes you don't want tiles - at all! If you're feeling the urge to just have your information and icons 'hanging there' then see below.
Every so often the vagaries of a manufacturer's output and pricing system throw up anomalies - and, fresh from my review of the Nokia Lumia 630, I'd argue that the 630 is just such an anomalous point. So much so that the year old Lumia 625 is a much better overall package, I'd argue. It's possible that you've spotted this from the spec tables yourself, but just in case the penny hadn't dropped, I present a selective comparison below. Lumia 625 for the win!
I've acquired something of a reputation of being obsessive about ultra-naturalistic, pixel-perfect photo quality and blind to the overall picture - after all, don't 'normal' people look at photos as-is, complete? And, with this in mind, I'd like to set a few things straight - I'm not against image effects, I'm not against post processing, and I'm certainly not advocating others go around looking at their photos under a magnifying glass or zooming them in to see individual pixels. But there is method in my madness...
One of the most frustrating things about marketing and branding, from my engineer's standpoint, is that technologies get brand names assigned to them (which is fine) and then the brand name gets used elsewhere, for something totally different. Which is where the aforementioned frustration comes in, of course. Let's call a spade a spade, etc. And a fork a fork.
In something of a guest post, James Murray tells of perhaps the ugliest hardware hack I've seen for a while - yet one which obviously fulfills a need, one which Nokia should have perhaps considered when designing the Lumia 1020 in the first place?
Yesterday saw my stills shootout between the Lumia 1020 and the Android-powered Galaxy K Zoom - today sees the video equivalent. Being able to capture videos anytime, anywhere, is something that all of us do. And, to be fair, most modern smartphones do a great job at this. But what happens when you want to go further, zooming in and out and generally pushing the boundaries? In split-screen presentation, here's video from (arguably) the two best video capture phones around.
