What on earth is a Sozoom, I hear you ask? It's a third party (commercial) application that beautifully, and I mean beautifully shows up the underlying detail in the photos from the Nokia Lumia 1520 and 1020, by blowing up to 1:1 in the viewfinder/on the screen a tiny portion of the full resolution (typically 16MP or 34MP) version of a photo. I've featured Sozooms before, for example here, plus I last covered the Sozoom application here, but it occurred to me to give some advice to 1520/1020 owners looking to create a really effective Sozoom image.
The camera and chipset in the Lumia 1520 is especially interesting, as the hardware is thin enough to be part of a range of devices, yet with some of the PureView oversampling and lossless zoom from the likes of the 1020. But, in tests, how much extra does this new set of hardware and electronics give the end user (over the likes of the existing generation, e.g. Lumia 920 and 925)? How much 'purer' are 1520 photos and how much difference does the 2x lossless zoom make?
As Nokia's Devices and Services division heads into the bosom of Redmond, it looks like we might have another manufacturer signing up to Windows Phone. On the back of critical acclaim in the Android space, Sony is considering a move to add Microsoft's mobile platform to its portfolio of devices. Looking at what they can offer each other, this is a partnership that could produce something amazing.
This is part 2 of my updated, comprehensive look at no less than sixteen 'podcatchers' for Windows Phone, i.e. ways to discover, download and enjoy podcasts using nothing more than your humble smartphone, i.e. no desktop needed. Split into two for reasons of length (the entire feature is over 7500 words!), part 1 covered the first nine podcatching applications, here's the next seven, plus an overall verdict.
Podcatching, as you'll probably know, is the act of grabbing podcasts directly, over the air, on your smartphone. Automatically, seamlessly and without needing a desktop or any direct manual intervention. And then sorting them, playing them back in sensible fashion, working around interruptions, and cleaning up afterwards. It's a tall order for an application, yet we have no less than SIXTEEN likely contenders here for Windows Phone 8, all of which I've put through their paces. The first nine in this, part 1 of the feature, and the remaining seven, plus a verdict, in part 2 of the feature here.
Nokia's first trio of low end Windows Phone 8 devices, the Lumia 520, 620 and 720, are all arounda yearold. It's likely that we'll see successor devices before too long, with the upcoming MWC event in Barcelona being a good candidate for the next Lumia launch announcement. That raises an obvious question - is now the right time buy a low end Windows Phone device?
The Lumia 1520 is a space age (and space-sized!) piece of kit, to be sure. And it also happens to include a cut down version of the same PureView oversampling technology as in the camera flagship, the Lumia 1020. Making for an obvious head to head feature, though I threw in some other camera-equipped phones for good measure in some tests, as you'll see.
Nokia has made a lot of the RAW (DNG) support in Nokia Camera on the Lumia 1520 and 1020 - and for some people this may indeed be exciting news. But there's a potential sting in the tail if you're not careful, at least in terms of working with the shareable images on the phones themselves, and I'd repeat my caution to only turn on the 'DNG (34MP)' mode if you a) know what you're doing and b) you don't plan to do much with your images on the device.
Once more market share numbers are in the news for Windows Phone. The underlying trend is up, projections by analysts are showing up to 20% share during this decade, and we're expecting the next wave of devices at MWC in February. While the 'third ecosystem' belongs to Windows Phone, the real goal to become established remains.
