Ah yes, these All About sites, where a certain writer has been shouting about the benefits of a proper Xenon flash for the last six YEARS. Well, the last 24 hours have seen a couple of ads for Nokia's latest Lumia 928, in which it brings a Xenon flash to its new platform and... hey, the ability to freeze moments in time is apparently cool, fresh and desirable after all. Who knew? Old-timers on All About Symbian will point, of course, to the Nokia N82, N8, 6220 classic, 808 and even Sony Ericsson Satio, but hey, let's not be too bitter - at least a decent* flash is making it now in the world of Windows Phone too.

* Yes, yes, there was the HTC 7 Mozart, whose 'Xenon' flash was so appalling that I rated it as worse than LED!

Here then are the two ads about the new Lumia 928, firstly one from the Windows Phone team itself:

The tagline is " You've never seen the night like this", followed by "Meet the best low light smartphone camera. Better than iPhone. Better than Galaxy", with plenty of Xenon-frozen examples throughout. Of course, Nokia 808 owners might well contest the "meet" line, with the 808 having a double-brightness Xenon bulb of its own, but hey...

Here's the second ad, from Verizon, the carrier which commissioned the Luma 928 in the first place ("Our customers would like a proper Xenon flash, thank you very much"):

The narrative here runs: "Shouldn't the photos you share from your smartphone be photos actually worth sharing? Introducing the Nokia Lumia 928 - easily capture vibrant photos in near darkness, even without the flash". Well, if you were shooting a static building then yes, you could leave the Xenon flash off and use the OIS for a long shutter time, but the examples in the ad all seem to show the Xenon flash very much on.

Great to see the Lumia 928 and Xenon being promoted though, and for the importance of being able to photograph living, moving people after dark being finally recognised.