Alongside the Lumia 920 announcement in New York, at a joint event with Microsoft, Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 820, a follow on to the Nokia Lumia 800. Key features include a 4.3 inch WVGA ClearBlack Display OLED screen, a swappable polycarbonate body, and an eight megapixel camera with Carl-Zeiss optics.
Nokia has launched its Windows Phone 8 devices today in New York, including the flagship Nokia Lumia 920. With echoes of the Lumia 900, the 920 packs a Qualcomm S4 Snapdragon processor, with 32GB and a 4.5 inch screen featuring Nokia's PureMotion HD+ technology. It's also equipped with Nokia's PureView branding, with optical image stabilisation enhancing the output of the on-board camera.
Today at IFA in Berlin, Samsung announced its first Windows Phone 8 device, the ATIV S, with 8.7mm brushed aluminum chassis and a huge 4.8” HD Super AMOLED display. Under the hood is a 1.5Ghz dual-core processor, 1GB of onboard RAM, and an 8MP autofocus rear camera, plus 16GB or 32GB mass memory and MicroSD expansion. Particularly impressive is the inclusion of a big 2300mAh battery. Some more details and photos below.
At today's Windows Phone Summit, Microsoft announced a new software update that will be available for existing Windows Phone handsets. Labelled Windows Phone 7.8, the update will feature some of the core elements of Windows Phone 8 that can be supported on the older hardware, including the new Start screen.
Samsung has announced the Omnia M, the latest addition to its Windows Phone portfolio. With a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen, 1 GHz processor, 384MB of RAM, 5 megapixel camera and 4GB of internal storage, the device can be considered an entry level Windows Phone device. The Omnia M will launch first in Europe, before being rolled out to other regions.
AT&T and Samsung today announced the forthcoming availability of the Samsung Focus 2, an LTE equipped handset that will be available on the US operator from May 20th at a cost of $50 (with a two year contract commitment). The Focus 2, which is 10.98mm thick, has a four inch Super AMOLED display, 5 megapixel camera (and VGA front facing camera), 8GB of mass storage and a 1.4Ghz processor with 512MB RAM.
Nokia's first NFC enabled Windows Phone smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 610 NFC, was announced today at the WIMA conference in Monaco. It is an NFC variant of the Lumia 610, which will launch first on Orange's European networks during Q3 2012. The NFC functionality allows for seamless pairing with NFC enabled Bluetooth accessories and the reading of NFC tags with a single tap. The handset has also been certified for contactless payments with both Mastercard's PayPass and Visa's payWave solutions.
Following on from the widespread release of Nokia's big '12070' update for the Lumia 800, I latched onto one particular item in the changelog: 'White balance issues with the Lumia 800 camera have been fixed, along with other camera performance tweaks'. Colour issues were at the heart of my criticisms of the original Lumia 800 firmware, so I was keen to see how much things have improved.
The roll out of the third software update for the Nokia Lumia 800 has now commenced. The update, firmware revision number 1600.2487.8107.12070, delivers significantly improved battery life, improves audio quality and fixes a number of bugs. As is standard for Windows Phone, updates have to be done via Zune Desktop on the PC or the Windows Phone Connector on the Mac.
Following on from Micosoft's official launch of Windows Phone in China, Nokia held its own launch event today to announce the Nokia Lumia 800C, a CDMA variant of the Lumia 800, which will be available through exclusive launch partner China Telecom this April with an unsubsidised price of 3599 RMB (£360). Also announced was the Nokia Lumia 610C, a CDMA variant of Nokia's cheapest Windows Phone device, which will go on sale later in Q2.
