Dean Pattrick Head of Nokia Entertainment showing off some of the Mix Radio features (And yes that is a Badass Guns&Roses T-shirt)

Now that MWC is over (unfortunately) I had a chance to organize all the Q&A sessions we had with all the awesome Nokia guys; we had four in total, one with Damien Dinning about the 808 and it’s camera which I posted seperately, here we have 3 more Q&As about the Luima design, Nokia Maps/Transport and Nokia Entertainment.

Once again I’ve listed the points in Bulletins for quick reading and because I can’t remember all the questions

Just want to mention that all the Nokia people were AMAZINGLY nice and really comfortable to be around; Dean Pattrick spent the first 15 minutes telling us ‘war stories’ that sounded alot like something else and Jason Gregory the man responsible for the N9 and the Lumia 800/900 spent about an hour in a bean bag chair having a causal chat with me.

Anyways off to it, hope you find this useful (Unfortunately I lost the notebook I had written these notes in so I’m going off of memory here)

“Since Nokia Are now the largest provider of Windows phone (largest share of the pie) our greatest focus will be on Increasing the size of the pie” (~~ focus on helping WP grow rather than competing for the current WP market share)

Mix Radio is a free, internet streaming music proposition with no subscription or accounts needed. Just out of the box and listen to great music.

Lumia/WP

• The 800 was not being planned or designed before Feb 11^th  (meaning that there was no previous indication of a Nokia WP)
• As far as is known to us there was never an Android Nokia even for testing/Experimental purposes
• The Design of the 800/900 admittedly inspired by the N9 have been greeted with huge success, and as such expect to see upcoming phones continue to have this same design (they call it the Fabuli design apparently that’s how the designer described it at first)
• Having a technology such as pureview is an amazing thing and it would be ridiculously insane not to capitalize on it with our main ecosystem (WP)– (Probably once they’ve found a way to utilize the pureview tech with a smaller sensor)
• Possible memory expansion in upcoming devices
• The Lumia 610 is running on 256MB of Ram making it the first ‘fragmented’ Windows phone

• Q: Since fragmentation has begun on Windows phone what’s to stop other manufacturers from making low-end phones that ruin the windows phone experience that so far has prided itself on being smooth on all devices
  A:  Windows has set forth a strict set of guidelines for the minimum amount of specs required for a device to be approved to run any version of WP – as of now this benchmark has been set by the 610, and for the time being don’t expect any device to launch with less specs.

• Q: When are we going to see the fruit of the Nokia Exclusive customization of WP (I basically asked if we could have WP with swipe)
  A: As of now we have no plans to do any serious visible customizations as that would give Nokia an unfair advantage over other OEMs that produce Windows phones which could lead to alienating them and making them switch back to android (Back to focusing on increasing the Size of the Pie itself and not Nokias share of the pie right now)

• The main selling point of the Lumia 610 is it’s design and not it’s price, as we didn’t not compromise the integrity/design of the device to fit a price range.
• Nokia has no plans of releasing a Tablet as of now as first of all we are still focusing on Re-entering  the US Mobile market and do not want to get distracted, as well as that as of now there is no way for Nokia to stand out and offer a proper tablet experience amongst the slew of other tablets available (In other words when we do a table we plan on doing it right)
• Internet tethering will Be available on the Lumia 900 upon launch however for previously launched Lumias (710&800) this feature will be pushed out with the next WINDOWS/Microsoft update (Will not be a separate update)
• The date of the tethering update is not for us to announce, as it is Microsoft responsibility to push out this update
• The Lumia 900 does not have a curved screen because it would lead to at least an increase in .5-1 mm of width as well as making the phone more likely to fracture (it’s difficult to make a screen that large curve without weakening the glass or having to add extra layers to reinforce it
• The white Lumia 800s are available for purchase in stores as of this week

Maps:

• Transportation and offline maps services will be available to the current and upcoming range of Lumia devices in a separate app update whiten the upcoming weeks (no need to wait for a Microsoft Software update)
• transportation with estimated times of arrival and recommended departure times will be provided to all locations that have supplied Nokia with their timetable schedules/infrastructure
• Nokia maps will replace Bing maps as the default map service on Windows phone, as well as several other OSes (RIM?)
• Voice guidance and turn by turn navigation have been added to the browser-based maps service on Android & iOS (Coded in HTML 5)
• Maps on Android/iOS are cached in the browser to save on data charges (voice guidance can be downloaded as a separate package)
• The Weather widget which was removed from Symbian will be released later (recently launched in the Beta labs)
• Nokia Pulse (location-based private Social network) will get dedicated clients on Android and iOS rather than web-based accounts
• Sharing your updates on FB/Twitter from Pulse was purposely left out to keep things more private
• Offline nav on the Lumia range was not introduced upon release due to the limited time they had before first shipments
• “Car Mode” will soon be introduced to the Lumia range as well

There is an excellent PDF on how the PureView technology works, put together by Damian Dining and other members of the imaging team. It is quite extensive so I wont bore anyone with the details too much. If you’re interested, you can get it here.

http://t.co/J0VcK9OQ

All I will say, is Nokia, welcome back!

Michael

Click on me for full screen awesomeness!

The amazing people at Nokia Connects were nice enough to send me a Lumia 800 to trial out for a while, so first off a shout out them for making this possible, they have some truly wonderful people working for them.

Now a bit about the extent of my relationship with OSes other than Symbian/S^3, I have an HP touchpad (Firesale FTW) so I’ve used WebOS as well as Android (CM7 Mods FTW too) on it, I’ve never owned an iOS device but I’ve seen my friends iphones, ipads and ipods more than enough to know quite a bit about the OS; but I have NEVER used Windows Phone (be it Mango, 7 or even 6.5) so the experience with the Lumia 800 was weirdly exciting for me because it mixed an amazing hardware design with an OS that could only be described as “Different”.

Therefore the main point of this review is to hopefully give readers a good look at what Windows Phone is all about, more than a review the Lumia 800 itself. The way I see it most of us Nokia fans were too busy fawning over the N8-00 when Windows Phone was first released (November 2010), of course back then S^3 was still fresh so nobody could have possibly imagined that within a year Nokia phones would be running Windows, for that reason I realized/guessed (possibly incorrectly) that a lot of Nokia fans have no idea what WP is like (to be specific: ME), I don’t want to get into a discussion of whether it was the right choice or not, the fact is that it IS done so let’s see what the new Nokia looks like.

#1) Unboxing + Design

#2) Setting Up the 800

#3) Metro UI & People Hub

#4) Camera:

1) Unboxing + Design:

Box Contents all lined up

There are more than enough unboxing videos of the Lumia 800 floating around the internet, and the hardware specs of the device have been covered more than enough; regardless no review would be complete without an unboxing so here’s my attempt (My first unboxing vid ever, I obviously did a wonderful job, dropping the device before it’s even out of the box and all!)- filmed using my ingenious N8 quad-pod (patent pending)

My first impression of the device design wise is that it’s GORGEOUS, (I had requested a Cyan one but oh well). Even though the 800 is made of polycarbonate (which in all honesty is basically plastic) Nokia still have managed to make it feel amazing. I fail to understand how this feels sturdier than me Aluminum bodied N8 but it does, it feels more compact (which just proves that you can make a device that isn’t glass or metal that doesn’t feel like twig- *cough cough SII Cough* ).

The phone comes with what you would expect: Standard 3.5mm earphones, A Micro-USB cable which doubles out as a charger when attached to the plug converter thing; however Nokia have gone above and beyond, providing a Silicon-Rubber housing for the 800, which hardly adds any width to the device at all, and has a super snug fit (personally I wouldn’t use it; simply because I love the feel of polycarbonate). As you might have noticed in the Quick unboxing I wasn’t all too impressed with the headphones accompanying the device, they had no dedicated music control (just a single talk/answer button) and I couldn’t get them to stay in my ears at all! Not even to test out the sound quality, I literally could not keep them in for more than 5 seconds.

Of course the Lumia 800 (and the 710) use Micro-sims rather than normal sims (seeing as this is a trial device I couldn’t bring myself to cut my sim for a review sorry). The sim and charger port mechanism is really interesting and/or weird; the charger port/USB  is a sort of flip thing where you press down on one side to make it pop-up (very fragile, so be careful), once the USB port door is open you can slide the micro-sim slot to the left a bit to have it pop-out as well; the cool part is that the area around the sim and USB slots are magnetic, to ensure proper closure of the ports I guess.

Design-wise I think it would have been better to have the USB port at either end of the device, not next to the Headphone jack, just because it would be easier to press down on (really difficult to explain but anyone who’s tried the 800 or the N9 should be able to understand).

The 800 comes with a 3.7″ (800×480) AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, which like the N9 is ever so slightly curved making those glorious swiping motions much more fun. I’ve read reviews about where people were bashing the 800 and the N9 for using something called PenTile display (basically if you look really close you *should* be able to see a bunch of lines running through the screen) personally I see nothing at all; in fact the screen is the second best thing about the 800 (after the amazing design), due to the curvature of the screen anything on the display looks like it’s floating somewhere between the phone and you’re fingertips (in the interest of being un-bias it is possible that I don’t see the PenTile because I’m upgrading from my N8 which has a less than acceptable Pixel density).

2) Setting Up the 800:

The first time you boot the Lumia 800 you have an option to set-up your Windows Live account as well as your Nokia account immediately before getting  to anything else (visible in the un-boxing video); however since the WiFi connection wouldn’t have been setup yet I skipped over that part and set it up later. As soon as the Lumia detects a Wifi network in range it asks if you’d like to set-up a Wifi connection with it, alternatively you can set it up through “Setting>Wi-Fi”, However try as I might I wasn’t able to locate the “Nokia Account” later (by the prompt I understood it was referring to a Nokia account similar to my Symbian Nokia account and not a Nokia/Ovi Email account).

Is this Nokia account the Same as Nokia email?

Nokia have included a handy tool called “Contacts Transfer” which can be used to copy all your contacts from an older Symbian device over to your new WP device via Bluetooth, which works quite smoothly (demonstrated below), however one feature I missed was the ability to transfer SMS messages from your older phone onto the new one as well (this function as available between older Symbian devices and Symbian 3).

Setting up your accounts can be a bit tricky if it’s your first time around on WP (check out the Video for a walk-through), I spent the first 30 minutes trying set it up from my “ME hub” rather than from the “Settings>Emails+Accounts” menu. Once you’ve got your accounts up and running all your contacts from all accounts (Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, Twitter) will appear merged together in your “People Hub”. You can choose to filter out these accounts leaving only ‘Windows Live’ (Phone numbers/contacts are saved to your windows live account); unfortunately with 4 different accounts synced my people hub became a complete mess, cluttered with emails of people I only contacted once mixed with random Facebook friends and twitter followers; a feature that is definitely needed here is a confirmation of contact syncing when the details aren’t enough e.g.: if I have two contacts simply named ‘Joe’ on two different accounts I would have preferred a prompt checking if this the same Joe or not.

3) Metro UI & People Hub

Side By Side against My N8 Running Belle

One of the most unique features about WP is the Metro UI/Tiles look, rather than Widgets; WP is based on a single ‘Homescreen’ on which you can place as many  ‘Live Tiles’ as you want, but only 2 or 1 tiles per row depending on the width of the tile (Reminds me of early S^3 widgets). The tiles on WP Mango are called “Live Tiles” due to the fact they are constantly updated/refreshed to give a more interactive feel to the user, allowing you to view your missed calls, emails, messages and much more without having to access said location; the Live tile simply displays the fact that you have a message on your home screen.

When In standby mode there is almost no way to tell if the Lumia 800 is even on or not, unlike the N9 which has the amazing “double-Tap” to wake up, or S^3 phones with their always on Clocks, the 800 appears dead unless the lock screen button is pressed, upon which you get to the unlock screen which displays your upcoming events, the time & date, notifications as well as battery life.

Once the phone is unlocked you get to the Metro-UI which can be customized to multiple colors depending on your preference, to change the theme color simply head to ‘settings>Theme and choose whatever color suites your mood.  However the Lumia 800 comes with a special “Nokia-Blue” color for its UI which seems to be the most attractive on the phone.

Windows Phone distinguishes itself from other OSes by bringing your contacts to life, on WP contacts stop being names on your phone and become ‘people’; hence the People Hub, which combines all your accounts from Google, Windows Live, Facebook and Twitter all in one place to keep you updated and constantly linked. WP automatically merges contacts from different accounts with the same name together (which lead to a bit of confusion due to incorrect merging), each contact has a number or tabs including: the main contact info/Profile, What’s New (which brings you the latest updates from FB and twitter), Pictures (which brings all pictures recently uploaded) and history which displays your latest contact with the contact be it via email, phone or FB message.

I love how some of the next pane/tab is visible at the end of the screen

The Virtual keyboard on WP is an absolute joy to use, with accurate text correction and nice tapping sounds every time a key is hit, it’s definitely my favorite onscreen keyboard; a complete 180 degrees polar opposite of the atrocious stock S^3 keyboard that we all love to hate. I didn’t bother reviewing the Keyboard here as Jay has already made a nice comparison video between Symbian Anna and WP 7.5 which can be found HERE. My only complaint about the onscreen keyboard would be that in landscape mode the space on the edges is not fully utilized, losing about a complete centimeter to the time in the upper left corner.

Market place & Pre-Loaded Apps:

Apps… the whole reason Nokia have a Windows Phone, “ecosystem” that magical word, what’s so special about the Windows Phone market place? At this point I’m going to say something that I’ve never believed until I used WP: “Quantity is irrelevant!” this is where my usage of Android kicks in, sure android might have a gazillion apps, but almost 75% of them are buggy, have a garbage UI and consist of trying to connect two dots together (Nokias Snake on the 2100 was more sophisticated than some of the apps on the android marketplace).

Windows Phone on the other hand seems to be promising in both aspects, quantity as well as quantity; the growth of the WP market is steadily increasing (currently at 55K) but what’s more important is the fact that they are fifty-five thousand quality apps out there. The one consistent factor between almost all apps I’ve tried on the Lumia 800 is the fact that they have a beautiful UI alongside a well coded game/app engine (due mainly to the fact that Microsoft is offering large incentives to bring in the developers).

The market place app itself is beautifully designed dividing its content into Nokia collection/apps/games/music/podcasts, with detailed classification of each category/genre of apps and games; for example games in the market place are classified into Xbox live/ top/ free/ new making finding whatever you’re looking for loads easier. Another wonderful feature is that as far as I can tell every single app/game has a trial mode meaning no need for buyer’s remorse, try out the app if you like it buy it; if not nothing lost.

One feature setting the Lumia 800 apart from the rest of the Windows Phones out there is the inclusion of the ever amazing Nokia Maps/Drive, which is just as smooth and amazing as it is on S^3 with a considerably faster GPS lock than that on my N8. Maps can be downloaded for your selected country from within ‘Nokia Drive’ to enable navigating in offline mode. Nokia Maps also has a feature to find nearby popular places, relying on tour guides as well as other users reviews to give you the best recommendations of nearby places.

Places of Interest

Nokia also includes their own “Nokia Music” which enables you to connect to Nokias Own music server (formerly Ovi Music) rather than connecting to the Windows Phone marketplace to download any tracks you might have purchased on your old Symbian phone. Nokia also included ‘Gig Finder” which locates nearby concerts/events depending on your location and will display them within the app (sadly no gigs were located when I tried this in Jordan); one other interesting feature is something called “Nokia Mix Radio” which is their own Online Radio service that customizes playlists depending on what music you have on your phone, to help find music similar to your taste. Nokia Mix Radio enables you to directly download the tracks you enjoy from the Music store; however my Lumia 800 didn’t have Mix Radio at all, nor was there an option to activate it (possibly region related?? Although it’s an online music service so that shouldn’t matter???).

*Should* Display Mix Radio as well in the list

4) Camera:

Now to what is usually the most notable feature on Nokia phones: The camera. Without beating around the bush I must say that the 8mp shooter in the Lumia 800 was sadly a let-down, here’s why. The main reason is that alot of previous N8 owners who fell in love with the N8s camera are going to be switching to WP soon, unless they want to stick around for the rumored N8 successor which is supposedly running Symbian as well; regardless for me transitioning from the king of camera phones down to the Lumia 800 (yes, I used the word ‘down’ cause it is indeed a couple of steps down) was a difficult process, on my N8 I became used to “Quick-Draw Point and Shoot” with almost all pictures coming out at near professional range quality. The Lumia 800 on the other hand is a phone that is difficult to get a handle on, but once you get setting just right to it can still produce an impressive shot.

Now the 800s camera isn’t as horrible as I’m making it out to be but as mentioned I’m comparing it to the abilities of my N8. Normal everyday capturing is quick and simple, and will usually give you a decent picture provided there’s enough lighting available; however the landscape low light photos were absolutely dreadful barely capturing any light at all (smaller lens?) compared to the iPhone4s and the N8 it didn’t stand a chance at low-light images. Macro images surprisingly were extremely nice, even with below optimal lighting they still came out stunning, even somehow surpassing those of my N8s when it came to super closeups.

Random well-lit photo, with full auto settings on.

A close-up macro mode in low light, surprisingly nice (the candle is surrounded by glass so no flash was used for capturing this)

Cookie anyone?

Un-impressive low light scene capture, the water isn't supposed to be lit, it's just normal water (BTW that's the worlds tallest fountain)

Same Exact photo taken with the iPhone4s 8MP camera.

More Images Here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23218958@N05/sets/72157628855141245/

The video capturing was above par on the 800, it has the ability to shoot at 720p with full autofocus, which results in decent sample videos even with indoor fluorescent lighting; the autofocus was snappy to respond and coped well with closeups/macro videos. However it did seem that some colors ended up over saturated when filming up close, in the video below (final 5 seconds or so) the crown of the parrots head is actually closer to a greenish-yellow, yet in the video it appears almost blue/turquoise, regardless I can’t complain about the Lumia 800s video capturing abilities as it was overall impressive.

Another point worth mentioning is the beautiful camera/video camera UI on windows phone, it’s a completely flexible experience allowing you to swipe directly into your gallery from the camera view, as well as pinch out to view your previously taken pictures side by side with whatever you’re looking at in normal camera view. I also loved the display of the video length during recording; the big numbers on the screen are large enough to be viewed from 3 feet away yet un-obtrusive to your recording view.

Split screen of previous image alongside live view from camera lens

I’m not sure whether this option is unavailable in all WP or just the Lumia 800; but there is no ability to zoom while recording (you have to select your preferred zoom level before starting, and stick with it). Another thing that puzzled me is the inability to use the volume buttons to zoom in/out in normal camera mode, nor can you pinch to zoom, the only way to zoom is to use the onscreen +/- buttons which in all honesty is annoying.

Beautiful Camera UI

5) Media (Pictures, Videos and Music)

Media on Windows Phone is split into Music and Pictures, with each type of content appearing in its respective category; while videos appear in both categories. Both Pictures and Music come with their own live tiles that continuously randomizes different background depending on the content of the phone.

The Photo hub consist of 3 different panes Content on Phone/What’s New/ Favorites, Displayed on a backdrop of a random photo from your album split onto three separate screens giving a sort of panoramic view to your pictures.  “Content on the phone” display all content on the phone itself be it downloaded, captured or photos from a favorite contact you chose to save on your phone. “What’s New” displays the latest photo media coming from all accounts you have linked to your phone be it Twitter updates, Facebook, or skydrive pictures shared via Windows Live; What’s new also enable you to directly view all comments on a specific picture and to add your own without having to enter the browser or Social hub. Favorites are a set of photos you choose to star or add to favorites, making them quickly accessible and making them appear as the background for the Photo Hub and the Live tile more often.

The Music Live Tile will take you to your music library where you are first greeted with a pane containing your last played music, and currently playing for quick access; from there you can quickly access the rest of your music library and playlists by simply swiping to the right. The Music hub directly supports entering the Zune music store to download Music, Videos or Podcasts from the Music Marketplace; exclusive to Lumia phones however is “Nokia Music” which also syncs your OVI account music files to your phone and bringing you access to Nokias “Mix Radio”.

When playing music you have an option to use “Smart DJ-Mixer” which is an addition to Windows Phone Music player, basically it searches your music library to tracks similar to what you choose to play be it by Genre, Artist, or Album and plays them after each other to suite your mood, a nice feature for those of us with 16GBs of music. Music can also be controlled from your homescreen or lock screen by simply pressing the volume buttons, which will bring up the currently playing track with the options to skip/previous and Play/Pause.

Videos as mentioned can be accessed from both the Music hub and Picture Gallery, playing only in landscape mode with the ability to resize to full screen or play in a slightly windowed mode. Unfortunately the Lumia 800 is incapable of playing DivX files and .AVI which must first be formatted into .Mp4 through Zune. As a long time Symbian user I found myself constantly long pressing on photos looking for  a “mark multiple” option, which sadly does not exist, therefore you have to delete each photo/video separately one-by-one.

6) Bing Search:

Search on Belle Vs. Mango (Winner is obvious)

In all honesty the moment I opened the search feature on the Lumia 800 I tried to look into the settings on how to switch the default search engine to Google (hint: you can’t), for good reason though. The Bing search that comes bundled with the Lumia 800 is nowhere near the slow socially awkward search engine that I last tried about 4 years ago, the new Bing is fast smooth and sexy, coming with image search, voice input search and a music finder (similar to Shazam) it truly is a fully functional wonder.

The background Image on the Bing Search (Quickly accessed by the capacitive magnifying glass button) changes every day showing you a random image with a set of new ‘information squares’ related to the search image, which will either take you to a related Photo or Map location depending on the ‘hint’.

Normal text searches are straight forward carried out on Bing bringing you Web Results, Images Results and even Location based results depending on where you are. Once your location is enable you can select any location from Bing maps and search for Highlighted areas, Shopping places, ‘eat & drink’ as well as ‘See + Do’. My two favorite features regarding Bing search are Picture Search and music detecting service, Picture search scans QR codes and gives you their direct link to their source, or it can be used to scan text and translate it into multiple different languages. The even more impressive feature is the music identifying feature (Anyone who’s used Shazam knows what I’m talking about); it took less than 5 seconds of playing “Adele’s- Set Fire to The Rain” (at random time-frames) for it to pop-up as the result with a link directly to the Zune Marketplace in case you feel like purchasing whatever track you just found.

Overall Bing search is extremely impressive (although I’d prefer it if Microsoft stopped promoting the phrase ‘Bing it’), if Bing had as much functionality on my desktop as it did on the Lumia 800 then it would be my default engine in a heart-beat.

*Note: I didn’t review the browser due to the fact that I’m not really good at browser comparison, the only note I can say about it is that don’t let the fact that it’s called “Internet Explorer” put you off, it’s really good

7) Miscellaneous:

(Some of the things about WP in general that bugged me, especially being a long time Symbian user)

First off of course is the fact that WP is a closed platform, meaning there’s a very limited amount of freedom when it comes to customization and side-loaded apps; in all honesty my biggest argument against iPhones was “at least I can do what I want without jumping through hoops”, sadly you can’t say the same when you’re using a Windows Phone. Until almost 2 weeks ago Windows had offered a small piece of solace in the form of “Chevron unlocker” which for $9.00 enabled you to purchase a token that ‘unlocks’ your Windows Phone device, this unlock enabled you to side-load (install from outside the marketplace) up to 10 apps at a time; not exactly Symbian/Android freedom, but it was nice. Unfortunately as of two weeks ago Chevron ran out of unlockers and this option is no longer available; the only alternative is a $99 developers unlock which is quite pricy for something that most of us have grown to as a standard. Sadly the lockdown on outside settings isn’t just for applications, even the ringtones are just a selected few, without the direct option to set your favorite tunes as your ringtone. The limitations have even hit Bluetooth, meaning you can’t send media files over Bluetooth from one device to another (I tried multiple times with my N8 as well as my touchpad to the Lumia but always received the same failure message).

Another puzzling ‘feature’ about Windows Phone is that every-time you lock the screen your WiFi disconnects, presumably in the interest of saving battery, but I found this ridiculous; considering how  if your connected to cellular data the data connection remains active when the device is in standby which definitely takes a much larger toll on the battery life. At the very least there should be an option to stay connected to WiFi while device is locked, how else would someone without a data plan receive Emails and Notifications???

The battery life on the 800 is ‘amusing’ to say the least, as it doesn’t seem to follow any laws at all; the first two days that I received the device it barely made it 6 hours each day (without a sim/airplane mode)! However the battery life has steadily increased with me over the past week to make it easily through a complete day; add to that the promised Battery update sometime mid-January and it shouldn’t be a problem.

Props to @Stephenquin58 for this!

Of course if you plan on owning a windows phone you’d better have Zune installed on your PC/Laptop as it’s the only easy way to copy content to and from your mobile. Thankfully though Zune isn’t as tedious to use as the original Ovi Suite.

Wrap-Up:

The Lumia 800 is a beautiful phone, paired with what is possibly one of the most beautiful and consistent UIs I’ve seen so far, sure it might have some niggles in the design and setbacks in the OS being walled up; but when I think about the amazing People hub, the beautiful screen design and the general feel of the device it’s definitely a phone that shouldn’t be passed on, or at least not before taking an extremely long look at what you’re giving up, followed by second thoughts and doubts if you choose something else.

Windows Phone is an OS that was obviously not rushed, it was kept under covers until almost every bug and defect were weeded out, appearing only in its best; unfortunately the OS itself is more walled up than most Symbian fans will be used to, but nothing that’s an absolute deal breaker alone.

Obviously the 800 isn’t for everyone, if you want a N8 Successor this IS NOT the phone for you, if you want a second N900 this IS NOT the phone for you. If like me you grew bored of having an amazing phone that unfortunately had almost no proper apps, running an OS that had potential but was neglected and under-appreciated, if you want to upgrade your phone to something more modern with an OS that’s silky smooth and a beautiful yet strange UI then THIS IS the phone for you.

-Once again thanks to the people at Nokia Connects for making this possible, you guys are great!

-After All this time? ….. “Always.”

It’s been over a year since the N8 was released, and yet according to techradar it’s still the king of cameraphones. The people at Techradar pitted the N8 against the Samsung Galaxy 2, the iPhone4S, HTC  Evo 3D, Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and the Motorola XT720; in a series of complicated and thorough tests of each phone. The phones tested were graded by their overall usability in every day life, the ease of using the camera and lowlight conditions.

Out of the five phones that where tested only the N8 and the Motorola had Xenon flash, and the N8 alone had more than 8MP; but also had the lowest pixel density on it’s screen; the N8 also had the largest amount of camera settings and options while the 4S and Xperia lacked a manual ISO change even.

The camera-phones were tested in a variety of settings under different conditions including a “Color Accuracy test” where they shot a mulit-colored chart and saw the best color differentiation and preservation, as well as a “Lab test” where they captured an image of a detailed graph and saw which phone captured the largest amount of detail at 100% crop.

In both the Color Accuracy test and the Lab Chart test the N8-00  came in first place (With the 4S coming in last in the color accuracy, and being disqualified from the Lab test due to lack of manual settings).

Our resolution tests reveal that the Nokia N8 records the most detail, achieving a resolution score of 2,200 line widths per picture height (LH/PH) at its lowest sensitivity.

Our color accuracy test reveals that the Nokia N8 performs the best, with a score of 102.5%

Our resolution tests reveal that the Nokia N8 records the most detail, achieving a resolution score of 2,200 line widths per picture height (LH/PH) at its lowest sensitivity. This is on a par with some top-end compact cameras.

Overall performance came down between the 4S and the N8 with a choice between detail or Natural colors:

In terms of all round image quality the battle is really between the iPhone 4S and the N8. The N8 is capable of capturing the most detail, but the iPhone 4S produces the most natural looking images – although the colour can vary a little from shot to shot. The Apple iPhone also has the benefit of being incredibly easy to use and has a startlingly fast shutter speed.

Final Verdict:

The winner of this test is the Nokia N8 – but only in terms of providing the best pictures quality in the widest range of areas. If you’re looking for the phone on the market that will offer you the best pictures in a wide variety of scenarios, we’d suggest you plump for this phone

The 4S came in as a runner-up, or basically for people who want a camera that’s always set on auto without the need for manual tinkering.

The winner of this test is the Nokia N8 – but only in terms of providing the best pictures quality in the widest range of areas. If you’re looking for the phone on the market that will offer you the best pictures in a wide variety of scenarios, we’d suggest you plump for this phone

Source Tech Radar (check it out really…)

Now according to Eldar (our favorite here at MNB) the only way HTC pulled this off is by getting special ‘Camera APIs’ from Microsoft that weren’t available to any other WP developers?

I don’t think that’s true considering Nokia were promised more exclusivity and customization but you never know, point is the heat is on Nokia now, the N8 successor better be amazing (and it seems to be).

*Side note: Sony also released an Android phone the ‘Xperia Ion’ rocking a 12mp camera and 1080p camcorder (personally I think this is larger threat than HTC, considering Sonys track record for cameras).

Any thoughts?

I guess the people at Nokia U.S. were a bit over-excited about the news they were supposed to release later on today, about what most of us had probably guessed; the Nokia 710 entering the US market (Via T-Mobile).

According to the leak the 710 is set to hit stores on Jan 11th with a very reasonable pricing of $49.99 with contract OFC, but what most of us never saw coming was the incorporation of a 4G antenna inside the 710, making it the first Nokia 4G phone to be officially availble in the US (Thanks to Matti in the comments section I also found out that the N9 as well as the 800 are also capable of the fake 4G/HSPA speeds), as well as one of the first Mango running 4G capable devices (Other: HTC Radar).

The Nokia Lumia 710 is expected to be available at T-Mobile retail stores, select dealers and retailers nationwide, and online at http://www.t-mobile.com starting Jan. 11. The Nokia Lumia 710 is expected to cost $49.99 after a $50 mail-in-rebate card, with a two-year service agreement and qualifying Classic voice and data plan. For more information, visit http://www.t-mobile.com/lumia.

The 710 should hit shelves preloaded with all of the stock Nokia apps (Nokia drive, Nokia Mix radio, the Nokia exclusive ESPN app…) as well as Netflix mobile TV and many more. However according to the press release the only color made to be available is the Black battery case, which is completely fine by me as the picture above looks absolutely SEXY!!!

Full press release available below:

T-Mobile Brings Nokia Lumia 710 to the U.S.  

Nokia and T-Mobile deliver a leading entry-level Windows Phone experience to the nearly 150 million Americans still to make the transition to smartphones. 

BELLEVUE, Wash., and SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Dec. 14, 2011 — T-Mobile USA, Inc. and Nokia today announced the upcoming availability of the Nokia Lumia 710, the first Windows Phone from Nokia in the United States. Targeted at the nearly 150 million Americans who haven’t purchased their first smartphones, the 4G-capable Nokia Lumia 710 delivers high-performance hardware, Nokia’s best social and Internet experience, and access to popular smartphone applications and services from Windows Phone Marketplace.

Running on America’s Largest 4G Network^™, the Nokia Lumia 710 benefits from the unique people-first approach of Windows Phone, bringing together all interactions with family and friends in People Hub. The Nokia Lumia 710 also provides one-click access to popular services, such as Netflix, T-Mobile TV with mobile HD¹ and a leading mobile Web experience with Internet Explorer® Mobile, Bing™ Search with voice activation and Local Scout for locally relevant search results. The smartphone also brings access to signature Nokia experiences, such as Nokia Drive for voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation and ESPN for exclusive sports content.

“We’re excited to team with Nokia in bringing its first Windows Phone to the U.S. with the elegantly designed Nokia Lumia 710,” said Cole Brodman, chief marketing officer, T-Mobile USA. “Windows Phone offers a compelling mobile OS choice for people who want a smartphone built around them, their family and friends.  We expect it to play a more prominent role in our lineup and marketing efforts in 2012.”

Today, people are increasingly upgrading to smartphones, and many are doing so for the first time. According to the NPD Group, U.S. smartphone sales reached 59 percent in the third quarter 2011, an increase of 13 percent since third quarter 2010. With an increasing demand for smartphones, the Nokia Lumia 710 offers a compelling experience aimed at addressing the needs of the nearly 150 million people in the U.S. who have yet to upgrade to their first smartphones.

“Our research shows nearly everybody in the U.S. wants a smartphone, but many believe they can’t afford it,” Brodman said. “That’s where T-Mobile shines. Our Unlimited Value and Monthly4G plans make it more affordable than ever to step up to mobile data on our 4G network.”

”The Nokia Lumia 710 is the perfect first-time smartphone: a well-designed product that delivers the most compelling Windows Phone experience in its price range and with access to great content and thousands of applications,” said Chris Weber, president, Nokia Americas. “This is the perfect first Nokia Lumia experience and the start of our re-entry into the U.S. smartphone market.”

Available in a black or white finish, the Nokia Lumia 710 features a 3.7-inch ClearBlack WVGA scratch-resistant display for outstanding outdoor viewing and a Qualcomm 1.4 GHz Snapdragon™ processor providing speedy access to entertainment and information on-the-go. It also features a 5-megapixel camera with Nokia’s leading camera technology, enabling people to take pictures in almost any light condition and share on social networks in seconds. With the most integrated work-life solution of any mobile platform via the Windows Phone Office Hub and an interactive mobile gaming experience via Xbox LIVE®, the Nokia Lumia 710 is the complete all-round first-time smartphone experience.

Source. Thanks to Viipottaja for the tip

1. Just from it’s code-name Champagne you get the feeling that this is something special, not your run of the mill midrange phone, I want it to be the flagship, which is why I actually believe that the 900 is indeed the champagne.
2. Which brings my second point, just because the champagne and the 900 showed up together doesn’t mean their different phones, the same thing happened with the Lumia 800, where it appeared on The occasional gamer under two different names although it was the same phone (once as Searay and once as Lumia 800), which could mean that the 719 is a completely different phone.

Now if my reasoning is correct we could expect the 719 to be a mid-range phone with specs between those of the 710 and the 800 (possibly closer to the lower end of the spec range?), Perhaps the same 3.7 inch screen with a 5~8 MP camera and a decent battery?

What do you think? let us know down below

Thanks for the tip KF,   Source

It seems after we posted about a new N9 FW being available on Navifirm, many claimed it to be Pr 1.2, others a bug fix for PR 1.1. This post is to settle the dispute. Sorry for an image that looks sketchy, it is all I can reveal without sharing the developer’s details, but the email this was contained in has been forwarded to me, and it is legitimate.

Firstly, V 22.2011.44-2 is PR 1.1.1, which is simply a fix for PR 1.1, aimed at the Middle Eastern market. This supposedly fixes a bug caused by Arabic language support. So to fully clarify, PR 1.1.1 is V 22.2011.44-2 which adds Arabic support for the UI. Secondly, I was tipped from a dev who wants to remain anonymous, that their app was tested by Nokia (during Store Publish testing) on RM-696 CE (RM-696 is N9, yet CE is typically used for “Community Edition”? Codename for N950?), running PR 1.0, PR 1.1, PR 1.1.1 and PR 1.2 (V 30.2011.47-1). This version info for PR 1.2, corresponds with the screenshots from the original leak we posted about a few weeks back.

For those who have not yet seen the various posts here, and around the internet, detailing the changes to come in PR 1.2, here they are;

• In Settings > Applications, update has added a “Manage Applications” button.
• The interface now separates the camera flash options, from the other options available.
• In the video recording UI, flash icon is separated as well.
• The buttons have a new style.
• In Settings > Display, there is a new settings option given to Colour Profiles.
• Gallery has a new option for face recognition.
• In an image, opening the Options menus now has an “Insert face” feature.

If you have PR 1.1.1 and have noticed any differences other then Arabic Support, let us know in the comments section below.

Michael

The image source claims that it was on display during Nokias Devoloper Day In mexico.

The translation off Google (hardly reliable is):

“Symbian Carla:

• 8.0 Browser
• Dolby soundround
• NFC
• Best Widgets

Symbian Donna:

• Exclusive Dual core Equipment”

Symbianlatino states that Carla is set for late 2012 or early 2013, running on much more capable devices, perhaps the N8 Successor?? It also states that Symbian Carla will be available to ALL current S^3 devices, while Symbian Donna would be exclusive for Dual core devices. It’s also stated that Donna is most probably the LAST of the symbian updates and the end of an era.

Staring at blurrycam images isn’t good for you, but if you look hard enough at the phones displayed in the last column to the right under Donna it appears to be a candybar with rounded edges (similar to C7) but with 4 applications per row in menu like Meego. I don’t know maybe I’m imagining things…

*note: A while back on the Symbian Wikipedia page under “Version history” Symbian Carla was indeed there beneath “Belle” but if you check know it’s gone, is this nokias leak control?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian#Version_history

 

Update: I couldn’t find a clearer image but since this event was only yesterday a couple more should pop-up sooner or later, however I did stumble on a image from a developers conference in Brazil where it showed that there were future updates coming after Belle, but it only showed a “Under Construction Symbol”- at least we know that there’s some basis to this.

Via SymbianLatino

“Microsoft takes very seriously meeting (and exceeding) the requirements outlined by agencies such as the FCC in the USA. They felt it was really important to fully address the concerns raised by recent FCC regulations before enabling this feature and are optimistic they can deliver on these requirements though a software update and are working diligently on that now.”

 

As for the lack of NFC it’s basically because WP does NOT support it in the first place . Nokia apparently held back on NFC (possibly Frontal Camera as well) as ‘not to overload the device with useless items that would drive up the price’.

“Our ambition is to create the best possible consumer experience, based on the capabilities of the platform and what we believe offers a genuine opportunity to bring value to Nokia users everyday. It is possible to cram a phone with features that users don’t want or use and the end result is a compromise somewhere else, in cost, size or absence of alternative features. For features not currently supported by Windows Phone such as NFC or dual SIM we are working with our partner Microsoft to determine the top priorities for future iterations of the platform.”

**Random thought- I see alot of people complaining that WP devices (lumia included) are underpowered and their processors are a joke, fact is that unlike Android; WP limits the amount of ram eaten up by background processes to ~10MB or so and that’s only apps that are using active resume, while android apps can use up to 32~50 MBs while minimized which is why they require dual core steroid pumped processors. ~Just a thought.

Thanks to ‘Viipottaja’  Via  Winrumors.com