My Nokia Blog

Is Microsoft forcing specific port placement on its OEMs?
Video: Nokia 808 PureView 4 way unboxing by Nokia N8, Nokia Lumia 900, Nokia 808 PureView and Canon 60D
Nokia Lumia 820/Arrow? First Real Images! Looking Beautiful
Lumiappaday #289: Sketch Board demoed on the Nokia Lumia 900
Nokia trolling Samsung’s rumoured Billion dollar’s worth of nickel coin filled trucks
Leak or Fake: Press pics – Nokia Lumia 920 with PureView, Nokia Lumia 820
Nokia 808 PureView in the house :) Cheers @Nokia_Connects
HTC escaping the boring with Nokia Lumia like vibrant purple Accord?
Nokia’s Lumia WP8 to knock the socks off Samsung’s ATIV-S next week

Is Microsoft forcing specific port placement on its OEMs?

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 02:13 PM PDT

Hey guys, it has been a while since I last wrote anything here, but it is hard not to with the influx of news these past few days and the coming week. So far we have already seen some highly exciting leaks of devices, but I just came across something potentially interesting; standardized placement of the charger/syncing port.

WPCentral has received a tip that Microsoft has made some changes to the chassis specification and is now demanding a standardized place for the port, at the bottom center of the device. This rumour by itself seems like nothing interesting, but I beg to differ. Dull as it might be, the iPhone has had a standard place for its charger port for years. This has spawned a lively industry of third party accessories, from simple audio docks to full blown extensions that make your phone do more than what it was ever intended to do.

So, even though we can file this whole thing strictly under rumours, it is exciting to say the least. It can create an incentive for accessory manufacturers to start looking at Windows Phone as well besides only the Iphone. After all, they can create one accessory and sell it for practically all Windows Phones at once. It can also create a good business for Nokia themselves, Nokia has traditionally made a lot of accessories, just look at the Play360 for one. You might even see an ATIV S owner with some rocking great Nokia accessory that easily beats the phone it is attached to in terms of quality etc.

I for one hope this turns out to be true, the potential this standardized port placement can be pretty big.

Source

Thanks to al who tipped this, seems we are all looking at the WP/Nokia related blogs at the same time

Video: Nokia 808 PureView 4 way unboxing by Nokia N8, Nokia Lumia 900, Nokia 808 PureView and Canon 60D

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 10:04 AM PDT

One of the first things I had planned with the 808 PureView was a multiview unboxing. Unfortunately as I was setting up, my backpain/sciatica spontaneously returned so I was unable to set up the angles as I wanted it. I had to get it done though as I don’t have long with the 808 and the result was still somewhat alright.

The Nokia 808 PureView is already recording inside the bag whilst all this is happening. There was a little hitch at first as it kept on turning off whilst in the box. I thought it might have been a problem like some of my friend’s SammyDroids but it was actually being interrupted by the NFC tag that switches on the NFC video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtlAWnlJRbI

The audio from my 60D is terrible in my room. It echoes way too much as you may or may not have seen from the Lumiappadays I’ve recorded whilst in Preston. The N8 starts off the audio at first which sounds great. I’m not sure what happened with the 900 but the audio wouldn’t work in the video editor after about 10 seconds. Sound is normally quite good on that too. But 808′s is superb.

Note: Video processing did not go too well and for some reason, in addition to the 808′s audio, there was repeat audio from the other recording devices. Only one source was supposed to play at a time. Oh well, I’ve learnt for next time.

I haven’t been playing with the 808 for long at all but I’m really liking it so far. Belle FP1 on faster hardware is night and day compared to Belle on N8, and a complete heaven vs hell when comparing 808 to the first S^3 iteration. Colour me greedy, but I expect phones to be responsive to my inputs. That’s what had been frustrating me about my N8 and older symbian phones for a while. So far, 808 performs the actions I ask it to in a timely, responsive manner.

I’m loving how the 808 feels in the hand. The weight. The shape and the textured back. My only niggles so far is text input on the keyboard (better than N8 but still frustrating. Not in N9′s league or Lumia) as well as the browser.

Nokia Lumia 820/Arrow? First Real Images! Looking Beautiful

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 09:23 AM PDT

Yes! It’s finally arrived, the first real images of the upcoming Lumia device, what you’re looking at is ~~most probably the Lumia 920 or Lumia Phi~~ (Update: It seems this could be the 820 as well, so we’ll leave it at 820/Arrow) that we’ve heard oh so much about. First thoughts is that it truly is beautiful! Secondly it is quite big (which I’m liking even more), also they seem to have gotten rid of the silver plating on the back that surrounds the camera on the 900 & 800 , so even more to like! It’s interesting to see the charger port has been moved to the bottom of the device, also note the new WP logo button as well as “datasense” tile which tracks your data usage on WP8. The supposed version of the O.S. is 8.0.9735.0, the source also mentioned something about 335 MBs of ram for low-end devices, but I couldn’t make much of it, worth noting is the tiny speaker on the lower left side of the device, since the charging port has taken the normal speaker position, it’s been moved; however it does look a tad bit too small (especially with reports that HTC are bringing betas audio to WP8).

The rumored specs for this device are:

Dual-core 1.5GHz CPU
4.65″ AMOLED Display (1280×720?)
NFC, LTE, external microSD expansion
Led NON-Xenon flash

What truly got me excited was the screen size, if the 820/Arrow is a midrange device with a 4.65″ screen size than a Phablet Lumia 900 successor is almost a sure thing, and if the device is bigger there leaves more room for a pureview sensor. Be excited guys!

*I was literally so excited to type this that I pressed publish with pictures only

Can anyone make out the screen resolution????

VIA

thanks to @Et3rnal_ for the tip off

Lumiappaday #289: Sketch Board demoed on the Nokia Lumia 900

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 06:44 AM PDT

Sketch Board is a pretty decent sketch app, with some very decent controls for drawing. Pan along with pinch and zoom is accurate and responsive and does not result in drawing accidentally all over the page. You’ve got the usual pen/pencil, eraser, colour changer as well as undo/redo (which can undo everything one step at a time) and new sketch.

In settings you can go ahead and increase the canvas size, though it would be nice to dictate where that addition is placed – e.g. if I need to add something on the left side.

#289) Sketch Board

Price: Free or £1.29

Link (Free): http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/afbce866-a0fa-4729-b613-c5a5e3dc7e16

Link (Paid): http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/164789a1-5445-44c9-9918-541be7deabf0

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLN86S_GLag

Developer Blurb:

It’s a wonderful tool for sketching.You can sketch anything as your mind .What’s more,you can even sketch base on a photo or a picture.Try it!It’s free!

PS:If you like it!Please rate it.We really need your supports!Thank you!

Version 3.0
1、Allow you rotate,move,zoom the added photo;
2、Linked to the skydrive, which allow you add a photo from skydrive or export to the skydrive.
3、Allow you choose the size of board exactly
4、Allow you pin sketch to start
Version 2.0—-2.9
1、New UI;
2、Can import picture from albums or camera,then you can sketch base on the picture or photo;
3、save/open the current/last sketching state automatically;
4、Allow two fingers to zoom or move the board to sketch more details;
5、Can use one finger to zoom(Palm Button)
6、Clear the board(Hold on the clear button)
7、Srtoke Eraser (Hold on the eraser button activate it,and it does not support undo or redo.)
8、Add Helps;
9、Holding dark eye ICO can remove the photo;
10、Update color picker,and allow to choose color from the board;
11、Allow you save with high quality;
12、Added sketching effect
13、Fixed some mistake in Lumia 800
14、Added background color option
15、Added “My Album”,to keep your sketching file
16、Linked to picture hub

Rating:

Design: 8

Usability: 8

Performance: 9

Price: 10/9

Nokia trolling Samsung’s rumoured Billion dollar’s worth of nickel coin filled trucks

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 06:40 AM PDT

Game on. Nokia’s getting more and more fiesty with Samsung and has posted a lighthearted picture above.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151013674497397&set=a.338008237396.161268.36922302396&type=1&relevant_count=1

You may have heard false rumours of Samsung supposedly trolling Apple by sending off their patent-infringement payment of 1 Billion dollars in a fleet of trucks filled with nickel coins.

With Samsung taking a bit of the limelight for launching the first WP8 devices, Nokia is keen to assert its position as the only WP manufacturer that matters (it’s the only one really trying).

Is it a little too much? I’m all for twitter banter, and the back and forth teasing, but this might come off a little too strong for some. Or is Nokia finally ready to be bold and aggressive in the tough war of smartphones? Each move seems to be promising something big. I hope Nokia delivers. Please. No anticlimax.

Cheers Vedhas Patkar for the tip.

Leak or Fake: Press pics – Nokia Lumia 920 with PureView, Nokia Lumia 820

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 03:48 AM PDT

Tweeted by @evleaks are supposedly upcoming Nokia Lumia handsets. We can’t be sure if these are real or fake.

First up, looking familiar to pics of the Nokia Arrow, a very colourful line up. Not sure about the rectangle rounded corners here.

This is followed up by what is supposedly a 4.5″ curvy screened Nokia with PureView. But there’s no hump and no xenon.

Cheers @jonjongoco for the tip!

Nokia 808 PureView in the house :) Cheers @Nokia_Connects

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 03:30 AM PDT

I was expecting this would arrive on Monday but it’s here a little early. I got extremely excited to hear a van parking outside and seeing the BIG YELLOW DHL screaming through the window

“YOUR 808 IS HERE!!”

Props to Katie from Nokia Connects for sorting this trial out.

Uni is about to start on Thursday but before then, I’m going to try and cram as much 808 related things for you guys.

N8 there for size comparison.

Plan for the day…808 unboxing and some filming. I’ve got a couple of other projects I want to be filming with the 808 in the next week or so.

Ah, to be reunited. I haven’t played with 808 since June! Time to saturate myself in PureView

HTC escaping the boring with Nokia Lumia like vibrant purple Accord?

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 03:15 AM PDT

Whilst everyone was going with black/white/grey or silver, Nokia was always splashing colours around, from their rich history of symbian phones to the new Lumia range.

Looking at HTC’s history of phones, they’re pretty drab colour wise.

GSM Arena

Seeing how that works (like how HTC saw the N9′s curvy polycarbonate worked) HTC have the Accord – a bright, vibrant, Lumia like WP8.

Of course, everyone’s allowed to have colourful devices if they wanted to. However, black/white is pretty much the standard. It’s nice to see folks trying to follow Nokia’s lead.

Not sure why it has WP7 homescreen but WP8 button.