My Nokia Blog

From a writers mind: 920 or 820?
Lumia 920 Dismantled and Scrutinized
WP8 Drag & Drop File Storage Detailed
How Many Lumias Were Sold in the US Last Quarter? Probably Well Below Half a Million
Rumor: Lumia 822 Bound for a Verizon Launch on Nov. 12th ($99)
Video: Nokia: Dancing With Strangers: Everyday Adventure in Istanbul
Nokia Lumia 510 Galleries

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 03:52 PM PDT

September the 5^th, probably one of the most important dates of 2012 (for Nokia that is), Nokia launched its second stage of the Lumia strategy with the 820 and 920. Gorgeous devices that really stood out in what was, or is, available in the market today. Cutting edge technology, and available in many different flavours, a blessing. Or is it?

Well, yes and no. As I was viewing the video of the presentation that day I was amazed at the freshly announced Lumia 920. It really looked awesome, it had the same look as my current 800 yet it improved on it in practically every way I wanted. A larger screen, a better camera, better battery life, a front facing camera and many other cool new features that really looked good. They even showed a very promising colour; Grey. That had to be mine I thought to myself, it wasn't as depressing as the standard black yet not as outgoing as the brighter colours available.

A few weeks went past, there was some controversy surrounding the 920 with the camera, there were some premature assumptions and mostly a lot of debate went on about what the pricing would be and when it would hit the stores. All that didn't bother me; I wanted to know where I could find some pictures of that Grey colored Lumia 920. I didn't care how small they were, I needed to see it in real life, as I fell in love with the renders of it. Then, that glorious moment came; Engadget had snapped some pictures of the now Ashgrey 'Unicorn' Lumia 920.

And it was… well… disappointing, it was just a dull colour. It didn't do the device justice I even thought it was ugly and looked like an unpainted Cyan, Red, Yellow or White version.

This made me think, what colour am I going to get now? The black one was just a little too bland and after all my 800 is already black and looks a lot like a 920. Of course, there are other colours available like a sensual Lipstick Red or a Lightning Bolt Yellow. Or maybe a Diamond White one would be the answer? Nice as all colours look, none of them really ‘wowed’ me and felt like I would plonk down a wad of cash and walk out of a store happy if I bought one. Buy it and you are stuck with the colour for a while, was the thought that ringing through my head.

Then just a few days ago it struck me, why would I want a 920? What is the real benefit it has for me over the 820? The piece de resistance is the camera, but even when I had an N8 when did I really use the camera's performance? Not that often actually. The high definition screen perhaps? Higher is better, that is the mantra I always used to justify purchases, but looking at the screen of a Galaxy SII I couldn't say it looked bad, not even for the near future.

Why would I buy a 920 then, I figured? Wireless charging? The 820 can do that as well. Larger in-built memory? Nice to have, but I don't even use the full 16GB on my 800. Even if the 8GB of the 820 is filled I could just slap a SD card in it and be on my way. Going over all kinds of specs and comparing them to real world usage I had it was hard to find a real big reason to choose the 920 over the 820. But I was still torn; the 920 still seemed like the better deal.

Until now.

When the pricing was announced it became clear, the 920 feels just too expensive for my use case. The 820 seems like the better deal going purely by raw specs sheets and pictures. One of the main things that actually drew me to the 820 is the changeable covers. Dislike the white? Just change it to black and back again. Microscopic scuffs on the back? Just slap on a new cover and be on your way again. Want something completely different, I'm counting on third parties to deliver on that end.

So, will my next phone be a Lumia 820? Chances are it will be, although I probably have never been so torn between devices as I am now. Nokia really need to send me a test unit somewhere in the coming weeks I guess.

Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Lumia 920 Dismantled and Scrutinized

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 01:26 PM PDT

The image above is the official Nokia service manual for the Lumia 920, detailing the product code parts and numbers, mostly for internal factory use and what not. However the folks at windowsmania.pl got their hands on a Lumia 920; and decided to pop it open and have a look for themselves.

First up we have the motherboard, which is attached to the internal framework of the device itself (yes that tiny thing).

Here we have what the phone looks like directly after popping off the back, note the charging plate on the back cover (beneath the camera) as well as the coil attaching the back cover to the battery.

This whole piece is the actual induction/charging coil (part of the back cover), the charging coil itself, along with the camera sensor and the curved glass itself are the main reasons behind the width and weight of the lumia 920 (the camera sensor alone is 7Mm).

Worth noting is that the 920 apparently has only one single speaker, I’m not one to judge before trying but that doesn’t sound to promising, especially since the speaker on the 900 is absolute garbage.

Source

WP8 Drag & Drop File Storage Detailed

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 01:08 PM PDT

Chinese Site Winp.cn have gotten their hands on a Lumia 820, and while digging through it decided to kindly walk us through the “Drag and Drop” file storage feature in WP8. Once the phone is connected to your PC you can access both the SD card and the internal memory (just like the older Symbian phones); fro their you can access multiple files and folders inside the phone and drag and drop folders from your PC to phone & Vice Versa.

*note the “Ringtones folder” which means we’ll most probably be able to use custom ringtones in WP8 without the need for 3rd party apps… yay.

Via Source

Thanks to @arungprasad for the tip

How Many Lumias Were Sold in the US Last Quarter? Probably Well Below Half a Million

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 10:14 AM PDT

The following post doesn’t have any solid “official” numbers to support it, but it does a few to “guide” it towards the point I’m making; in other words this is a HUNCH; don’t prosecute me…please

Earlier today At&t launched their quarterly profits announcing total sales of 6.1 Million Smartphones; 4.7 Million of which were iPhones:

6.1 – 4.7 = 1.4 Million Android, BB & WP Devices (combined).

The 1.4 Million devices are a combination of Windows Phone and Android devices Plus whatever minuscule sales they receive from BlackBerry; to give a bit more context to these numbers let’s look at the sales from Q2, which was the first quarter to include the Lumia 900 in its sales- in Q2 At&t sold 5.1 Million Smartphones, 3.7 million of which were iPhones

5.1 – 3.7 = 1.4 Million (again) Android, BB & WP devices.
1,400,00 – 600,000 (generously assuming that no Lumia 710s were sold by T-Mobile, and all 600K came from At&t) = 800,000 Android & BB devices

Nokia announced that the number of Lumias sold in Q2 in North America was close to 600,000 (900 + 710); although both quarters sold a similar number of non-iPhone devices the biggest difference between the two quarters lies in the fact that Q2 saw a HUGE advertising push for the Lumias in the US by both At&t and Nokia. They were the pride and joy of all At&t stores, and were given center stage; however in Q3 the Galaxy S3 was released on At&t which has proven to be a wild success. Also worth noting is that the 900 is not the only WP device carried on At&t, they also have the HTC Titan II and the Samsung Focus 2 (but for the sake of this post let’s pretend those didn’t get any sales).

To get a look at the number of non-WP or Apple devices At&t usually sells let’s go back one more quarter to Q1; pre-Lumia launch- in Q1 At&t sold 5.5 Million smartphones, 4.3 of which were iPhones:

5.5 – 4.3 = 1.2 Million Android & BB Devices (ignoring any non-Lumia WP devices they carried).

So it’s safe to assume that At&t usually sells a bit over a Million Android devices a quarter, alongside their huge sum of iPhones, seeing only a dip of Android sales during Q2 when the Lumia got a significant push in advertising. Comparing the total number of Lumias sold worldwide in Q2 (4 Million) to those sold in Q3 Worldwide (2.9 Million) = Quarterly drop of 28%. Assuming that all countries shared the 28% drop in Lumia sales, that would mean that the US would have seen only 472,000 Lumia sales. However that fails to factor in the number of sales lost in the US due to the launch of the GS3 as well as the discontinuation of most advertising promotions. This is also neglecting the fact that Q3 saw the Lumias launching in multiple new countries including KSA, Lebanon, India and more; meaning the true decrease in US sales would be more than 28% to offset the new region sales.

Seeing as I’m no analyst in any shape or form (in other words don’t take my word for it); I suspect that of the 1.4 Million devices sold by At&t this quarter close to 1 Million (probably more) were android devices, leaving less than 400,000 to be split amongst the Lumias, other WP devices, and BB.

*Note: i neglected to factor in Lumia 710 sales, seeing as it didn’t receive much marketing and I couldn’t find any solid reference numbers.

-This is my first time attempting to interpret such numbers, so it’s quite possible my calculation logic is flawed; feel free to point it out below.

Rumor: Lumia 822 Bound for a Verizon Launch on Nov. 12th ($99)

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 09:16 AM PDT

Roadmap

Another addition to the overwhelming evidence to support Verizon’s first ever Nokia Windows Phone device (in fact its first Windows Phone Device period). A leaked document shows a listing of the Lumia 822 coming in three colors (White, grey & black) supposedly set to launch on the 12th of November. The 822 will apparently cover the low-end of Windows Phone devices at “big Red”, retailing for $99.99 with a two year contract; while the high end is covered by the HTC 8X retailing at $199. Which might point to a lack of a 920 variant headed to Verizon; sorry folks.

Honestly I thought the 822 would be priced at $50 rather than a $100 especially since the Lumia $900 was retailing for $100 at launch then at one point reached only a penny (now at $50); if the pricing is accurate it’s safe to assume that the 820 and the 810 will most probably carry a similar price tag.

Via

Video: Nokia: Dancing With Strangers: Everyday Adventure in Istanbul

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 06:30 AM PDT

Nokia’s everyday adventure lands them in Istanbul this week.

It’s the curiosity, challenge and inspiration that drives young people in Istanbul, find out more: http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/10/24/5-ways-istanbul-is-more-amazing-than-you-think/