02 October 2013

My Nokia Blog

My Nokia Blog

Nokia Lumia 820, 920, 925 and 1020 will get BT LE support in GDR3

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 05:29 PM PDT

Lumia Family

There has been a little bit of confusion over the last week. Adidas released their miCoach app, and it was stated that it will support a Bluetooth Low Energy (BT LE) heart rate monitor, for the 520,620/5, and 720 devices. It was stated that the 820, 920/5 and the 1020 wouldn’t support these devices. Nokia Australia was asked about this, and they responded on twitter stating that these higher end devices don’t have the hardware to support it. This contradicts the paperwork at FCC and Bluetooth Org (governing body on Bluetooth standards) that says it supports such technology.

After WPCentral ran the story, several Nokia staff tweeted that this wasn’t the case, and that these devices will in fact support it, in a coming update (GDR3). Today, both the official Nokia Care channel (@NokiaHelps), and Nokia Australia (@NokiaAustralia) came out and confirmed that  they will be getting support in the next major update, which would of course be GDR3, expected to begin rolling out later this month.

Cheers dg for the tip!

Nokia Lumia 1020 vs Sony Xperia Z1: Oversampling Fight!

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 08:23 AM PDT

lenses

Dear MNB Readers!

Our good friend Steve Litchfield has continued his tradition of great camera comparisons, this time, the two contenders are the Nokia Lumia 1020 with its 41 Megapixel camera and the Sony Xperia Z1 with its 20 Megapixel camera. A wise man once said, “It is not about the megapixels, it is how you use them.”

Both devices, the 1020 and Z1, use their own form of oversampling. Steve quickly details the idea behind oversampling in his article:

The core idea behind Nokia’s use of a crazily high-resolution sensor (41 megapixels) in the 808 and, more relevantly here, the Lumia 1020, was to allow for ‘computational photography’. Firstly, this involves taking large amounts of raw data and using it intelligently to produce higher quality data in smaller quantities, e.g. 5MP images with relatively low amounts of noise. Secondly, using the high native resolution to allow for zooming and re-framing without having to ‘interpolate’ (i.e. making up detail that’s not really there). And now the same idea has been copied by Sony for the Xperia Z1. So how does the Z1 fare in a ten-scene camera shootout against Nokia’s second generation PureView tech in the 1020?

 

streetcomp

Steve has years of experience doing camera comparisons and here are his test notes:

On with the tests, though. Some notes:

  • The output resolutions of the two phone cameras are different (5MP versus 8MP), plus they have different fields of view, so it’s not possible to match the shots/crops exactly (or do one of our famous interactive comparators).
  • All settings were on auto, except where noted below.
  • The Z1 was on the August 8th OS kernel, with firmware build 14.1.6.1.518 – my initial tests with it showed a marked difference between ‘auto’ mode results and ‘manual’, but after a round of app updates and a reboot the phone settled down and there were marginal differences between the two modes. Sony is expected to tweak ‘auto’ mode in an upcoming firmware update, but the modes can be discounted for these tests. In the one or two cases where the ‘auto’ photo looked worse, I switched in the ‘manual’ one instead. I initially planned to show both here, but they were in most cases so similar that casual readers wouldn’t be able to spot differences and would have got confused.
  • On the Lumia 1020, I used Nokia Pro Camera to take the shots, for maximum oversampling benefit. Note that, as per my recent exclusive editorial, I only used the initial 5MP photos, so that quality wasn’t lost, i.e. there was no ‘reframing’ at any stage.
  • In each case, I’ve included the original JPG files, in case you want to take the time to download them and examine them for yourself.
  • Just for fun, I’ve scored the results as I’ve gone along. Ten test scenes, ten points available for each. See the verdict at the end for a final summation.

I have always been one to want to see technology improve for all, regardless of the manufacturer or any biases. It is great to see other companies put more effort into their cameras because at the end of the day, it is a win for consumers as we have more choices and less sacrifices in the quality and features that we need and want. I look forward to the next few years in the mobile industry as OEMs are going to have to work harder for our money, the 3 main OSes are becoming similar from an app perspective, not number of apps but app A, app B, app C may be on all 3 OSes, and this will lead to innovations in other areas.

nailscomp

Without further delay, please head on over to AllAboutWindowsPhone for the full article and comparison photos and to see the results of another great camera shootout. If you’d like, come back and leave us a comment or two about the results, your thoughts on oversampling, sharpness, camera humps, crop zoom, saturation or anything else that comes to mind concerning this topic. What camera phone are you using currently and what do you think about the competition such as the iPhone 5S, the Moto X with the latest camera software update and what about a HTC One refresh with a higher MP camera? The things that make you go hmmmmmmmm…..
As always, thank you for choosing MyNokiaBlog and have a wonderful day!

Deaconclgi

Source: AAWP

All images and AAWP content is Copyright (©) All About Windows Phone 2011-2012

Global Variant of Nokia Lumia 1520 to come with built in wireless charging!

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 03:34 AM PDT

Screen Shot 2013-10-01 at 11.32.28

 

 

According to some details on the FCC tests performed on the Nokia Lumia 1520, there will be two versions. One with and one without built in Wireless Charging.

I’m a big fan of the convenience of wireless charging. Just setting things down on a charging plate, fatboy pillow, charging stand, car holder etc without plugging it in…bliss.

Difference between RM-938 and RM-940 is that DTM feature and WCDM1700/2100 (Band 4) will be disabled from RM-940, and RM-940 will GPRS support multi-slot class 10. In the testing reported here multi-slot class 12 has been available as worst case in all the samples. Additionally, difference between RM-940 and RM-938 is that RM-940 has only Wireless Charging interface pins in the backcover, while RM-938 has built-in Wireless Charging (WPC/Qi) loop. This HW difference was tested according to FCC KDB 648474 D03 Wireless Chargers Battery Cover V01R02

Wireless charging built in may mean a slightly thicker device – or perhaps just slightly more expensive if, due to the large 6″ display of the 1520 there’s more internal space for wireless charging.

Which would you go for?

Source: FCC

Via: WMPU

Cheers Alvester for the tip!

Poll: Should Windows Phone lose its capacitive buttons?

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 02:16 AM PDT

Screen Shot 2013-10-01 at 10.04.47

This topic has come up many times, what with some preferring the physical or capacitive keys and others wishing it were done away with (with the alternative being virtual or even gestures).

Screen Shot 2013-10-01 at 10.04.11

It’s posing quite an interesting discussion over at Reddit.

With regards to Nokia Lumia users, we were treated to this possibility before the first Lumia was ever known. Remember that N9 with virtual buttons? Yeah they looked ugly but it did show a potential future.

Unlike most Androids with virtual keys, the N9 version didn’t eat up screen pixels because WP was 800×480 and the N9′s screen was 854×480. An extra 54 pixels for virtual buttons.

Pros for losing capacitive/physical face buttons:

  • Sleeker look
  • Less bezel
  • Can easily be customised (lol, as if MS would allow this. If they did, goodbye annoying bing button that no one uses. I much prefered it for contextual search)

Cons for losing capacitive/physical face buttons:

  • Irregularities in apps causing black bars on screen
  • Not quite the same ‘sensation’
  • Loss of simplicity/uniformity

There’s much more to add of course but now I have paediatric respiratory diseases to read up on :) .
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