If there’s one thing that CES is good for, it helps build up feverish anticipation for the latest consumer gadgets soon to hit the market in the coming year. Many devices stood out during this year’s convention, but few garnered as much critical praise as the Nokia Lumia 900. It’s got the goods required to make it one of the top-selling smart phones of 2012, and can easily do so as AT&T’s network continues to improve. Why is the Nokia Lumia 900 so widely-lauded? Let’s take a look at the relevant information, and you can decide for yourself whether or not the hype is justified.
Hardware and Features
Under the hood, the Lumia 900 boasts a 1.4 GHz Qualcomm CPU, 512 MB of RAM, and 16 GB of on-board storage. It sports front and rear-facing cameras as you’d expect from any phone, as well as a few aesthetic touches that are lacking in other phones on the market at the moment for the same price. One thing that strikes you immediately when seeing the Lumia 900 for the first time is its effortless class. It just looks solid, despite the lack of brushed aluminum. It’s one of the slimmest smartphones phones available on the market, and comes in a distinctive cyan tone that’s tough to forget.
Software, UI, and More
Once released into the wild, the Lumia 900 will be running the excellent Windows Phone 7.5 operating system, one that’s gaining market share and consumers every day. According to MBA Online, Understanding market context is necessary for implementing innovative products. Microsoft understood that a competitive operating system today needed visible icons and informative home screens, and Windows Phone does just that. That alone should give potential buyers a reason to at least give it a shot. Aside from WP7′s technical merits, it’s particularly peppy on the Lumia 900. Microsoft doesn’t really get enough credit for WP7, because it really is a decent operating system. It looks great, and performs even better. It’s a bit of a change of pace from Android or iOS, but it’s well worth making the effort. Mango’s tile-based interface is easily one of the slickest mobile experiences you can get nowadays.
Network and Carriers
Like the Nokia Lumia 710 before it, the 900 will come on AT&T’s still-evolving 4G network. At present, the 4G layout of AT&T’s wireless setup is obviously behind that of Verizon. However, that’s hardly the drawback that many make it out to be. AT&T offers much the same speeds that can be achieved in certain areas on Verizon, though that’s more or less only applicable in urban areas. Elsewhere, you’ll have to rely on Ma Bell’s 3G HSPA+ service to get you through the night. Still, 3G with AT&T can be appreciably better than with other networks, as some field tests will attest.
Final Thoughts
The Nokia Lumia 900 has many things going for it, and none of them are particularly superlative in their own categories. The hardware isn’t dominant, the operating system isn’t Android, and AT&T isn’t really the best 4G network. The Lumia 900 is generating such massive levels of enthusiasm due in large part to its flawless execution. Some times these things happen by design, and other times by happenstance. Regardless, the Lumia 900 running WP7 is one of the most promising phones of 2012. Absent a gigantic solar flare that renders the world’s telecommunications infrastructure useless, it’ll be a hit because it’s one of the best overall phones to come along in a long time.
Unboxing of the limited edition Nokia Lumia 800 Dark Night Rises. This version of the Nokia Lumia 800 ties in with Batman, The Dark Night Rises. The phone wont be for sale and there is only 40 made worldwide.
It has been leaked that Nokia will be launching their first Windows Phone 7 mobile phones next week. There is still no word on exactly what the devices will be called, but they will all be running Windows Mobile 7.5
We hope to have more details on the release in the coming days.
There are a lot of reports this morning that Samsung are preparing to acquire Nokia. Nokia recently signed with Microsoft to produce Windows Phone 7 devices and it seems like Microsoft could even be a potential buyer. However, it seems as though Samsung are interested in Nokia and very close to closing a deal.
I cant see Microsoft acquiring Nokia and making their own device, so Samsung is the perfect match for the company. Im quite surprised HTC havent thought about putting together a syndicate.
Sometimes I really think Nokia doesn’t have an overall strategy! Nokia has decided to drop the Ovi brand all together. Nokia says it’s done with the Ovi brand:
“By centralizing our services identity under one brand, not two, we will reinforce the powerful master brand of Nokia and unify our brand architecture— while continuing to deliver compelling opportunities and experiences for partners and consumers alike,” said Nokia’s chief marketing officer Jerri DeVard, in the company blog.
I guess it is a little less confusing, but why drop a brand you have been promoting for the past four years? Im not really sure this change is going to help Nokia’s share price which has been struggling to gain ground at all in the past year.
Here is a very quick demo of the new Symbian Anna OS that will be released very soon. The Symbian Anna OS will be for phones such as the Nokia E7 and Nokia N8.
Nokia has just launched Nokia Drop, which allows users to push links and pictures from their desktop browser to their Nokia phones.
All the user needs to do is install the Nokia Drop application on their phone and install a browser extension on their desktop. The browser extension is available in both Firefox and Chrome.
Nokia has just launched the E7 in the USA. US consumers can now purchase the E7 from all good Nokia retailers. The E7 was released in Europe back in February, but it was held back for US consumers.
The E7 features:
Symbian
4 inch screen
AMOLED display 640 x 360 pixel resolution.
Quadband GSM radio
Wifi, Bluetooth
16GB of onboard storage
8mp camera
720p video recording
dual-LED flash
The E7 is available from Amazon.com for $649, or Nokia USA for $679.
Recently Nokia partnered with Microsoft to start releasing handsets on the Windows Phone 7 platform. It was expected that the first release batch would happen in 2011, but it seems as though we probably wont see any Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices until 2012.
Nokia India has confirmed that it is currently working on a 12 month time frame to release the first Windows Phone 7 devices.
Nokia had to make some serious changes, because they seem to losing marketshare and also losing in the platform wars, with Symbian just not performing against the rest.
SlashGear is reporting that Nokia has sent out an email to Nokia Launchpad program members which details on the company offering free Nokia E7 handsets.
Email sent to developers, detailed:
We are also excited to offer you one free admission to the next Nokia World/Nokia Developer Summit later this year. We will take care of the registration costs.
To assist you with your development activities in the near-term, we will ship one free Nokia E7 device to all program members. Additionally, we will send to you one free Nokia WP7 device, as soon as it becomes available.
To accelerate your mobile app development, we will provide free tech support on all Nokia technologies for the next three months (up to 10 tickets). Equally, if you would like to take advantage of a free User Experience evaluation of one of your apps, please let us know and we will work with you to make those arrangements.
