Dual SIM Nokia Asha 305 available now, but only in Philippines

Announced more than a month ago as part of Nokia's new Asha Touch series of handsets, the Asha 305 was supposed to be released before the end of June. But it's only now that the phone has become available - at least in the Philippines.

According to TechNoodling, you can get a Nokia Asha 305 in the Philippines for 3,890 PHP (about €76 or $93). The handset features dual SIM capabilities, as well as a 3 inch resistive display with 400 x 240 pixels, Nokia Browser, 2MP rear camera, and a 2GB MicoSD card pre-installed.

For now, we don't know when the Nokia Asha 305 will be released in other countries, but it's likely going to happen soon.

Nokia and AT&T cut Lumia 900 price to $50, sweeten the Windows Phone 7.8 pot

 Early Lumia 900 adopters might feel spurned knowing that their devices won't get any near-future upgrades beyond Windows Phone 7.8, but AT&T and Nokia are hoping that some new customers just need a little incentive to forgive the OS ceiling. As of now, the Lumia 900 has taken a permanent price cut to $50 on contract, whether it's one of the early color options or pretty in pink. Although the price drop might not take power users' eyes off of the Windows Phone 8 prize, it could make the Lumia 900 a low-hanging fruit for more than a few newcomers.

Nokia N9 updated to MeeGo PR1.3, boasts 1,000 improvements

MeeGo isn't quite dead, and Nokia N9 users are getting another update pushed to their phone to prove it. PR1.3, a firmware refresh that's been in the works at least since 1.2 was released a few months ago, has finally been made official. But this is no simple bug fix — the latest version of MeeGo offers an impressive 1,000 “quality improvements, including mail, Facebook and Twitter.” Some of the actual boosts involve camera feature enhancements, higher volume, NFC fixes, better video decoding and more precise copy and paste.

According to Nokia's official support page, the update will also provide several network and connectivity enhancements. The 203MB OTA download is now beginning to roll out, starting with unbranded devices and branching out from there. Continue past the break for the full statement from Nokia.

As you might have noted already, we have now started rolling out a new update for N9 to 40.2012.21-3. This software release brings you over 1000 quality improvements, including Mail, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as several small network and connectivity improvements. For more information on the update, you can check out http://swipe.nokia.com/.

Nokia 808 PureView announced for US, available soon through Amazon at $699

Color us surprised - or whatever the antonym of that word may be - but Nokia has announced the availability of its 41-megapixel 808 PureView smartphone for the United States, which will be distributed through Amazon. If you've been patiently waiting for your opportunity to wield this highly competent cameraphone for yourself, just know that you can soon stake your claim in line: pre-orders are set to begin later this week, and you can sign up on Nokia's website to receive that all-important notification. As for price, expect to pay $699 outright for this bulbous beauty, which offers support for AT&T's 3G network here in the US.

Nokia 808 PureView smartphone now official in the US

 I know that we talked about the availability of the Nokia 808 PureView smartphone Stateside earlier today, but here is the official announcement – where it will be available in an unlocked format – not to metion unsubsidized through Amazon.com. Those living in the US will be able to pick up the Nokia 808 PureView for a rather hefty $699 (considering how it is unlocked, that is the fair price one pays in other countries that also offer unlocked devices), where it will see action with a compatible SIM card from AT&T. It will, of course, work nice with T-Mobile's network, but that would limit you to just 2G speeds. Just to recap, the Nokia 808 PureView comes with a 41-megapixel sensor that offers the highest performance Carl Zeiss optics ever, in addition to Nokia's brand-new pixel oversampling technology.

PureView technology would mean being able to shoot typically sized images, while oversampling is used to merge up to seven pixels into a single "pure" pixel, while removing visual noise that is found on other mobile phone cameras. Apart from that, you are able to zoom in up to 3X without having to lose any of the details in your images. This means there are no artificially created pixels in your picture.

Apart from that, there is also a full HD 1080p video recording which is capable of playing back your video in 4X lossless zoom, and is also the world's first use of Nokia Rich Recording. This allows you to make audio recording at quality levels of a CD, which was previously made possible only with external microphones. Pre-sales begin on Amazon.com later this week.

Nokia Lumia 710 could be getting in on the Batman action as well

 
A while back we reported that there would be a Batman version of the Nokia Lumia 900. It would also be an extremely limited edition model and only 900 units will be made. Well if you're looking to get in on the Batman action but you'd rather not fork out the cash for a brand new Lumia 900, you might be in luck. In conjunction with the upcoming Christopher Nolan movie, the Dark Knight Rises, phone cases for the Lumia 710 have appeared and it looks like they will be sporting the Batman emblem as well.

According to WPCentral, these Xpress-on covers were spotted at a local T-Mobile store and were given out to new Lumia 710 purchases. It is unclear if these covers are officially licensed or if someone just got creative. It was also unclear as to whether these cases are part of a nationwide promotion or if it is just limited to that particular T-Mobile store, but if you're planning to get your hands on a Lumia 710, you could probably ask your local store rep to see if they have any Batman cases to give away. Admittedly not as exclusive or as cool as the Lumia 900, but we're sure that there are fans out there who wouldn't mind the freebie anyway.

Nokia introduces the Asha Touch range with three new handsets

Nokia announced the first three members of the newly created Asha Touch family of handsets. The Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306, and Asha 311 bring the range of feature phones even closer to smartphone territory, while still maintaining seriously low price tags. As Nokia's naming convention suggests, the Asha 311 will sit on top of the newly formed range of devices. The feature phone sports a CPU clocked at 1GHz and 256MB of internal memory, which can be further expanded through a microSD card slot. A 3.2MP camera can be found on the back of the device. The screen is a 3.0” capacitive touch unit with WQVGA resolution. Connectivity is fully covered with Bluetooth 2.1, pentaband WCDMA, microUSB port, and a 3,5mm audio jack. Accelerometer, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor complete the spec sheet, and make it worthy for any budget minded smartphone. Its measures are 106 mm x 52 mm x 12.9 mm, while its weight is 95 grams. A 1110mAh battery powers the handset. On the software side, the Asha 311 will offer 40 free EA games, preloaded Angry Birds, as well as the cloud accelerated Nokia Browser. Next, we have the dual-SIM Nokia Asha 305. The handset will offer a 3" resistive touch screen with WQVGA resolution. A 2MP camera, microSD card slot and dual-band GSM/EDGE connectivity are part of the specs too. Just like in the case of its bigger brother, the Asha 305 sports Bluetooth 2.1, microUSB 2.0 connector, 3.5 mm audio jack, and accelerometer. The handset's measures are 110.3 mm x 53.8 mm x 12.8 mm, while its weight is 98.3 grams. It is powered by the same 1110mAh battery as the Asha 311. The Nokia Asha 305 will also offer 40 free EA games and Nokia Browser. Nokia Maps will be available in select markets. As its name suggests, the Nokia Asha 306 is rather closely related to the 305. In addition to its specs, the 306 offers WLAN, as well as video streaming over both GPRS and WLAN. Nokia Asha 305 will begin shipping in Q2 with a price tag in the €63 range. Nokia Asha 306 and 311 will follow in Q3, priced at €68, and €92 respectively. Source

Mobilicity To Release Nokia Lumia 710

The Nokia Lumia 710 will be available in Canada via Mobilicity. The entry-level smartphone retails for $249.99 outright. As a comparison, Rogers is selling the Nokia Lumia 710 for $254.99. This Windows Phone 7 Mango smartphone features a 3.7-inch (800 x 480) ClearBlack TFT display with Gorilla Glass, a 1.4Ghz MSM8255 Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a 512MB RAM, an 8GB internal storage, a 5-megapixel camera with flash, WiFi (b/g/n), Bluetooth and a GPS navigation. [MobileSyrup]

Nokia Lumia 900 Review

By Introducing the Lumia 900, Nokia is effectively bringing a larger, 4G LTE, version of their Lumia 800 to the market. It has just about all the qualities of its predecessor, but the larger size changes the user experience slightly, and the battery life seems to be better out of the box. The Nokia Lumia 900 builds on the new industrial introduced by the Nokia N9 which uses a single bloc of polycarbonate that effectively becomes a cradle for the rest of the phone. This makes it extremely resistant to shocks, while giving it a soft texture. The question is: are you ready to try Windows Phone? Context We all use smartphones differently, so it's important that I tell you what I do with my smartphone: I typically check my email often with the built-in email app (via Microsoft Exchange), and I reply moderately because the virtual keyboard is slow, even on large displays. I browse the web several times a day to check on news sites, but I rarely watch movies or play music. I don't call much - maybe 10mn a day, if at all. On the "apps" side, I have a couple of social networks, a receipts manager, but I rarely play games or do something super-intensive. This usage pattern will affect battery life and the perception of what features are useful. External design The Nokia Lumia 900 inherits of everything that is great about the Lumia 800 smartphone. The 900 body is made of a single block of polycarbonate, using a similar molding process. All the internals are then inserted into the device, then the phone is closed off by the display. The result is a very soft, curvy, and organic shape that fits very well in the hand. If you wonder: this does not feel like "cheap plastic" at all. The main difference with the Nokia Lumia 800 (besides the size) is that the gorilla glass that tops the display does not have a curved edge. As I hinted in my Lumia 800, the rounded edge was a nice feature, but one that I could do easily do without. It looks like Nokia agrees, although I don't know exactly why this design element has been removed At the top, you can find the micro-SIM tray, which now requires a tool (a pin) to remove. Next to the SIM tray, there's a micro-USB port to sync/charge. I like the fact that the port is open, and easily accessible. Finally, there is also a standard 3.5mm audio connector. Note that when cables are located at the top or bottom, they don't hinder the normal manipulation of the phone. I find the top location is convenient when using headphones with the smartphone in a pocket. The right side has several buttons, which include volume controls, power and camera shutter. I'm usually not a big fan of having a lot of buttons of the side because of possible accidental key presses, but so far this hasn't been a problem. Finally, I'd like to add that I would prefer having a Power button that is at the top or in the front of the phone, as this is the single most important button on any smartphone. The loudspeaker is located at the bottom, which is typically a good strategy to obtain a loud sound, even if it makes it hard to do stereo etc… The Lumia 900 speaker works remarkably well, and I've been asked to lower the volume at the office, which is always a good sign for a smartphone speaker. Display I liked the AMOLED display on the Nokia Lumia 800, but the larger size on the Lumia 900 makes it even better from many points of view. First, it's a bit easier to read on. Secondly, it's easier to type with the virtual keyboard because the leys are a bit bigger. In terms of image quality, this AMOLED display is beautiful and well-tuned. Out of the box, the colors aren't too "flashy", and everything looks bright and contrasted. Windows Phone Windows Phone currently holds a relatively small market share, and if you have not tried it, you may ask yourself a number of questions. I'll try to provide an overview of its strengths and weaknesses as an Operating System (OS), then I'll cover key applications in the next section. You may remember that some years ago, Windows CE which became Windows Mobile, held a large market share in the smartphone segment. Back then, I believe that Microsoft saw it as an IT tool. With the rise of the iPhone, then Android, Windows Mobile quickly lost market share as its user interface was clunky and rather inefficient. The Windows Mobile devices were also seen as being relatively slow and power-inefficient. It all changed when Microsoft decided to put Windows Mobile under new management. What came out of it was a new operating system with a user interface based off the excellent “Metro” design, which is now making its way to Windows 8. Windows Mobile became Windows Phone, and the current version is 7.5. The bottom-line is: forget about Windows Mobile. Windows Phone is a completely new beast. Windows Phone is very “fast and fluid” (the official motto at Microsoft these days). It is remarkable that regardless of which hardware it runs on (including low-end phones with only 256MB of RAM), the user interface remains absolutely fluid. The user-interface is also simple and clear, and the typography is beautiful. In a nutshell, these are the strengths of Windows Phone. But it is not perfect: Windows Phone has less applications than iOS or Android, even among the most popular ones. It also tends to lag in terms of features. For instance, it only recently got tethering capabilities, and multi-core is still unsupported. For developers, C and C++, two of the most popular programming languages are not supported by the SDK, which means that iOS or Android applications need to be re-written to work on Windows Phone. This may explain the lack of apps… However, the Windows Marketplace has grown considerably since the Windows Phone launch, so if the set of applications that is useful to you is available, chances are that you will have a very good user experience. I did. Killer Apps Despite everything that modern smartphones do, most smartphone users activity usually revolve around these activities/apps. And curiously, most apps that people “can't live without" are in fact text-based. Keyboard (excellent): I've said it in pretty much all my smartphone reviews: the Windows Phone 7 keyboard is the best in terms of responsiveness and ability to predict which key you're trying to hit with your fingers. If you have never tried it, I suggest you do – some call it “voodoo”. The Nokia Lumia 900 takes this to the next-level because the display is bigger. Typing is a real pleasure, and I would rather do email with the Lumia 900 than any other device – including the Samsung Galaxy Galaxy Note, only because the Note is slightly “laggy”. Despite the lack of voice dictation, I'm giving an "excellent" rating to the keyboard. If you're a text-person, take note. Facebook (excellent): First, it is worth noting that the Facebook integration in the Windows Phone OS itself is simply extraordinary. From the People HUB, it is possible to post an update (to multiple social networks) and see your friends' updates. In the photo gallery, the Facebook albums are accessible and the image loading is even pretty fast, which makes me wonder if the photos are pulled to a Microsoft server, shrunk down before being sent back to Windows Phone. To access the full array of features in Facebook, there's a native app which has a Windows Phone "look and feel". All the Facebook features that I normally use are there (updtes, photo uploads, like/comments), but I don't know if something is missing when compared to iOS and Android versions. Skype (in beta): with a front camera, the Lumia 900 is now video-chat capable, and that's great because Skype is now in beta for Windows Phone. Unfortunately Skype is very much in "beta" state, and doesn't really work great yet. It is slow, and the contacts can't be filtered by online/offline. It is also not very stable and overall, it deserves its “beta” status. Nokia has preloaded Tango, which is a viable alternative to Skype. It's great, but the only issue is that most people haven't used it yet. [Windows phone Skype download link] Email (excellent): the email support is “top notch” in my opinion. It's true that you don't have things like the Blackberry shortcuts, but the Exchange Server support is great, the setup is extremely easy: I basically just had to enter my email and password. On Android and iOS I have to enter 5 or 6 long strings of information with the server URL, etc...it's so annoying. The font used in Windows Phone and the ultra-clean design makes emails very readable. Overall, I love the WP7 email experience. I'll take the WP7 email experience over iOS or Android any day. Only Blackberry remains the king of the hill on that one, especially on the Bold 9xxx. Finally, Windows Phone actually downloads the message upon receiving the notification. It's great because many smartphone out there don't download the message in the background, which means that the download happens when you open the email app. I can't stand it as that makes me wait another 4-10 seconds to access my email. Fortunately, this is not the case here. Maps (good): the default mapping application on Windows Phone is Bing Maps. It's pretty good, but unfortunately, it's not as good as Google Maps, especially when the Android version has had so many improvements over the past year. Yet, it should be good enough for most use cases in pedestrian mode. If you are trying to use it while driving (should you?) things can be a bit tough because street names aren't as pervasive or readable than with Google Maps. It would also be nice if this app could cache maps on the local storage. Navigation (very good): Fortunately, for driving around, there is Nokia Drive a true personal navigation application that is great: For one, the maps are stored locally on the phone itself, so the phone does not need to download the maps in real-time, which is great for speed and battery life. The map is also a bit better in terms of street names readability. The best part is that it's free - and you can download maps for *almost* every countries in the world (Japan isn't available, for example). Web Browsing (good): The new Windows Phone browser is now using the Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) rendering engine, which is much better than the IE7 engine used previously. This time, I have not seen any site compatibility issues, and overall, things work fairly well, but this phone won't break any performance record in terms of Javascript benchmarking - more on that topic in the performance section... Unfortunately, there is no Flash support, and although Microsoft has declared that it has no "philosophical issue" with having Flash on its platform, the current reality is that Flash isn't available. HTML5 is well supported, so you may try your luck on HTML5 sites, but I usually hear that many smaller services, especially in Europe, still run video on Flash. Actually, that's the #1 complaint that I hear about the iPad in Europe. Windows Phone 7.5 will have the same issue, although as a handset, it seems less of a problem than it is for a tablet. Web search (Bing-centric): it's not a surprise, but the default search engine is Bing (from Microsoft), and it works reasonably well. If you want, you can install Google Search as an app, but to be honest, I would have preferred to have a better integration of Google. Bing is OK, but I find it inferior to Google Search when it comes to searching for tech stuff in forums etc… Imaging / Photography (average) The iPhone 4S comes out sharper. Check the original photos on our flickr page The Lumia 900 had a harder time dealing with the strong contrast between the tree and the cloudy sky In terms of photography, the competitive landscape is brutal: this is obviously a feature that a lot of people care about, and that's probably the #3 item, after the overall design and user experience. Unfortunately, the Lumia 900 does not take the best photos and videos. In my tests, I found that the iPhone 4S, or the Samsung Galaxy S2 (or Galaxy Note) can easily beat the Nokia Lumia 900 in this area. This does not mean that the Nokia Lumia 900 is "bad". It's decent, but it can't compete in terms of photo image quality, there's no question about it. Fortunately, it's fairly good for web use (social networks, emails, twitpic…).The video quality pretty much reflect this as well. It's pretty good, but doesn't handle high contrast as well. Note that during my tests in relatively difficult lighting, both the Lumia 900 and the iPhone 4S experienced autofocus difficulties at different moments. Entertainment (Very good) Video playback: the Lumia 900 uses the same hardware as the Lumia 800 and it is therefore just as capable in terms of multimedia. I have tested the usual Starcraft and Gran Turismo 5 1080p trailers: both played well and looked beautiful on the big AMOLED display. Note that I've been only using .MP4 files and that they were all copied to the phone via the Zune software. I haven't tried all kinds of file formats, so if there's a demand for it, I can dig further into it. Photo Gallery: I like the photo gallery, it's efficient, and I can sort it by month, people or albums. It lets me access my online albums as well (I mainly view Facebook's photos - mines and my friends') and it's relatively fast, even over 3G. I also love the fact that the background image in the Pictures HUB is randomly selected from my recent photos. Good stuff! Music: obviously, you can import/buy Mp3 files, but each Windows Phone is also a Zune player, which means that you can also buy videos and subscribe to an listen music service from Microsoft. I used it for a while, and it's pretty good. If you want more choices, there is a host of apps that are available through Marketplace: Rhapsody, Slacker, LastFM, Amazon, Sirius - just to name the most famous. Nokia Music: this app/service is exclusive to Nokia handsets: Nokia music for Windows Phone was introduced at Nokia World, and it is dead simple: choose your music style, press play, and it will start streaming music. Don't like the current song? Skip to the next one.The radio is completely free, no login required, just tap and listen. System performance (synthetically slow, perceptibly fast) Again, the Lumia 900 will perform exactly like the Lumia 800 (see charts below). They use the same hardware, so expect the same performance. to be blunt, the Lumia 900 is not going to impress in any synthetic benchmark, and it is actually far behind in the carts. The explanation is twofold. First, Microsoft's Javascript engine is much slower than Apple's and Google's. That's why it basically loses badly in all the Javascript benchmarks. That said, Javascript benchmarks unfortunately represent much of the web experience, even if they are interesting to look at. Secondly, the Lumia 900 is not multi-core. This means that if we were to benchmark raw CPU performance, it would also lose badly to dual-core, and quad-core systems currently on the market. This performance would be needed to run physics in games, and faster image processing, just to give you two examples. The Lumia 900 and 800 share the same performance characteristics The Lumia 900 and 800 share the same performance characteristics Perceived performance (excellent) Ironically, the "perceived" performance is excellent. The Lumia 900 is more fluid than most smartphones  on the market, and its user interface is incredibly responsive. It's actually not easy to put the phone in a situation where the lack of CPU raw power is a problem. In fact, only games and select few apps would do that. The short explanation is that user-interface fluidity and raw CPU power are completely unrelated. We've had smooth scrolling since the days where 8-bit computers ran at 8MHz, and if you look at three of the major mobile operating systems out there (Android, iOS, Windows Phone), only Android suffers from user interface jerkiness (especially pre 4.0). iOS and Windows Phone have been fluid from day one. Battery Life (good+) In terms of battery life, I like to look at the standard depletion rate in standby mode, when the phone is working at a minimum, just to keep things up to date. This basically show the maximum battery life possible with my current settings. with my settings, the Lumia 900 loses about 10% of its battery overnight (8hrs), which I would consider to be relatively good, and definitely in-line, or slightly better than most high-end devices. That translates to an effective two days of standby mode with LTE on – not bad! From there, things can change radically depending on one's activity. The AMOLED display should be a major power draw, followed by the processor. I'll update this section by posting a 60mn of idling with display ON, a 60mn video test, and maybe a 60mn gaming test. Those two should give you the lower-bound for battery life. I didn't want to hold the review while we wait for those. Conclusion (very good) The Nokia Lumia 900 is a beautiful 4G LTE Windows Phone. It has a great design, great ergonomics and thanks to its polycarbonate build, it is remarkably solid. If you have not used the Windows Phone operating system, I would encourage you to check it out, and try it in a store if you can. It is very fast and clear but it's really up to you to decide if you like the design and the ergonomics. Windows Phone works well for what I do (see "context"), and I'm just about sure that it has a lot of potential for many, but particularly for first-time smartphone owners. Now, it is clear that Windows Phone is still facing an uphill battle, and the main thing that you need to look at is whether or not it has the apps that you need. That is the single most important thing that you need to figure out. If your needs are simple (email, text, web, music, videos), this should be easy. If you find the Windows Phone software proposition to be compelling, then the Nokia Lumia 900 is a great smartphone candidate. To make a long story short, the Lumia 900 is simply the best Windows Phone handset on the market, but the fight with other high-end smartphone is most definitely tough.

Magenta Nokia Lumia 900 spotted at Microsoft store

The Nokia Lumia 900 from AT&T has gotten off to a mixed start – sure, it managed to top of the Amazon sales chart just after a couple of days on sale, despite some users complaining about a glitch. The handset itself has also been speculated to cost around $217 to manufacture in total, and has since received a Lego charging dock of its own, but so far, we only know that it came in cyan, white and black shades. However, someone managed to spot a magenta version of the Nokia Lumia 900 at a Microsoft store recently, where this particular model could actually make it to the market in time for Mother's Day. The magenta Nokia Lumia 900 will most probably arrive at AT&T as well, although it can be quite hard to tell the difference between a spanking new color or just a Lumia 900 that had slipped on an extremely tight case which is magenta in color. Assuming the Nokia Lumia 900 will arrive in a new shade, would you be making provisions to bring this puppy home then?

Nokia Lumia 900 connectivity fix gets outed ahead of schedule

In a truly remarkable display of customer care, the folks at Nokia have managed to out the software fix to Lumia 900's connectivity issues already. That's only two days after the Finnish company acknowledged the problem's existence, and an impressive three days earlier than promised. The software update can be applied via Microsoft's Zune software. In case you don't feel like dealing with USB cables and such, you can also exchange your Nokia Lumia 900 at any AT&T store free of charge as well. And by the way, Nokia and AT&T are still going to give you a $100 bill credit if you purchase a new device between now and April 21st as a goodwill gesture, thus making it free on a contract. Source

Nokia Lumia 900 data connectivity fix available now, three days early

Good news came late today for all those Lumia 900 owners out there. It appears that Nokia has officially released the software update to resolve the handset's data connectivity issues — a full three days early, in fact. Users may download the software through either Zune on the PC or Windows Phone 7 Connector on the Mac. For those who'd prefer to swap out their handset at an AT&T store, you have between now and April 21st to complete the exchange. Naturally, the limited-time offer remains in place for all those who purchase a Lumia 900 before April 21st to receive a $100 credit to their AT&T phone bill, courtesy of Nokia. Quite the graceful recovery, indeed.

Nokia's Windows Phone 8 marketing rumored to be in the works

The Nokia Lumia 900 has barely been launched, and it seems that thanks to a leaked poster sent in by a tipster to the good folks at PhoneArena it would appear as though Nokia could be working on their marketing strategy for the upcoming Windows Phone 8 platform. According to the tipster, the poster is apparently not in its final stages of design so there could be some changes should it ever materialize, and it is unclear if the images of the phones in the poster are actual products or mere placeholders. In any case, assuming Microsoft keeps to schedule, there is a good chance that we could be seeing Windows Phone 8 "Apollo" by the end of the year. Given Microsoft's close relationship with Nokia, we wouldn't be surprised if the Finnish company had been given information ahead of their rivals. Until more concrete proof has been made available, we hardly think that an alleged leaked poster with the words "Windows Phone 8" and a Nokia logo slapped onto it should be worth getting too excited over.

Nokia Lumia 719 spotted

Yes, we do know that the Nokia Lumia 610 comes with WiFi hotspot capability, in addition to the Lumia 710, 800 and 900 receiving tethering capability as well. Having said that, here is the Nokia Lumia 719 which was captured as a spy shot, where the smartphone is said to make its way to the Asian and American markets. Using the powers of deduction, the model number itself places it higher than the current Nokia Lumia 710 in the smartphone hierarchy from Nokia. Sporting a seemingly basic design, the Nokia Lumia 719 does seem to be thinner compared to the Lumia 710, and the physical keys remain right below the display. Word on the street has it that the smartphone will feature a 3.7″ AMOLED display complete with Nokia's Clear Black technology, and a 5-megapixel shooter that is capable of capturing video in High Definition. No idea on pricing, but it is tipped that the Nokia Lumia 719 will be announced in China officially this coming March 28th.

Is this the Nokia Lumia 719c?

China is getting even closer to its first taste of Nokia Windows Phone and it might include a new phone entirely. While we're still two weeks away from Mr. Elop's proposed March 28th launch, the leaked shot above is purported to be the Lumia 719c - a previously unseen Windows Phone that could arrive in time for Nokia's latest smartphone push. It has that familiar curved shape and plastic build, but there's some slight design riffs to set it apart from both the Lumia 710 and 610 - one of which it'll likely replace in Chinese stores. We only have Mr. Blurrycam's one-shot portrait to go on so far, but expect to see some price-constrained specs like those seen on Nokia's other entry-level smartphone when (or if) it gets an official reveal.

Nokia 808 PureView Hands-On

[MWC 2012] I got some hands-on time with the Nokia 808 Symbian smartphone, and of course, the first (and only) thing that I wanted to look at was the 41 Megapixel camera that can capture photos as high-res as 38 Megapixels (only in 4:3 ratio). The demo was extremely interesting as the effective Megapixels of the phone could be used in a couple of different ways. Basically you can choose between the super-high resolution, or to have the Nokia software crunch all the pixels into a more Manageable 8 (or less) Megapixel image. Of course, Nokia says that it doesn't "just shrink" the image, but that its internal software processes the image so that it can extract and use as much information as possible from the original 41 Megapixel data from the sensor. From my perspective, this has great potential, and the demo images from Nokia (captured with the phone of course) were very convincing. Now, we really need to get in the field with one of those and capture a few photos to see how the average user (who just cares about point and shoot) can exploit this new capability. Anyhow, this is very promising, and although I'm not really a Symbian user, I hope that this feature -if it is as good in the field as it is on the show floor- will bleed out to non-Symbian devices. Now, there's quite a bit of software to port, so this may not make it into the Windows Phone line-up until Tango, as it has C++ support....

Nokia 808 PureView 41 MP camera sensor, 3x lossless zoom, other crazy imaging stuff to blow your mind

How crazy is Nokia 808 PureView camerphone with 41 megapixel sensor? I wasn't expecting much from Nokia during this Mobile World Congress. And I was expecting even less from the the successor to N8 - previous imaging flagship. We knew for months that the N8 successor is in the works, we even heard about the optical zoom, big camera sensor and other cool imaging stuff. But we also knew that it will still run on Symbian. No matter how good a camera they can put into this thing - I couldn't imagine any reason my aging N8 wouldn't be good enough until the same tech comes to Nokia Windows Phones. But as soon as they put the first Nokia 808 PureView slide on the screen at Nokia MWC launch event, I sat up, hardly believing my eyes. “Carl Zeiss 41 MP sensor“, the label below the camera said... What the heck?! How could they have fit 41 megapixel camera sensor in to this thing? And why do we even need 41 megapixels - the size of the image files will be enormous. Then Nokia got to explaining things, and PureView 808 got even more interesting. Here's a short feature overview video: I hardly know anything about cameras, so do not ask me to explain all the details. If you interested - there is a pretty detailed white paper about all the cool stuff inside Nokia PureView 808. You can download it here (*.pdf). Here's some info from the paper on how PureView works: The starting point is a super-high-resolution sensor. This has an active area of 7728 x 5368 pixels, totalling over 41Mpix. Depending on the aspect ratio you choose, it will use 7728 x 4354 pixels for 16:9 images/videos, or 7152 x 5368 pixels for 4:3 images/videos ... When you zoom with the Nokia 808 PureView, in effect you are just selecting the relevant area of the sensor. So with no zoom, the full area of the sensor corresponding to the aspect ratio is used. The limit of the zoom (regardless of the resolution setting for stills or video) is reached when the selected output resolution becomes the same as the input resolution.. For example, with the default setting of 5Mpix (3072 x 1728), once the area of the sensor reaches 3072 x 1728, you've hit the zoom limit. This means the zoom is always true to the image you want… The way Nokia PureView Pro zoom works gives you many benefits. But the main one is undoubtedly 'pixel oversampling'. Pixel oversampling combines many pixels to create a single (super) pixel. When this happens, you keep virtually all the detail, but filter away visual noise from the image. The speckled, grainy look you tend to get in low-lighting conditions is greatly reduced. And in good light, visual noise is virtually non-existent. Which means the images you can take are more natural and beautiful than ever. They are purer, perhaps a more accurate representation of the original subject than has ever been achieved before. Key specs for Nokia 808 Pureview imaging/sensor part: Video camera: Other specs: Recommended retail price before taxes and subsidies for Nokia 808 Pureview is 450 Euro. Which is higher than a for a  previous imaging flagship - N8 - at launch. But for this kind of leap ahead in camera tech - it sounds worth it. In the end, the only thing I can say is - Wow, Nokia! I thought it was impossible to get me interested in another Symbian phone, but you went ahead and did it. After Pureview - is there any point to buy a stand alone point&shooter? For Symbian - that's what I call going out with a bang. What a way to wave goodbye...

Nokia 808 PureView Comes with 41-Megapixel Camera

Nokia pulled out a surprise during its recent press conference as it introduced a smartphone equipped with a 41-megapixel camera. Yes, 41 megapixels! Whether or not you are a believer of the megapixel myth, cameras such as this in a small mobile device certain catches our attention. What is even more shocking is that the Nokia 808 PureView runs on Symbian Belle OS. Windows Phone gets no love here. The 808 PureView features a 1.3GHz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, 4-inch AMOLED display, and a curved Gorilla Glass for a scratch-proof screen. The camera, meanwhile, comes equipped with Carl Zeiss lens and can record videos in 1080p quality. Despite the 41-megapixel sensor, the camera can only capture images up to 38 megapixels, but we cannot imaging people wanting to store photos that large. Nevertheless, the large-megapixel sensor would enable to device to zoom up to 3x without sacrificing the quality. The Nokia PureView 808 will hit Europe in the second quarter of 2012 for about 450 euros (US$603.45). No official announcement yet on whether this will land North American shores.

Nokia announces Asha 202, 203 and 302 at MWC 2012

[MWC 2012] Today at its MWC press event, the company announced the launch of three new Asha phones. For those not in the know, Nokia's Asha devices were introduced at Nokia World last year, as a budget-friendly alternative to smartphones. They are feature phones running on Nokia's Series 40 operating system. Today, Nokia introduced the Asha 202, 203 and 302. The Asha 202 and 203 will be the first Series 40 devices to offer EA games (not to mention, Nokia will be giving away a 75 Euro EA game pack with 40 games for free to customers of either new model. They both features a 2.4″ touchscreen and a traditional keypad, a 2-megapixel camera, music player, FM radio, Nokia Browser, Bluetooth connectivity and SD card slot (up to 32GB). The 202 will also feature Dual SIM Easy Swap technology for those of you who are always swapping SIM cards on the go. They will retail for about 60 Euro and will ship in Q2 2012. The Nokia Asha 302 will be the first Series 40 phone to support Mail for Exchange. It also has a QWERTY keyboard for fast typing (no touchscreen though), a 1GHz processor, 3.5G data speeds, and will be available today for 95 Eruo. No word on whether these phones will be making it over to the US.

Nokia 808 PureView video and camera samples emerge

The Nokia 808 PureView's 41MP camera is causing quite a stir at the MWC and we finally get to see its full-sized camera samples. Alongside the four photos are also three full HD 1080p video samples. All of them are really impressive, so let's start. This is what everyone has been waiting for - Nokia 808 PureView's full samples from its 41MP camera. Nokia 808 PureView camera samples Now, to the equally impressive 1080p full HD video samples. They are a month old, so they're definitely taken with pre-release software. They still look stunning, especially the first one, shot at night in low light.