Windows Phone Gr8!!

Yesterday I subjected my patience and calm to the internet equivalent of Chinese water torture by sitting through an interminable live stream of Nokia’s highly anticipated Windows Phone 8 line up debut. Was it worth all the buffering, page refreshing and stop-starting?

In a word. 

F*CK YEAH! 

Okay, two words.

So there I was, at my desk at work, past the point of caring whether or not my supervisor could see my screen or not and strapping myself in for what turned out to be an even more exciting product reveal than I expected. Stephen Elop and crew really showed their ambition with this one and it does seem as if the Nokia/Microsoft partnership may just bear some sophisticated and highly profitable fruit.

Nokia debuted both the Lumia 820 and the Lumia 920 as expected, and my, what pretty devices, the 920 in particular. Gotta say. Loving the yellow guys. Luh-ving the yellow!

The Lumia 920 sports a  4.5 inch HD+ curved glass display with a resolution of 768 x 1280 (They’re calling it PureMotion HD+…because they can I guess), a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual core processor, a 2000 mAh battery, an 8 megapixel Pureview shooter, wireless charging and without a doubt most importantly of all, GLOVE COMPATIBILITY BITCHES!!

Dude this is huge for me! A major pet peeve of mine in regards to touchscreens in general was the need to remove your pinky from the snugness of a glove as blistering winds howled down from the mountain-tops and licked your flesh with the promise of frostbite just so you could cut the goddamn rope! Okay so there may not be any mountains in London but you get where I’m coming from. It’s a wonderful innovation and one that I assumed would have simply been overlooked. I guess that’s why they make the tech and I write the blog.

All in all it was a great day for Nokia, Microsoft and Windows Phone 8. My only real criticism with the event was the complete lack of an ETA and pricing for the devices. It kind of makes the entire reveal a little redundant as it serves to illustrate a lack of intent from a company supposedly committed to taking a final stab at the mobile market and developing a global fan base of loyal consumers.

Nevertheless, Nokia have revealed two great flagship devices that could see them catapult to the top of an ever more competitive market. Will the timing of the announcement prove controversial considering those other guys are set to strut their stuff next week. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Sayōnara

Core Strength

Windows Phone does not need a dual core processor! It will do eventually, and I'll get to that, however at the moment, trust me, it copes just fine. Here's the deal, and I'm sure you've heard the argument re-hashed a thousand times but heck, it seems the majority of phone junkies are gluttons for punishment.

Android needs all the power it can get in order for its OS to run as smoothly as possible. If you believe that to be a testament to its superiority then more fool you. I'm not suggesting that Google's Android is any better or any worse for this fact but it is what it is.

Windows phone and even IOS run perfectly fine on single core processors and I'm sure anybody who has been privileged (retarded) enough to upgrade from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S will tell you, you will not notice a substantial difference in the day to day use of the platform.

Now this is not to say that I am a philistine. I admire evolution. I admire progression, however only when necessary and it will eventually be necessary for Windows Phone 7 to make the switch to dual core processors. This still has nothing to do with the OS. As I've already stated, the OS is fine. It's to do with apps. It's the same reason Apple had to make the switch from single to dual core.

Mobile apps and games are becoming more sophisticated and system intensive everyday and the fact is that more power will be needed under the hood in order to smoothly cope with developer demands. Windows Phone, as we all know has roughly around 60-70,000 apps in it's Marketplace, a mere fraction of those found on the App store or on the Android Market and it's safe to say that the best of these apps are tailored for Windows Phone use. However, yes, when that Market eventually grows larger and begins to adopt more sophisticated games (a certainty, given Microsoft’s prominent gaming console) Windows will need to up the stakes in terms of processing power, but only then and not before.

So basically my point for today is, unless you are arguing Android to Android devices, kindly shut up about the processing power of your phone as you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Come on people, Microsoft is a big enough player in the tech world wouldn't you agree? Don't you think if they believed their devices needed dual core processors at this stage in their evolution, they'd have not only the funds but the intelligence and foresight to make it happen?