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

Time of the month. iPhone 5 and Nokia's Windows Phone 8

It’s going to be a busy month. Apple look set to launch the new iPhone and although I personally am not a huge fan of the company as a whole I’m hoping they can at least pull something entirely unforeseen out of the bag, for theatricality’s sake at least.

I mean what I’ve seen thus far is nothing short of underwhelming. iOS 6…I mean…really?....that’s it? And as for that mock up design demonstrated in a recent video on tech nirvana The Verge, well, the less said about that particular disappointment the better. Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t expecting any radical changes design-wise but I can’t help but feel a little deflated. Let’s hope those guys got their intel wrong on that one.

But hey, do not mistake me for a dead-eyed cynic. I’d love nothing more than for Apple to prove me wrong here. Innovation is always great for the field (as is competition by the way Apple….just so you know…) so here’s to my naivety showing and here’s to Apple shocking the world with a time-travelling super-phone that cooks omelettes and cure’s cancer. But come on people, I can’t be the only person out there that has the sneaking suspicion that these guys have run out of ideas. Google have refined the user experience wonderfully with their Jelly Bean update making the system far more enjoyable to use than iOS and the likes of Samsung continue to up the stakes in the field of sheer power and hardware (if not build quality.)

Apple will really have to pull something out of the bag on the 12^th of September. Something with more stomach than Facetime, Siri or a simply a prettier screen. Something, dare I say it, revolutionary. Whether they can or not…..well…we’ll have to wait and see.

Also I’d be amiss if I didn’t mention the highly anticipated iPad mini right!?........*silence*……..Now that that’s done we can move on.

On the other end of the spectrum Nokia look set to come out guns’a’blazin’ with the Lumia 820 and the Lumia 920, the first in their range of Windows 8 devices. I’ve always wanted to love windows phone and Nokia have a special place in my heart seeing as a Nokia 3210 was the first mobile I ever owned and one of the best! I played around with the Lumia 900 and couldn’t help but think that with a little refinement and little time Microsoft would have something truly special in their arsenal. The OS is an absolute joy to use and something incredibly refreshing in today’s market however I couldn’t get on board with the screen resolution and the dire/expensive market place. The design of the Lumia 900 itself though is phenomenal and judging from leaked pictures (yes, okay, again from The Verge) it’s great to see that Nokia have applied that wondrous unibody to its new line up and from what we can see it looks thinner and even sexier than before!

Also said to support high resolution screens, multiple core processors and wireless charging these phones are set to be great flagships for Windows phone 8 if no doubt underappreciated by the mass market in general. Apple’s new iPhone is dropping and It’s hard to compete with a company that has that kind of influence on the general public but hey, I know who I’m rooting for!.....well….until the next Nexus phone :)

Peace and love!

I just can't do it Captain; I don't have the power!

Personally, I've always been astonished at how battery life on a mobile device has never seemed to be a priority with manufacturers. What's the use in giving us all this super fast processing power, hi-def screens, system intensive apps and the like if we're only able to squeeze roughly 8 hours of use from the device and in many cases much, much less!?

In my opinion battery life should be at the forefront of manufacturer's concerns, ahead of how many cores the thing has, the size of the screens and yes, even the size zero thinness we've all come to know and expect from our smartphones. That's why it was great to see Motorola release a dedicated battery powerhouse device in the Razr Maxx. 3000+ mAh batteries should be the standard. Despite a great performance in Europe even the Galaxy Note's hefty 2000+ mAh battery suffered when the device was introduced to the US and adopted the awesome but power-hungry LTE technology.

It should be simple enough really. Nokia have made a step in the right direction it seems by announcing the 1600.2487.8107.12070 ROM update which is said to triple to battery life of it's flagship Lumia 800 series of phones. Now while I think this may be a slight overestimation of the ability of this update (although I'll be happy to be proved wrong) it will no doubt come as great news to those who own what otherwise is an absolutely fantastic device. However considering that this is a single core phone with a relatively small screen it begs the question, 'Isn't this a problem that could have quite easily been avoided?' I mean, I know that the Lumia 800's unique hardware approach may have played a hand in the undermining it battery potential but surely not so significantly.

Anyway. That's enough of that. As you all know we're expecting iPad 3 news very soon so check back for my entirely meaningless opinions on Apple's latest offering.

Mobile World Congress 2012 Preview

The largest gathering of geeks ever (ComicCon, E3 and Mark Zuckerberg's house parties not withstanding) is about to take place with the 2012 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. From the 27th of February through to the 1st of March, smartphone aficionados everywhere will congregate at the mobile world's largest trade show event in order to get a glimpse at industry's latest offers. Many of these we have of course seen through various leaks courtesy of our old pal the internet and others are expected simply through educated guesses made from an evolutionary standpoint. Here's a run down of what to anticipate from some of the major players in the game.

No Galaxy S3. Cue sad face emoticon. I'm afraid that this much is certain. Sammy have indeed decided not to hold a press conference at MWC this year, a major blow for fans of it's flagship Galaxy S2 device which wowed the world last year. Samsung have said that they will still be introducing new devices but I think we can all agree that this is of little consolation. 

With the Taiwanese giants finally realising that less is indeed more, their 2012 mobile strategy is focused on concentrating on high-end devices instead of cluttering the market with a arbitrary release after arbitrary release, each barely different than it's predecessor with a name twice as daft.

Undoubtedly the most exciting of the expected HTC line-up is the HTC Endeavour. This bad boy is rumoured to be a quad-core Tegra 3 device sporting a 4.7 inch display, 4G LTE connectivity, 1GB of RAM, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 and an incredible 312 ppi display. Now that's a spicy meatball!

Another noteworthy addition is the HTC Quattro tablet, another quad core device sporting a 10.1inch 1280x768 display, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory. There are also rumours regarding devices thus far known as the HTC Edge, the HTC Zeta, the HTC Ville and the HTC Primo however there hasn't been much in the way of substance regarding these offerings so I guess we'll just have to wait until the show.

Having already demoed the Lumia 900 at CES it is unclear what Finnish Manufacturer Nokia intend to bring to MWC. It's expected we'll see another Windows Phone device of some sort and I've even heard tell of a tablet in the works though I very much doubt we'd see it at the show. There is also news of Nokia's Asha series, a slew of mid-range, affordable Windows Phone devices set to be unveiled.

LG have indeed promised to showcase a range of revolutionary smartphones for 2012. We're already anticipating the LG Miracle, a rumoured Windows Phone handset and leaks have revealed the LG Optimus 3D 2, successor to the Optimus 3D (Thrill 4G) however we're unsure if this is likely to be shown off at the event. There is of course also the LG P880 which is rumoured to sport the LG X3 quad core processor and 4.7inch a 720p HD screen. This could be one to watch.

There really isn’t much worth commenting on with Japanese tech powerhouse Sony. We expect to see more of their Xperia line, with the Xperia Ion and the Xperia S and likely a couple of other phones with random alphabet titles such as the Xperia P and the Xperia U. The worrying thing is that these phones are failing to really excite brining Sony's woeful presence in the mobile space into full view. Here's hoping that the end of their collaboration with long time partner Ericsson spells a bright new era for the long established tech company. Only time will tell.

Little is expected from struggling Canadian tech company RIM at MWC however what we do expect to see is a little more info regarding the Blackberry 10 OS and maybe even confirmation of the Playbook OS 2.0.

Other events worth mentioning are that of Microsoft, who we expect will demo the much anticipated Windows 8 OS and Nvidia who are expected to showcase their quad core Tegra 3 processor in a mobile device.

Stay tuned to The Phone Groupie for more Mobile World Congress 2012 info as it unfurls.