Yesterday while i was at the Samsung shop trying to get my hands on with the Galaxy S4, i stumbled upon the Samsung Ativ S which just went on sale in my country earlier this month. So if you read my article last yesterday you would have known that while waiting for my turn to play the Galaxy S4 i was taking pictures as well as playing with the Samsung Ativ S. When i saw the device on the opposite of the tablet i actually thought it was an S3 but when i looked closely i only realised that it was the Ativ S so i took out my camera and took a few shots. Overall there was not much for me to play on the device as unlike Nokia or HTC there is nothing special in the Ativ S. I was consistently scrolling through the app drawer and the homescreen in search of something to use. One thing i was not used to was the physical home button because i was pretty much used to the standard Windows Phone 8 hardware which only included capacitive buttons. Finally the device i can say really looks like the S3 and as usual to all Windows Phone 8 devices the UI is consistent and fluidity is present too. To check out more of the photos i've taken click here.
Pretty much the only Windows Phone 8 device to date which has a physical home button
Windows Phone has always been having low market shares but since the launch of Windows Phone 8 that has changed drastically because consumers are very excited about devices like the HTC 8X and the Lumia 920 which are very colorful. Russia's largest phone retailer, Euroset has revealed some numbers on the whole russian market which include 12-13 million smartphones. In the country, Nokia is believed to have taken 14.6% of the market in the November/December holiday period. In that 14.6%, 10.1% of them were the Lumia 920 which translates to around 15,000 units sold.
With Windows Phone 8 Microsoft is bringing a lot of new and nifty features to the table and one very special thing about the WP8 OS is that it shares the same kernel as the Windows desktop OS which means apps can be easily ported vice versa. Well here is a story which is pretty funny, apparently two WP8 users (one with a HTC 8X and another with a Lumia 920) have found out that WP8 has a UEFI BIOS error message which has been on windows for a long time. After some investigation and the essence of time, it is found that these messages will not pop out randomly out of the blue because the two users which identified the problem admitted that they tried to hack the device and failed.
Nokia today made a surprise PR in which they revealed the preliminary Q4 sales. Their financial status and official sales will be announced later this month on the 24th. But going to today's news, Nokia has sold 4.4 Lumia devices in the three month period and for the first time ever the WP sales beat Symbian sales. Other sales finding include 9.3 million full touch asha devices sold and a total of 14 million smart devices sold. However, Nokia also mentioned that Q1 will not be as good as last quarter because of the holiday season sales and growing popularity on new devices. Overall, this might just be the quarter where Nokia is gaining profit. Stephen Elop had this to say:
"We are pleased that Q4 2012 was a solid quarter where we exceeded expectations and delivered underlying profitability in Devices & Services and record underlying profitability in Nokia Siemens Networks. We focused on our priorities and as a result we sold a total of 14 million Asha smartphones and Lumia smartphones while managing our costs efficiently, and Nokia Siemens Networks delivered yet another very good quarter."
The Samsung Ativ S was the first windows phone 8 device to be announced but it is the last one to reach the market. Currently the Ativ S is still not for sale in any part of the world but some regions are stating that the Ativ S will be available soon. Also some sources also say that the Ativ S is delayed and will only com in early 2013. We still don't know who is right and who is wrong as Samsung has not released any official statements regarding this. But today they have released 2 hands on video of the Ativ S which touches on both the features of Windows Phone 8 and the Ativ S itself. Source: Samsung Mobile (YouTube) Please Subscribe To Our Page, Like Our Facebook Page, Follow Our Google Plus Page And Follow Our Twitter Page. Samsung Galaxy S IV News & Rumors.
Microsoft introduced Wordflow in the Windows Phone 8 keyboard and it is an improvement to the much praised WP7 keyboard. Wordflow is basically a highly tuned and will provide more accurate word prediction. Apparently Micorosoft has surveyed a dictionary of 2.5 billion words built from wikipedia and twitter scrapping and selected 600,000 words for the dictionary onboard. This results in 94% of the words autocorrected to be accurate. You can read more about it here Source: WMPoweruser Please Subscribe To Our Page, Like Our Facebook Page, Follow Our Google Plus Page And Follow Our Twitter Page. Samsung Galaxy S IV News & Rumors.
Earlier last week Microsoft launched the "meet your match" Windows Phone 8 campaign. This is about the same thing as the smoked by windows phone campaign launched earlier this year but this time it features the features of Windows Phone 8. The dedicated page for it is now live, so click here to be redirected. Here is the latest video:
Source: Windows Phone Blog Please Subscribe To Our Page, Like Our Facebook Page, Follow Our Google Plus Page And Follow Our Twitter Page
One of the key features of Windows Phone 8 is integration with Skype, but the problem now is that Skype is still not available to download on the Windows Phone store. Currently Skype is available on both Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT. The app is in the works and will be available pretty soon and Microsoft has just released a preview version of Skype for WP8. The app however will not be easily found on the WP8 store so WP Central has provided a QR code link. This preview version however will not be as polished and bug free as how the final version will be.
F-Secure has just released their mobile security report and the report revealed that Windows Phone 8 is still the most safest mobile OS out there. He noted that the malware and security threats on other competing mobile OS like android, iOS and BB exploded last quarter with android growing 10X. Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's chief tole the enquirer:
“Windows Phone is safe, we’ve seen no malware at all targeting the platform. You want a safe phone? Buy a Windows Phone,”“At the moment Windows Phone is the safest, there is more malware for BlackBerry and more malware for the iPhone and definitely more on Android.”“Windows Phone’s security model inside is quite restrictive. I think it’s going to take a while before we see Windows Phone being seriously targeted. I could be wrong, but my hunch says it will stay the safest,”
The Nokia Lumia 920 will be an AT&T exclusive for 6 months and this device is yet to go on sale. Today, they announced the pricing for its WP8 lineup which include the Lumia 920, Lumia 820 and the HTC 8X. All of these devices will have a two year contract with the HTC 8X costing the highest at $200. The Lumia 820 will be priced at $50 for a 2 year contract and finally the Lumia 920 will only cost $100 for a 2 year contract. The pricing for the 920 sure is good and will attract quite some amount of buyers. The best deal is actually the Lumia 920 because it has 32GB of storage and is priced way lower than the 32GB iPhone 5. Additionally, AT&T will also be offering a 8GB HTC 8X for $100. The Lumia 920 and 820 can be bought starting November 9 and the HTC 8X can be bought right before thanksgiving on November 22.
Microsoft launched Windows Phone 8 early last week and the new OS includes some new features which are pretty cool like data sense and kids corner. Alongside the launch they also showcased 3 high end windows phone 8 devices from Nokia, HTC, and Samsung. Ironically, the Windows Phone 8 devices which has been announced to date are high end and mid range devices which are prices at the $500-$600. We still have not seen any manufacturer announcing a truly budget friendly Windows Phone 8. We know that the true budget side of Windows Phone still lies within the Windows Phone 7.8 software. Currently the most low speced device running Windows Phone 8 is the HTC 8S which has a 1GHz dual core krait CPU paired with 512MB of RAM. So the big question is what are the minimum hardware requirements to run Windows Phone 8.
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor
Minimum 512MB RAM for WVGA phones; minimum 1GB RAM for 720p / WXGA
Minimum 4GB flash memory
GPS and A-GNSS; GLONASS is supported if OEMs decide to include it
Support for micro-USB 2.0
3.5mm stereo headphone jack with three-button detection support
Rear-facing AF camera with LED or Xenon flash, optional front-facing camera (both need to be VGA or better) and dedicated camera button
Accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensors, as well as vibration motor (magnetometer and gyroscope are optional)
802.11b/g and Bluetooth (802.11n is optional)
DirectX graphics hardware support with hardware acceleration for Direct3D using programmable GPU
Multi-touch capacitive touch screen with minimum of four simultaneous points
If you look at the minimum requirements it is surely set at a more higher standard compared to Windows Phone 7/7.5. So we won't be seeing single core Windows Phone 8 devices anytime soon and this time Microsoft is only allowing manufacturers to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor since the whole OS is optimized to run it. Although the specs sheet says 512MB of RAM is enough to power WVGA phones, the official windows phone 8 how to website notes that some apps and features require 1GB of RAM. It is pretty weird that they only accept LED flash or Xenon flash, maybe it could be an indication of the use of a xenon flash on a future Lumia pureview device. Most of the other specs are up to date with today's standard.
The Windows Phone 8 event just wraped up and they unveiled quite a lot of new features. The event was started with Joe Belfiore talking about the windows phone experience and the he showed of the windows phone devices which will be available this fall. The he moves to the total amount of apps in the windows phone store which has just exceeded 120,000 and Windows Phone has 46 of the top 50 popular apps in other platforms.
Then he touts about the whole new interface which windows phone brought to the market. Soon after a video explaining the personalization of windows phone ends Joe starts talking about the new features. First up in the list is live apps as well as live wallpapers, the lockscreen can now have live wallpapers by third party apps to provide information. Joe also touches on the new Facebook and Twitter for Windows Phone which also works with the new live wallpaper and will provide information to your lockscreen.
Then he touches on the new apps which developers are working on to utilise the new functions in windows phone 8. Skype is now integrated and will not use battery in the background but will still be running. Popular apps like temple run, jetpack joyride, etc will be coming to windows phone 8 very soon. The biggest news is that Pandora is finally coming to windows phone 8 in early 2013 and will provide users with 1 year of free music with no ads.
Next up is data sense which is a new way to get the most out of your data plan. Data sense compresses your data usage so you can use 45% more on your data plan on windows phone compared to other platforms. One cool feature is that data sense even helps you to find wifi hotspots nearby to help in saving your data. And if you are nearing your data cap, data sense will intelligently tailor the way your apps behave.
The next feature is called kids corner and to demo the app Joe's children are on the stage to do so. After the short demo they call another person which felt kids corner is very useful and the person is Jessica Alba. Then Jessica explains here experience using the Lumia 920 and particularly the kids corner feature. She say it is a very good feature and will help parents a lot.
Then Joe says that before she switched to the Lumia 900 she was using an iPhone, she is always on the go so she wants her entire iTunes library in to her new phone so Joe explains how he did it and the process only took about 1 minute to import the whole album. Next up is the rooms feature which is like a group where you can share pictures, chat, see what the members are up to and many more. The rooms feature will work with other platforms but the features are lesser. With that said he now talks about the Skydrive integration with Windows devices.
Finally Joe passes the stage to Steve Ballmer to introduce the top 3 Windows Phone 8 devices. He starts touting about the personal experience found in windows phone and pairing it up with other windows based products is fairly simple. Then he starts introducing each of the devices and some of their special features. Then he announces carrier availibility for the US. Finally he wraps up by saying that WP8 devices will go on sale this weekend in european countries and the global launch or Windows Phone 8 is nearing. Stay tuned for more coverage. Please Subscribe To Our Page, Like Our Facebook Page, Follow Our Google Plus Page And Follow Our Twitter Page
Microsoft is set to unveil Windows Phone 8 today at San Francisco at 10 AM PT or 1AM ET. We will be live tweeting as the event is running and we will do a full recap of the event right after it has finished. In this editorial i will be talking about what are we expected to see at the event later. The number one thing that we will sure see is the devices by various manufacturers. The lock screen is expected to feature a live wallpaper setting which works with third party apps to provide info. We could see a new locking system for the lock screen and the lock screen is going to be as active as the live tiles are. We are also poised to see more features of IE 10 on windows phone 8. The windows phone team is also expected to talk more on the lenses application and talk about the lenses which will be in store, maybe instagram is coming. Additionally they will talk more in depth about the wallet app and what feature differentiates it from the competition. Office 2013 is also expected to be touched and the capabilities of it too. Finally they are also expected to explain more on the Kids Corner feature and Windows Phone 8 in the enterprise. To find out more expected features click here.
Microsoft is set to debut Windows 8 this thursday and Windows Phone 8 on next monday. With the launch of these new products Microsoft is set to change the whole face of windows and bring touch to the whole windows 8 experience. Here is an official video by microsoft whereby Bill Gates is asked a few questions about Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and the Microsoft Surface tablet.
The Ativ S is the only Windows Phone 8 device announced to date which does not sport brightly colored bodies. Since it was briefly announced at IFA last month we have not quite heard much about this device. All we know is that is is the same size of the Galaxy S III with less curved edges and is running Windows Phone 8 opposed to Android. Here is a 3 minute long video which shows briefly how this phone looks like in action. Source: Phonearena Please Subscribe To Our Page, Like Our Facebook Page, Follow Our Google Plus Page And Follow Our Twitter Page
Microsoft has sent out invitations for the Windows Phone 8 launch and it is just a few days after tha Windows 8 launch in NYC. This event will be held in San Francisco on October 29 and Microsoft and the Windows Phone team is expected to unveil the features of WP8. Samsung, HTC, and Nokia is also expected to announce some device in the event too. The SDK for WP8 is rumored to be released on October 30.
A few weeks back we reported that the Windows Phone team has finished the latest iteration of the OS and is ready for RTM. Now it seems like we have some confirmation of this story, yesterday the Windows Phone 8 ship party was held and it marks the completion of WP8 and is ready for manufacturers to implement on their devices. Last year WP7 Mango was completed on August 6 and devices started shipping in early November, so it seems like this year they are a bit late. But currently the new suggest that WP8 devices will start to go on sale on early November.
Windows Phone 8 has now reached RTM and it is bound to be launched at the end of October after the Windows 8 launch. Here is a video walkthrough of the Windows Phone 8 emulator. It doesn't reveal anything much. Source: WMPoweruser
HTC is set to unveil a few devices today at their event at NYC. One of the rumored device is a the HTC 8X which is going to be the flagship Windows Phone 8 device by HTC. The HTC 8X is also known as accord and has 4.3" 720P screen paired up with a dual core snapdragon S4 processor. Here are some leaked shots for this device, one of them include a Verizon logo on the back.
Besides the Nokia Lumia 920 Nokia also announced the slightly lower end Lumia 820 which is just as good as the Lumia 920. The Lumia 920 comes in 7 color and has exchangeable back covers and one of the covers have support for wireless charging. This model has a slightly smaller screen of 4.3" with a WVVGA resolution of 480 X 800 which is not HD. But the screen is still the clear black display screen which is seen on previous lumia phones like the 800 and 900. Like the Lumia 920 the 820 will be running WP8 despite some spec cutdowns. It will be powered by the same 1.5GHz dual core snapdragon s4 krait processor like on the 920 and has 1GB of RAM. Nokia also mentioned that this processor is 30% more power efficient than any other quad core processor. The 820 has a smaller battery of 1650mAh which is short of the 2000mAh battery on the 920. Beneath the colorful shell is a micro SD card slot and this phone has 8GB of onboard storage. The camera on the 820 does not have the magicy pureview tech like on the 920 but sports a carl zeiss lens and all of Microsoft's camera features which they announced at the event today. LTE and NFC is supported on this device. Pricing and availability of this device is yet to be known.
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