Saturday 13 October 2012

Nokia Lumia 920 release date nears: great specs make it very competitive

The Finnish technology company Nokia has many dreams about the success of its forthcoming Windows Phone 8 handset Nokia Lumia 920. To be true, it is among top smartphone going by specs and Nokia has tried to make it as competitive as Samsung’s Galaxy S3 or Apple’s iPhone 5.
So far Nokia was let down by a great mobile operating system and now Nokia and technology analysts believe that with Windows Phone 8, Nokia’s handicap in this regard is going to be history.
Nokia is all geared to launch not just Lumia 920, but its cheaper Windows Phone 8 sibling Lumia 820 early November. A Wall Street Journal report has published full details of its launch schedule in Europe, though US launch still remains a tightly kept secret.
Nokia has been receiving a lot of positive press lately. There are many reasons for this; the excellent maps application which has led to a deal with Oracle, a new parking app, iPhone 5’s totter, which opens up the passage for Nokia’s comeback etc, , but mostly it has to do with the introduction of Lumia 920.
The Lumia 920 – a successor to the Lumia 900 – has garnered a lot of attention. It is Nokia’s second bet at cracking the smartphone market, and one on which Nokia’s hopes of survival as a handset maker rests. The Lumia 920 is a Windows Phone 8 device. Going by what we have seen of the OS so far, Windows Phone 8 is going to be a huge step up from Windows Phone 7.5 Mango.
The fact that Windows Phone 8 supports higher clock speeds more cores, and higher resolutions, (earlier versions of the OS could only support upto 1.4 Gzh single core chips), has sort of unshackled Nokia. The new Lumia phone, 920 has a dual core 1.5 Ghz processor, and has a IPS  display with 768 x 1280 pixels which gives it a pixel density at 332 ppi. It should be remembered that one of the big reasons that the tech press was not so happy with Lumia 900 was that it had a lower resolution and less processor cores than rivals from Samsung and HTC.
Apart from a refreshed OS, the Lumia 920 will feature many custom apps from Nokia, including an augmented reality  app called City Lens. It would also feature a vastly improved camera. Nokia claims that its camera tech would blow away the competition, especially in low light situations. After a brief fiasco over a faked video, a tech website went to Nokia to test out the claims of a better camera, and lo and behold Nokia’s claims, at least about the low light performance was proved right.
But we have not yet talked of the looks yet. The Lumia 900 is one of the nicest looking phones on the market, with its unibody polycarbonate construction, bright hues, and sharp cuts. Nokia decided not to mess with a good thing, and so the 920 also comes with nearly the same look. Only, this time the finish is glossy (except on one model, the grey one). It has added more colours, and at 4.5 inch across, the screen is bigger. All together, the design looks simply awesome.
A host of other features make the Lumia 920 a compelling device. The ability to charge wirelessly, better visibility under direct sunlight due to PureMotion HD technology, offline maps, and the ability to interact with the touch screen with your gloves on being some of them.
Nokia has priced its flagship device at slightly less than iPhone 5, but higher than Galaxy Nexus 3, the flagship Android device. It is clear from the interest the phone has generated that it will sell much better than Lumia 900. But how well? Well enough to rival the sales of Android phones? Well enough to take Nokia out of the woods? That, we have to wait and see.
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Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini showcased; to be priced at $350

New Delhi: Samsung Electronics Co. officially unveiled its 4-inch Galaxy S III mini in Germany on Thursday, as per news reports.

The phone features 1GHz dual-core processor, 5MP rear camera and 800x480p display.

Reportedly, Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini is expected to hit the market during Christmas and it is expected to be priced between USD 350 to USD 430.

Samsung's original Galaxy S III, unveiled in late May, has a 4.8-inch screen. Strong sales of the flagship phone helped Samsung post record USD 7.3 billion operating profit in the July-September quarter.

Despite a bruising series of patent disputes and the reputational risk of the US court defeat in August, Samsung's brand value has surged this year as it shipped more handsets and smartphones than any of its rivals.

Key Specs

480 x 800 display Super AMOLED display

1GHz dual-core processor

1GB of RAM

16GB of internal memory

5MP rear camera with LED flash front-facing VGA snapper

NFC

MicroSD card slot

1,500mAh battery

LG Optimus G, LG Mach and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 to Be Released on Sprint This Fall

With both AT&T and Verizon readying their fourth quarter 2012 lineups, Sprint has done the same, by announcing the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 tablet and two new phones from Samsung’s fellow Korean manufacturer LG.
The two new LG phones are the high-end LG Optimus G and the LG Mach, a mid-range slider phone with QWERTY keyboard. The Optimus G had been announced recently by Sprint, and could possibly be known as well as the LG E960, if recent reports are to be believed. This phone will be a quad-core LTE phone, with a Nvidia Tegra 3 and 2 GB RAM under the hood.
The only possible disappointment here is that the U.S. versions of the device will come with an 8-megapixel camera instead of the 13-megapixel shooter offered internationally. Apparently, it will be shipping with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The LG Mach will provide a nice alternative to buyers who seek QWERTY keyboard convenience rather than fancy specifications. The handset is also powered by Android 4.0, and has a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor with 1 GB RAM as its powertrain. Camera quality is only 5 megapixels for the rear shooter.
Like us on Facebook: Last, but not least, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 will be distinguished as the first-ever 4G LTE-3G-EV-DO tablet released by Sprint. Specifications include Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with an updated version of the TouchWiz UI, a 1 GHz dual-core OMAP processor, 1 GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage and a 10.1-inch screen with 1,280 x 800 resolution.