Nokia Belle (Symbian Belle if you will) devices have been available for some time, but its finally time for the likes of the N8 and E7 to get a taste of Belle goodness in the form of the v111.030 firmware. The update completely revamps the old Symbian UI in favour of multiple homescreens, widgets and a pull down notification bar ala Android and recently iOS.

It also features a ton of other improvements, not the least of which is the web browser. So not only will your experience feel smoother, the update will also rid you of the pesky ‘memory full’ errors. Needless to say this is a highly recommended update. However, because the sheer amount of changes, there will be no over-the-air availability and you will have to find a Windows machine running the latest Nokia Suite to carryout the update.

Despite Nokia Suite’s ability to restore your data automatically, it is prudent to manually back up as well. As always, the update is being rolled out in phases, country by country and product code by product code. Fortunately, Nokia has a nice map up which lists exactly which countries and product codes are seeing the update, an excellent tool.

The update is available in India, most parts of Asia, Europe and even the United States. More on All About Symbian.

If you couldn’t wait for the official Belle update and are running the ‘leaked’ versions, My Nokia Blog reports that should be able to update via the Nokia Suite as well.

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The PR 1.2 firmware update has just been rolled out to the developer only N950 MeeGo Harmattan device, and it comes to us in the form of  beta version number 3.2012.02-6_PR_RM680. This update is a precursor to the N9 update, and will give you a fair idea of what new features to expect on your N9.

Highlights include support for five new languages, face recognition, enhanced copy-paste, software update notifications for applications and games in Nokia Store and folders in the application view. If you own a N950, you can find all the details and download links here.

Here is a slightly more detailed changelog, if you have a time, a complete list of the bugs that have been fixed has also been published.

• New languages
  • Persian
  • Hebrew
  • Kazakh
  • Thai
  • Vietnamese
• Software update notifications for content in Nokia Store
• Face recognition for gallery and face tags for Facebook
• Support for folders in the application view
• Mail for Exchange global address book lookup
• Mail thread support in the Email client
• Extended copy-paste support
• Media sharing with DLNA compatible devices
• Improved browser history view
• Compass support in Maps
• QtWebKit update to version 2.2
• New font taken into use
• Front camera support
• Video editing support in the Gallery application
• MeeGotouch Framework
• Visual hint for differentiating swipe close gesture from normal swipes
• Timestamps shown in notifications
• Notifications sorted by timestamps
• Improvements in Event Feed area
• Music controls in Lock screen
• New feedbacks added to MeeGoTouch theme.
• Kernel updated to be in sync with the upstream kernel version 2.6.32.48

• Connectivity

• Android NDEF Push Protocol disabled
• NFC polling enabled in lock screen
• Separate switch for controlling mobile background connections while roaming

• Camera

• Self Timer support
• Composition grid + on/off control

• Calendar

• Better handling of To-Do lists, recurring events and timezones
• Private flag support for events
• Support for read-only events
• Ability to forward/reply/reply-all for received events

• Clock

• Clock alarm becomes silent by flipping the device face down instead of snoozing
• Updated time picker

• Gallery

• People view added to the grid toolbar
• Improved multiple selection indication in grid view

• Music Player

• Audiobook and podcast support
• Ability to create playlists
• Ability to delete music files from music player library views via object menu
• Possibility to see songs that are on the current play queue

[via: My Nokia Blog]

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Online retail is gathering serious momentum in India and Nokia has partnered with Indiatimes to ride the wave. Their brand new online store has just gone online and is available at nokia.indiatimes.com. Alternatively, Nokia India’s website also directs you to the Indiatimes portal, should you choose the buy online option.

Judging by the option to select your ‘preferred retailer’, it seems as if Indiatimes is just the first partener with whom Nokia has tied up. I won’t be surprised if more sites are added to the list in the coming weeks/months. The portal has Nokia’s entire portfolio of phones on offer and promises delivery times of upto 4 working days.

Payments can be made via credit and debit cards, netbanking, gift certificates and a few other modes. The best bit is that you can choose to pay over 6 months in interest free installments. There is also a 7 day return policy should you decide to return the ‘unused’ device.

Having an ‘official’ online presence is a good first step, but I’d like to see Nokia leverage the plethora of Nokia retail shores and warehouses across the country to cut delivery times. Same day or next day delivery is something that can really induce implulse buys and Nokia is well positioned to tap that. I’d also like to see accessories on sale, specially Nokia’s amazing lineup of stereo bluetooth headsets.

[via: Fonearena]

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From a fairly modest start in 2010, Windows Phone came a long way in 2011. The NoDo update brought some essentials like copy/paste, while the big Mango update truly made Windows Phone useable as a daily driver. That being said, there are a number of things I’d like to see Windows Phone improve on in 2012 to truly become a force to reckon with.

The Tango update is expected in Q1 this year, and is primarily expected to bring support for LTE and at the same time help manufacturers push Windows Phone to lower price points. The Apollo update on the other hand is the big update everyone will be waiting for this year, it was originally expected in Q4 2012, but there are rumours to suggest we might see it earlier.

Here are a few things that Windows Phone needs to do better in 2012, I have classified them under seven broad heads:

1. BETTER HARDWARE: The basic Windows Phone specs have remained pretty constant from the day it shipped, and there is still no support for dual/multi core processors or hi-res 720p screens. Both of these things are rumoured to be coming with Apollo, so I will not dwell on them much.

2. BETTER MULTITASKING: As things stand now, Windows Phone uses quick save-resume to give users a feel of multitasking. While this might help save battery life and keep the phone snappy, it does leave much to be desired. For example, the Dictionary.com apps lets you download the database for offline use. But in order to download it, the app must be running, so even if the screen dims out or you lock the screen, the download gets interrupted. During navigation if you happen to lock the screen the app stops running.

Another problem I have is that third party apps cannot load data in the background. So despite having an active data/WIFI connection all through, my Twitter app will not be able to load tweets in the background, such that there are tweets waiting to be read whenever I open it. Instead, whenever I open the Twitter app, it will then start loading tweets and I’ll have to wait, depending on how fast my connection is. These things need to improve.

3. APP BEHAVIOR: Without getting into technicalities like native code access and so on, because of the way Windows Phone lets developers build apps for Windows Phone, the performance, specially the launch times leave much to be desired. Most third party apps (if not all) like the official apps for Twitter, Facebook etc all need a splash screen to bide time while they launch.

Same with games, developers have been craving for native code access to enable high quality games and I do hope Microsoft will do something about this. E.g. Launching Whats App on Symbian, Android or iOS is instant, but on Windows Phone you will see a splash screen everytime.

Next, apps are also sandboxed. So it is impossible to share data from one app to the other. For example on Nokia Maps, you cannot search for a place and then launch Nokia Drive from within Maps. You will have to search for that place in Nokia Drive again and then navigate. Same with location sharing in Whats App, clicking on a location will not open up Nokia Maps or Drive or even Bing Maps, but just a map within the app. So you cannot simply navigate to that location, unlike other platforms.

4. NOTIFICATIONS: I have talked about notifications in my Lumia 800 review as well, and this should be priority number one for Microsoft. There is no centralised place where you see the notifications. Toasts notifications come and go, and the only place where they stay are on the live tiles. This almost forces you to give the first 8 slots for tiles to apps that like Email, Messaging, Whats App, Facebook, Twitter etc so that you do not miss notifications. On the lockscreen, third party notifications cannot be shown as well.

While my favourite notification implementation is Android’s pull down notification bar that both Symbian and iOS have ‘borrowed’, I doubt Microsoft will go down the same route. Flicking to the left on Windows Phone currently does nothing and MS can perhaps use this gesture to build a notification hub that third party apps too can plug into with ease.

Next, there seems to be a bug with tile notifications with third party apps. For example with Microsoft’s own Facebook app, even after you have seen the notifications from inside the app, the icon depicting unread notifications on the live tile doesn’t disappear immediately.

Finally, push notifications also need to get better. WP checks for notifications periodically for the ‘Me’ tile and you have no control over how often does this happen. In general too, across third party apps the situation could be better.

5. OPENING UP WINDOWS PHONE: An open ecosystem is something which Nokia users have been accustomed to for ages. Be it side loading apps, sending files via Bluetooth or using the phone in the mass storage mode to drag and drop content. While Microsoft may not want to allow all these things, it should definitely look at allowing Bluetooth file transfers and ways to support the homebrew community. The Chevron unlock was a good initiative, and even if the Chevron developers don’t want to run it further, Microsoft should undertake the activity itself.

Next, it should allow a lot more customisation. From custom colour accents, to letting users pin multiple shortcuts within a single tile. There is no point in wasting a ton of screen estate for a simple shortcut, pinning four shortcuts into the space reserved for a single tile makes a lot more sense.

6. UPLOADS: Like I mentioned in my Lumia 800 review, Windows Phone resizes pictures before they are uploaded to make it easier on the network. But there are times you want access to the full resolution, yet there is no option to enable that.

7. APP LAYOUT: Windows Phone is all about lists and that’s how all the installed apps are displayed, alphabetically. You can jump between them by alphabet or use the search button to enter a name and filter through the list.

While you do get used to this method, it’d be great to have options. I’d like a grid-based layout as well, where you can flick between pages of apps. One problem that I have faced with the list method is that it is easy to forget apps, as newly installed apps also get buried in the list. I’d also like WP to highlight the newly installed apps for a little while at least.

Reading this post might give you an impression that Windows Phone is hard to use in its current state, but this sentiment would not be justified. While the points I have made above need redressal, none of them is really a deal breaker that should make you reconsider your Windows phone purchase. There are some excellent Windows Phone devices in the market, and I am sure future updates will make them better.

What would you like Windows Phone to do differently in 2012?

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With the launch of Nokia’s Lumia devices in India, the Windows Phone ecosystem is just about setting started in India and there is some very good news already. The Windows Phone Marketplace has just hit 50,000 apps, but numbers don’t say much when apps you use daily aren’t available on the platform.

Thankfully, all of that is about to change. A bunch of free locally relevant apps for users in India has just hit the Marketplace and all of them are well designed and must haves.

• NDTV: The app does what you would expect, news, live tiles, live streams from NDTV 24×7, NDTV India, NDTV Profit and NDTV GoodTimes. Also present are photo galleries, cricket scorecards and market watch sections. You can also choose to live stream just the audio.

• NDTV Good Times: The app from India’s leading lifestyle channel. Lets you watch latest featured videos on varied topics like food, cuisine, travel, fashion. Also lets you catch up on previous episodes of your favorite shows like Highway on My Plate, Yogasutra, Bollywood Confidential, Chakhle India, Band Baja Barat and many more. Also present are sections on sections on travel, luxury, gadgets, fashion and wellness.

• Times Of India: I had already demoed this app when it was in development and I’m glad to say its finally available. It brings breaking news and  coverage of national, international, city, sports, entertainment, lifestyle, business, health, science and technology topics. Also present are live cricket scores and a complete scorecard; local news from more than 30 cities; latest movie reviews by critics as well as readers; photo galleries; and top videos from news, business, sports, entertainment and lifestyle categories.

• Economic Times: The sister app for TOI, the business paper of the Times group.

• IBN Live: News, streamed content, live tiles, playback of popular shows like Face The Nation, Devil’s Advocate and The Week That Wasn’t.

• Book My Show: One app I was waiting for, makes looking up movie & cinema listings, synopsis & reviews a breeze. You can also carry out bookings from the phone using secure mobile payments options. Even lets you pick your seat and redeem offers.

• timesPoynt: A free application powered by data from timescity.com, provides users with the unique ability to search their local area for events, movies, restaurants and nightlife. timesPoynt provides users with the ability to move beyond discovery of their local area to click-to-call businesses, get directions, browse listing websites, send details to a friend or add listings to their calendar or address book. timesPoynt also features a fully integrated weather homescreen and the ability to search for long-term forecasts.

• yapf: It builds on the Google or Bing POI database to find places nearby by by searching a set of predefined categories or by manual search. Features augmented reality to view your results through your phone camera. You can also pin the search tile to the home screen for quick access, or pin a single place and the live tile will update with the distance to it.

• India Today: The India Today application allows users to view up-to-date news articles, images, videos and live TV served through the India Today Network. The application is powered by India Today, a popular news magazine.  The app consists of latest & breaking news, sports news, political news, cricket updates, entertainment news, Bollywood & Hollywood news, movie reviews, celebrity interviews, images and videos.

• Business Today: India Today’s sister app, the Business Today application allows users to view up-to-date news articles, images, videos and Stock updates served through the India Today Network.  The application is powered by Business Today, India’s no. 1 business magazine.  The app consists of business news & articles, stock updates, business analysis  and videos.

• Snapdeal: India’s Groupon equivalent, the website brings upto 90% discounts on dining, health and beauty services, branded products, travel and more.

• Bollywood Hungama: Movie reviews, trailers, first look, news and the like.

• Flipkart: Fairly basic, but a good start. Flipkart is India’s Amazon when it comes to online retail, includes movies, music, games, mobiles, cameras, computers and electronics.

So there you go, those are 13 excellent Windows Phone apps that are completely free. If we keep getting locally relevant apps at this pace for Windows phone, I dare say we’ll have a credible fight for marketshare come 2012.

The only thing the developers need to guard against is making apps and forgetting them, regular updates are just as important!

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For a long time now, Nokia has been the company responsible for both the hardware and software on their devices but the Nokiasoft announcement in February changed all that. Nokia decided to concentrate on their strengths in hardware and design and let Microsoft take care of the software.

At the time when this decision was taken Windows Phone had just come out, was missing a ton of key features like multitasking, copy/paste and so on. However Nokia obviously was given a look at the long term plans for Windows Phone and they liked what they saw. Then Windows Phone Mango came out and for a lot of people, it marked a level of maturity where they could begin to start considering Windows Phone as a serious challenger and here we are a few months later with Nokia’s first Windows Phone.

Lets kick off the Lumia 800 review with a quick unboxing that will give you an idea of the box contents and a look at the silicon cover that Nokia ships with each Lumia 800. It offers great protection without adding to the profile of the device and if you are worried about being clumsy, Nokia has you covered. Also inside is a set of stereo headphones that come with a microphone to let you make calls, a micro USB cable, and a charging head that uses the micro USB cable as a lead, making it very portable and convenient.

HARDWARE & DESIGN

While the Lumia 800 is by no means a culmination of what that partnership can achieve, it marks a monumental step for both Nokia and Microsoft. It is the first device that will get attention purely because of its looks and draw a user in, letting Mango take it from there. Nokia’s created a top spec Windows Phone in what is my favourite design across all brands and platforms, nothing comes to the premium feel this device projects. Inside is a 1.4 Ghz Qualcomm processor, 512 MB of RAM, an 8 megapixel camera, a beautiful 3.7” AMOLED Clear Black Display.

The screen is a pentile based AMOLED and to the spec police that’s old technology. I personally haven’t felt any difference at all and text feels nice and sharp to my eyes and I have perfect vision. Infact, the whole pentile debate is a non issue for more than the vast majority of people. The colours are rich, the contrast deep and the blacks are truly black. You cannot tell if the screen is on or not if its just showing the a blank black screen.

The Lumia 800 comes in pink, blue and black, all of which look exceptional. The material used in the Lumia 800’s construction is polycarbonate, which is technically plastic, but feels far from it. The devil is in the details and Nokia has left no stone unturned to make the Lumia 800 feel special. The holes for the loudspeaker are all individually drilled into the unibody enclosure after it is made and the colour of the body isn’t paint that will flake off, its part of the material itself. If I were to really try and pick faults with the design, it’d be have to be with the shiny chrome strip that proudly says Nokia and Carl Zeiss at the back. If you are not careful it will pick up the odd scratch. Another thing which isn’t really a problem for anyone, but can scare people is the lid that covers the microUSB port. You need to open it everytime you need to charge the phone and in that position it feels a little flimsy. However, since you’ll have the charger plugged in that time, the obstruction from the cable being plugged in will act as a protector for it, preventing breakage.

The left of the device is completely plain, while the right houses the volume rocker and power button on the top and middle. The camera button is located on the bottom right hand side and is a very welcome addition. The curved display merges into the unibody casing seamlessly and there’s no edge that you can feel, adding to the great feel that the device projects. Since there are literally no moving parts, the build quality is the best you’ll have experienced yet on a Nokia, and that’s saying a lot.

In terms of thickness, the Lumia 800 is 12.1 mm but the rounded design created the illusion that it’s thinner. Even using the super slim Galaxy S2 (8.5 mm) side by side doesn’t make you say that the Lumia 800 is fat at all.

SOFTWARE

This is where it’s over to Windows Phone Mango and time for Nokia to take a back seat. For a while I have maintained that Windows Phone is not an OS you can play with for a few minutes and then take a call on whether you like it or not. Infact, for a little more perspective, here are my detailed impressions of the Lumia 800 when I first started using it.

The first thing you’ll notice with Mango is how incredibly smooth it is, we’re talking about zero stutter territory here. The dual core 1.2 Ghz processor, 1 GB RAM packing Galaxy S2 isn’t that smooth. If you are used to Symbian devices, you’ll feel as if everything is literally flying with no lag whatsoever. Come over from iOS and you’ll feel the same way.

Once you are done flicking around, you’ll notice the tiled Windows Phone UI that makes WP very distinct. The first page is a set of live tiles that can serve as shortcuts to frequently used apps and also inform you about those apps’ current status. For example, you could have a live tile showing you the current weather, the Inbox tile showing the number of unread emails, the foursquare tile showing you your current position on the leaderboard and so on.

Flick to the right you’ll see a list of alphabetically ordered apps. You can choose to scroll to get to the app you are looking for, or jump by alphabet. This approach does take a little getting used to, especially if you’ve been using a grid-based layout for ages. Overtime you get used to it, and the jump to alphabet option does make getting to the app you want much quicker.

SOCIAL INTEGRATION

The core strength of Windows Phone is its inbuilt social integration with Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Windows Live. All you need to do is sign into these respective services and the phone populates your phonebook, links your friends’ Twitter and Facebook accounts, pulls your Facebook photos in, and populates each contact with their latest social network activity. No other operating system even comes close. Microsoft’s philosophy is to make the OS more than just about apps.

Seeing your Facebook photos on your phone’s gallery, waiting to be accessed is great. The phone won’t download all pictures in advance, so you’ll need a fast data connection/WIFI, but it does make everything a lot easier. Want to look at photos your friend uploaded? No going into Facebook and searching for him/her and then loading the photos. Just goto the People hub, and search for your friend and all their uploads will be a flick away, waiting there. There you can also write on their wall, or mention them on Twitter making the whole experience very seamless indeed.

If you are a Google user, you’ll be glad to know that both contact and calendar sync works well. Again it’s only a matter of signing in and the phone does everything else. The only thing is that Windows phone will only pull one number associated with the field ‘Mobile’, so if you have two number with the same ‘Mobile’ field, you’re out of luck.

In addition to the People’s Hub that pulls in all your contacts’ Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin activity into one list is the ‘Me’ tile. The ‘Me’ tile lets you update your status across all these services and also set your chat status. A flick away is the notifications section that tells you of all Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter activity about you, mentions, wall posts, likes etc. This is where Windows Phone finally misses a trick or two. The ‘Me’ tile won’t tell you about Facebook messages or Twitter DM’s, otherwise its almost perfect. You can reply to the activity from the ‘Me’ tile itself and there’s no need to jump into another app. The ‘Me’ tile notifications also aren’t instant, but the phone periodically checks for updates and there’s no option to change that.

The web browser on Windows Phone is based on the IE engine and performs well. It’s smooth, scrolls fast and you’ll never seen those check boxes while zooming in or out. There’s no flash support, and that’s no longer a big deal at all. There is HTML5 support and that’s enough on most occasions. The one gripe I have is that the touch.facebook.com website hasn’t been optimised for it yet, its more to do with Facebook’s inaction than a ‘problem’ with the browser. Their website it seems is still only optimised for webkit and not the IE9 engine. The Windows Phone browser can also surprisingly handle a bunch of tabs easily without losing the loaded information.

The email client on Windows phone is also excellent. Emails arrive instantly and generally faster than Gmail arrives on Android devices. Setting up accounts is a breeze, including Google Apps accounts. The approach Mango takes to having a all-in-one inbox is the best implementation across platforms. You can choose which inboxes to join selectively, or have all merged into one. You can have as many linked inboxes as you like and even name them, great if you want to keep work and personal emails separate, yet combine the odd accounts.

WHAT COULD BE BETTER

Windows Phone has a bunch of things going for it, the core social experience, a great email client, a full-fledged office app, speed, the Metro UI and a capable web browser. That said there are a few things Windows phone needs to improve.

First is notifications. Currently we have Toast and Tile notifications. The former is a pop up on the top of the screen that stays for a couple of seconds giving you a snippet of the text message etc that you have received. The second and permanent mode is the tile count. The live tile shows the number of unread notifications and it disappears once you have seen them. The problem with this method, and the lack of a centralised approach in general, is that you need all your important apps on the homscreen as otherwise you’ll be missing notifications. It’s the same problem iOS had before the iOS 5 update, it’s not a deal breaker but something that can be improved. The lockscreen also shows unread notifications about emails, calls and texts, but third party apps don’t get plugged in, so a unread Whats App message will only show up on the live tile and nowhere else, forcing you to give that live tile a prominent position.

I’d also like Windows Phone to give third party apps a little more ability to run in the background. For example I’d like the twitter apps to keep loading tweets in the background so that they are waiting for me when I open the app. Although, this may be due to how developers have coded their apps, and not just the platform’s limitation. The whole experience is therefore better with a faster connection (3G/WIFI) as you don’t see the phone waiting for the network to load tweets and so on. Inbuilt apps like the web browser can load in the background so that’s not a worry.

The next ‘feature’ of Windows phone is that it resizes the images taken from the camera before uploading, doesn’t matter if you’re uploading to Facebook, Skydrive or Twitter. On most occasions this is great, because uploads are faster and loading times low, but sometimes you just want access to full resolution pictures and Windows Phone gives you no way to do that. I hope that a future update will fix this.

Like iOS, Windows Phone too has taken the closed approach. You cannot sideload apps, send files via Bluetooth, access the file system or use the device in the ‘Mass Storage’ mode. However, the restrictions aren’t as strict as Apple’s. You can sync your Windows phone with multiple computers, copying images and music. With the ChevronWP7 unlock, you can also side load apps after paying a small  fee and bluetooth transfers aren’t there not because Microsoft is against them, but because they weren’t a priority. Given the influence Nokia has on Windows Phone development in the future, I expect that some of these restrictions might not survive.

But as things stand, you can use the Zune client on a PC and the Windows Phone connector on the Mac to manage your files. On the Mac, it uses iPhoto and your iTunes library, so if you’ve become used to these apps, you won’t mind this one bit.

All in all, I found Windows Phone to be a fresh platform that gets a lot of things right, while taking a different approach from what iOS, Android or even Symbian look and feel like. With just a few more tweaks, it’ll be truly impressive. As it stands today, I have had no problems using it as my daily driver and for a mainstream user it presents a very compelling argument.

BATTERY LIFE

Nokia promises a 9.5 hr talk time on 3G networks, with a 335 hr standby time. The Lumia 800 according to Nokia also capable of an impressive 55 hrs of music playback and 6.5 hrs of video. In the real world, all of this translates to about one day of power user usage. This includes 3-4 email accounts syncing, Facebook and Twitter apps checking for notifications, in addition to the phone’s own ‘Me’ Tile. Add to that a healthy amount of web browsing and general fiddling. The odd weather app checking for the latest updates every 30 minutes doesn’t really tax the battery. With moderate usage, you can expect it to last more than a day.

Now Nokia did have some trouble with an early batch of the Lumia 800 with the presence of a bug that prevented full utilisation of the battery, that issue has now been fixed and Nokia is going the extra mile to ensure that the small amount of users who are affected can get replacements. So if I were buying a Lumia 800 today, I’d be pretty certain that I would enjoy great battery life.

CAMERA

The Lumia 800 packs an 8 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and a dual LED flash. The module is similar to the one found on the N9, and as such capable of some excellent shots. However, it seems that the software on the Lumia 800 isn’t able to utilize the full potential of the unit as yet. The N9 with the same module gets better shots.

Nokia has already stated than future firmware updates would improve camera performance and going by Nokia’s camera history, I have no doubt in their ability. The device can also shoot 720P HD video at 30 frames per second. It uses continuous auto focus during video capture, which means there may be some focus hunting but that guarantees that everything will be focus despite the fact that you are panning around or shooting closeups and also in the distance. Here are some camera samples from the Lumia 800 camera, both pictures and video.

DIFFERENTIATING THE LUMIA 800

Android manufactures skin their devices, Samsung has Touch Wiz, HTC has Sense and so on. On Windows Phone that isn’t a possibility and the only real way you can distinguish yourself is via apps, design and camera performance.

The Lumia 800 in addition to coming in an incredible design comes with trademark Nokia services that I have really come to enjoy in the last few years, Nokia Maps and Music.

The Maps section is actually divided into two, first there is the Nokia Maps app that will eventually become available for all Windows Phone devices, and the Nokia Drive App that’s exclusive to the Lumia series. On the maps app you cannot pre-load maps so you will need a data connection to search for information, routes etc. But Nokia’s tie-ups with Lonely Planet etc mean that they have a very strong POI database and for popular tourist places you will find a ton of information, more than what Bing or even Google Maps provides.

Nokia Drive on the other hand lets you pre load as many countries as you like for free and then navigate them in any language that you choose. The app alone is reason enough to justify buying a Nokia Windows Phone, over any other.

But there’s more, Nokia Music. Alongside the Zune app is the Nokia Music application that lets you buy music from the wide range of tracks that it offers. But what really differentiates this service is the Mix radio client. It lets you stream music based on a genre you like for free, and you can even download it for offline listening. You can save upto 4 such stations, each of which is good for about 2 hours of playback.

In India, we’ll see Nokia Music launch in a big way next year and all indications point to a DRM free all you can eat subscription model. If that becomes a reality, then along with Mapping, Music will become a killer app for Nokia.

CONCLUSION

The thing about the Lumia 800 is that it is a great fit for a lot of different sets of people. For those looking for a great work phone, the free office functionality on the Lumia 800 is huge draw, not to mention the excellent email client and the Microsoft integration that comes with it. On iOS or Android, you’d easily be paying 10$ plus for ability to edit documents and spread sheets on the go.

For youngsters it has a fantastic auto correct keyboard that is unparalleled across all platforms. Then there is also the tightly integrated social experience, right from tagging photos before you upload them, to not having to jump between apps to keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter. If you are a professional, then there is Linkedin support as well.

For those in their middle ages it has a sneaky clean UI that is easy grasp, along with all the polish and flare of a great looking OS. For somebody looking for a high end premium device that gets the job done, the Lumia 800 is a huge box of eye candy.

The Marketplace has matured over the last few months and now boasts of about 45,000 apps. This means that almost all of your essential/big brand apps are already available for Windows phone. But both Microsoft and Nokia are only stepping up their developer engagement and we are sure to see the numbers pick up quickly. Next, a lot of local apps are also coming, for example official Times of India and Book My Show apps are already underdevelopment, so you probably won’t be missing much.

The Lumia 800 is priced at 29,999 INR in India, while Nokia would like to blame the rising Dollar for this, the customer doesn’t care. At about 26-27,000 the Lumia 800 would have been far easier sell for Nokia. So the question we need to ask ourselves is whether the Lumia 800 worth the extra 3-4 thousand?  After all the Galaxy S2 sells for around that price too.

Apple has effectively priced itself out of the competition, so for anyone who was looking to pick up a iPhone, the Lumia 800 is a great buy, after all he was already willing to live within Apple’s walled garden and Windows phone is a lot less restrictive and the Lumia 800 has the same premium feel to it, not to mention the extra value.

No high end Android comes close to the feel of the Lumia 800. If you look at the raw Galaxy S2 specs, it wins. But when it comes to performance, the Lumia 800 is just as fast, and at times smoother. The advantages that the S2 does have are apps, a bigger screen and an open approach which allows for side loading apps, mass storage etc. Having used both devices, it again comes down to apps. Its good to know that your phone has mass storage and side loading, but the number is times I’ve used those options is very low indeed.

In the end, the Lumia 800 is an excellent device from Nokia, one I have thoroughly enjoyed using. The out of box Windows phone experience is great and the OS definitely grows on you. The device gets a solid 8.5/10 from me, putting the Lumia 800 squarely in the recommended category. The third eco-system that Stephen Elop talked about in February, is well and truly here to stay.

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The battery life reports on the Lumia 800 have been mixed right from the start, with some people getting great longevity while others finding out first hand what poor battery life really means. Turns out its all down to software and Nokia is promising an easy fix via a firmware update in ‘early 2012′.  The Lumia 710, thankfully for Nokia, is immune to this problem.

The problem seems to be caused by the phone not being able to access the entire capacity of its battery, similar to what Nokia had said three weeks ago:

We understand that some people have expressed concerns about battery life on the Nokia Lumia 800. Early investigations show that most people are enjoying the full Nokia Lumia experience without any problems and we have not been able to identify a single root cause that would lead to erratic battery behavior at this stage. A software update in early December will make some improvements to power efficiency, while a second update in early January introduces high voltage charging, increasing the Nokia Lumia 800’s battery power from 1300mAh to 1450mAh. These are scheduled improvements and will enhance the overall experience, but are not designed to address any issues that may be occurring with individual products. We recommend that anyone who has concerns contact local Nokia care representatives at their earliest convenience.

It seems they’ve now done some additional testing and released the following statement:

On Monday 12th December some of our customers started to comment in various social media that the preloaded diagnostics tool in some of the Nokia Lumia 800 phones was showing lower battery capacity than expected. We immediately started to investigate these reports and can now confirm that while the battery itself is fine, a software problem on certain variants is limiting the phone’s ability to access the full battery capacity. We want to stress that this issue has not been found to affect the recently introduced Nokia Lumia 710.

The good news is that as this is a software problem it can be easily resolved. The planned software update in early 2012, as well as including many performance enhancements, will also include a fix that will enable the affected phones to access the total battery capacity. For anyone who does not want to wait for the software update, Nokia can arrange for a replacement phone. Anyone who requires any further clarification should contact Nokia Care (Care contact details and locations can be found at www.Nokia.com/support).

Anyone who wants to know if their phone is affected can run the battery status test from the diagnostics tool already installed on their phone. (The tool is designed for service use and only displays approximate values.) Dialling ##634# opens the diagnostics tool. By accepting the disclaimer and then selecting ‘Battery Status’ from the list of options, anyone will be able to see their available battery charge capacity. If your full charge capacity reads less than 1000 mAh then your phone is affected with this specific issue and you may find it is necessary to charge your phone more frequently than normal. Once the software update has been applied, you should experience much better battery life. In the meantime here are some tips on how to increase your battery performanceand you should also make sure you are using the charger that came with the phone, as older chargers may not be as effective at charging the new Nokia Lumia 800.

Meanwhile Nokia India also got in touch with us and have released the following statement.

India impact will be minimal since we just started shipping. Therefore, If a consumer buys a Nokia Lumia 800 today, there is absolutely no impact. Nokia will go the extra mile to delight their consumers especially with a flagship product like Lumia 800.

Following GLOBAL reports of examples where the preloaded Diagnostics tool in the Nokia Lumia 800 was showing lower than expected levels of full battery charge capacity we immediately conducted extensive testing on the devices at a global level.

Following the tests, we can now confirm that while the battery in the devices is fine, in some variants a software problem is preventing the phone from accessing the full battery capacity.

The good news is that as it is a software problem it can be easily resolved and the planned early 2012 software update, as well as including some performance enhancements, will also include a fix that will enable the affected phones to access the total battery capacity. Once this update is applied customers should experience much better battery life.

Anyone customer who needs further clarification is being asked to contact Nokia Care (Care contact details and locations can be found at www.Nokia.com/support)

If you’ve just got your Lumia 800, I suggest you hit ##634# to check if you’re affected. Incase you are, a quick trip to the Nokia Service Center should sort you out.

All in all, since the new units that Nokia ships will have this issue fixed, you can be sure it’ll be problem free if you go buy a Lumia 800 starting today.

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Both the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Lumia 710 officially went on sale today in India, marked by a special event at the Nokia Store in Gurgaon’s Ambience Mall.

As you can imagine, the store was packed to the hilt and there was a Lumia 800 shaped cake to go along with the festivities.

The icing on the cake was that those who had pre-orded their devices at that particular store, walked away with a free XBOX 360 along with their shiny new Lumia 800. To top that, Nokia has also invited Tennis star Sania Mirza over for the sales kick-off.

Officially, the Lumia 800 priced at 29,999 and the 710 at a cool Rs. 18,999 but I suspect that the market operating price would be slightly less.

I quite like the Lumia 800, and you can find my hands on here. The Lumia 710 being 11,000 INR cheaper than the Lumia 800 presents a lot of value for money, specially because it has much of the same internals and processing power as its elder sibling; hands on here.

Here are a few pictures from the launch, our friends at ZCJ have a bunch more.

Are you planning on picking up either of these devices anytime soon?

[Image credit]

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Every Monday Nokia releases a new episode of the ‘Little Amazing Show’, which is a series of feel good films meant to promote the ‘amazing everyday’ lifestyle, which in turn is the marketing campaign behind Nokia’s Lumia series.

This week we’ve hit episode 4, titled Night that encourages you to do something amazing tonight.

I love these films and the best part is that they come out on Monday, to help you set the tone for the week. The idea behind these lifestyle films is not so much to promote the Lumia 800 itself, but the experience itself and thats where the films excel. The device is hardly every in your face, and yet you cannot miss it.

Missed the earlier episodes? Berlin, London and Madrid can be found on Nokia’s YouTube channel.

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On December 10, Nokia India held five simultaneous events across Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata to mark the launch of the Lumia 800 in India. Right in in the middle of popular malls in all these cities was the Nokia Arc, and tons of Lumia 800 branding.

There were live demos of the Lumia 800 along with pre-booking options, but the surprise element was a flash mob, that apparently started at the same time in all these 5 cities. I was at the Mumbai event, and here is how it all went down.

The video was recorded with a Lumia 800, and should also give you an idea of the sheer number of people watching it. If you’re curious about what happened in Delhi, our friends at ZCJ have you covered.

Update: Official video!

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The pre-orders for the Lumia 800 in India have already started and the device is expected to go on sale come Dec. 15. Nokia’s marketing campaign is also in full swing and the latest activity to come our way is a simultaneous 5 city event that is going down on 10th December, Saturday, 6 pm onwards.

Nokia India is promising an amazing experience that’ll ‘blow our minds’ away. So if you’re in Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai or Bangalore, you might want to head to one of the following venues on Saturday evening:

• Ambience Mall – Gurgaon
• SouthCity Mall – Kolkata
• GVK One – Banjara Hills – Hyderabad
• Korum Mall – Thane – Mumbai
• Forum Mall – Bangalore

You can RSVP on Twitter or Facebook.

While it will be impossible to top the 4D projection that Nokia did for the UK launch, but I’m looking forward to what Nokia India has in store. If you’re going to be at the Delhi event, ping me at @v4ibhav.

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Windows Phone has been getting some decent traction when it comes to mainstream apps, with the Marketplace hitting 40,000 apps recently. However, the real challenge is getting locally relevant apps for the users and I’m glad to see Windows Phone is doing well here as well.

At the Nokia Strategy Summit we were given a sneak peak at some of the India centric apps that are coming for Windows Phone and the chief among those that caught my eye were official apps for online retailer Flipkart, the ticket booking portal Book My Show and the very popular newspaper Times of India.

Fortunately I was able to get some hands on time with the Book My Show app (which I was really looking forward to) and Times of India (another favourite) and both of them nicely imbibe the Metro UI. I must stress that the versions that you see here are early alphas/betas and it may be some time before we see them in the Marketplace.

Book My Show

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Times of India

.

What are the other locally relevant apps you are looking forward to?

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Nokia Music Unlimited has been around in India for a while now and the model it followed was that with every purchase of a compatible Nokia handset, you got access to the millions of tracks on the Nokia Store for one year. You were free to download as many tracks as you liked and keep them after the expiry of the one year period, but there was a catch they were DRM protected.

That meant you couldn’t play that music on your other devices, and if you didn’t have a Windows PC, you couldn’t play them on your computer as well. So Mac users were out cold and that was never good. Next problem was that you could only use so many PC’s to download music from, so if you didn’t have WIFI or an unlimited data plan you would again hit a wall.

But all that has changed since last week. Along with the Nokia Asha 200 and Nokia Asha 300 and Nokia X2-02, Nokia announced that its Nokia Music service would be going DRM free. So with each subscription, you can now download as much music as you like, send it to friends, copy it to your other devices and that’s great. For once you have access to unlimited legal music downloads that come with all the metadata and album art intact. For over the air downloads, the tracks will be compressed so that downloads over EDGE will also finish in a minute or two.

Further, unlike the old way of activating the service via a coupon, Nokia Music will come pre activated with each phone. On low cost devices like the Asha series the service will be free for the first three months with the option of renewing the service by paying from the device itself. You will be able to opt for 3 month, 6 month and 12 month packs by paying a fee that hasn’t been revealed yet. Previously you got access for one year and that was it. If you wanted more, you had to get a new Nokia handset.

The beauty of the Nokia Music Unlimited service in India is that in addition to international music, it offers an extensive selection of local music, including some really old tracks that you’ll have a hard time finding anywhere else. Nokia Music Store includes wide-ranging catalogues from major global labels like Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music and Nokia’s local partnership with Indian Music Industry (a consortium of more than 150 music companies), Hungama that represents major labels including Yash Raj, Tseries, and SIMCA (South Indian Music Companies Association), amongst others. Basically, it’ll have pretty much everything you are looking for. Plus, through things like the Nokia Music Theater, you’ll also find a selection of content from great local artists who haven’t become quite so popular, yet have excellent music.

I have been a huge fan of Nokia Music Unlimited, and the move to DRM free music makes the purchase of a Nokia device an almost no-brainer. For a lot of people Nokia Maps has been a huge motivation for purchasing Nokia devices, but free DRM-free music could easily take over that role. So for consumers who are looking at the best value amongst the competition a combination of free navigation and music will be hard to resist.

The service is limited to the just announced Nokia Asha 200 and Nokia Asha 300 – and Nokia X2-02 for now, but the move to smartphones is a natural progression. Nokia has already said that Nokia Music will be coming to the Lumia devices in Q1 next year and you can be pretty sure it’ll come with DRM-free music.

One feature request I have is that Nokia offer higher quality downloads over the air in addition to the compressed versions that are currently available. If I have a 3G plan, or am on WIFI, I shouldn’t be forced to download the compressed track. Additionally, high bitrate versions should be available for download on Macs as well.

People want to pay for music, but the pay per album or track model would not be successful in India and its great to see a service that offers them a way around it. If Nokia can keep the renewal price of its Nokia Music service reasonable, I’m sure a lot of people will only be too happy to ditch songs.pk!

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