Nokia introduces Asha Touch range of keypad-free feature phones

 

Nokia Asha 306

 

Nokia Asha 305 with Dual SIM

 

Nokia Asha 311

Nokia first rolled out its Asha line of feature phones last October, and now it's rolling out the new devices with touchscreen interfaces. The Asha Touch device range includes the Asha 305, Asha 306 and Asha 311 phones, all having 3-inch screens and run the Asha Touch UI. They all also pack the Nokia Browser 2.0 and free games from EA. 

The 305 and 306 are WQVGA resistive touch screen devices, with 2MP cameras and GPRS/EDGE connectivity, while the 305 brings Nokia's Easy Swap dual-SIM capability to bear and the 306 features WiFi. The 311 has a capacitive glass screen, HSPA modem, 1GHz CPU and 3.2MP camera. 

The Asha 305 is supposed to ship in Q2 for about $85 US, while the 306 and 311 are due in the third quarter for $93 and $121, respectively. 

Nokia 808

 Specifications

General

2G Network     GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network     HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100
Announced     2012, February
Status     Coming soon. Exp. release 2012, June

Body

Dimensions     123.9 x 60.2 x 13.9 mm, 95.5 cc
Weight     169 g

Display

Type     AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size     360 x 640 pixels, 4.0 inches (~184 ppi pixel density)
Multitouch     Yes
Protection     Corning Gorilla Glass
     - Nokia ClearBlack display

Sound


Alert types     Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
Loudspeaker     Yes
3.5mm jack     Yes
     - Dolby Digital Plus
- Dolby headphone enhancement

Memory

Card slot     microSD, up to 32 GB
Internal     16 GB storage, 1 GB ROM, 512 MB RAM

Data  


  GPRS     Class 33
EDGE     Class 33
Speed     HSDPA 14.4 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
WLAN     Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, UPnP technology
Bluetooth     Yes, v3.0 with A2DP
NFC     Yes
USB     Yes, microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go support

Camera

Primary     41 MP (38 MP effective, 7152 x 5368 pixels), Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, Xenon flash

Features

1/1.2'' sensor size, ND filter, up to 4x lossless digital zoom, geo-tagging, face detection

Video     Yes, 1080p@30fps, lossless digital zoom, LED light

Secondary     Yes, VGA; VGA@30fps video recording

Features     OS     Nokia Belle OS

CPU     1.3 GHz ARM 11

Sensors     Accelerometer, proximity, compass

Messaging     SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM

Browser     HTML5, Adobe Flash Lite

Radio     Stereo FM radio with RDS; FM transmitter

GPS     Yes, with A-GPS support

Java     Yes, MIDP 2.1

Colors     Black, White, Red

     - SNS integration

- Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic

- HDMI port

- MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player

- MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player

- Voice command/dial

- Document viewer

- Video/photo editor

- Predictive text input

Battery

Standard battery, Li-Ion 1400 mAh (BV-4D)
Stand-by     Up to 465 h (2G) / Up to 540 h (3G)
Talk time     Up to 11 h (2G) / Up to 6 h 50 min (3G)

Camera phones have improved dramatically over the last few years, but the camera has always been just ‘another’ phone feature. You can browse the internet, make calls and play games - but this is a camera first and phone second.

The Nokia 808 PureView is one of the most exciting and technologically advanced phones of 2012. Inside, there is a 41-megapixel camera, which is five times the amount of megapixels on the Samsung Galaxy S3 or HTC One X and even more than a digital SLR.

A phone with a 41-megapixel camera, quantity of pixels seems unnecessary. You don’t have to use this resolution - you can if you want, but your memory card will fill up very quickly. Instead select a smaller images size (three, five or eight megapixels ) and the PureView shoots at 41 megapixels, but then combines the pixels into super pixels. This not only makes the  image size smaller, but means there’s less noise.

Photographs taken using the 808 PureView are stunning. They are exceptionally sharp, with fantastic contrast. Colours are natural but vibrant. But it’s the level of detail that blows you away - even in shadowy areas.

Nokia has dramatically improved other camera features too. There isn’t an optical zoom, but – thanks to the mammoth resolution offered by the sensor – the digital zoom is lossless. That means you can zoom in without reducing the quality. It’s also got a proper Xenon flash - which is far brighter than an LED flash, used by most smartphones.

The 808 PureView is not a perfect phone. It runs the Symbian operating system and although it has improved following the Belle update, At around £500 the 808 PureView is expensive, but we’ll hopefully see cheaper phones using the technology in the future. But for now, it’s the best camera phone in the market.

Nokia's Lumia 900 Available Today

Nokia's Lumia 900: A New Deal For Smartphones

There's a new Nokia smartphone that has many techies intrigued, and yet the year is not 2005, about the last time that Finnish manufacturer could claim supremacy in the business. This model runs Microsoft software, which also last saw is heyday around then.

This device from AT&T Wireless, is the most notable product of the Finnish manufacturer's decision two winters ago to bet its future on Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system. WP7 owes nothing to Microsoft's Windows Mobile software. Programs and menus whoosh in and out of view with a glasslike smoothness, while the interactive tiles of WP7's home screen provide a simple and easily customizable overview of new text messages, e-mails, calendar appointments, app updates and other pending items.

The elegance crumples once you plug the 900 into a computer. Synchronizing photos or music from a PC or Mac requires extra software, as does the simpler task of downloading photos taken with this phone's 8-megapixel camera. You can't even beam pictures to a computer via Bluetooth; like Apple's iOS but unlike Google's Android, WP7 leaves out that basic function.

WP7 does fine syncing contacts and calendars to and from cloud-based services like Google or Microsoft. But if you use Microsoft's Outlook on a home computer, it's more trouble to sync that program with a Lumia 900 than with an iPhone. WP7's maps app only offers directions for driving and walking, leaving out the helpful transit navigation available at the regular Bing Maps site.

The trim hardware Nokia wrapped around Microsoft's software qualifies as decent but not outstanding. The 900's 4.3-inch display looks great but is well below the iPhone's retina-display resolution. Its 16 gigabytes of storage can't be augmented with a microSD Card. Its camera did well with outdoor shots, but high-contrast exposures confused it.

 

Battery life on the review unit loaned by AT&T didn't surpass other smartphones with fast but power-hungry LTE wireless. 900 kept 71 percent of a charge after 24 hours in idle. In a worst-case test, with its screen illuminated almost full-time and the Slacker Web radio app playing, its battery lasted 4 hours and 45 minutes. But when the phone ran down overnight and plugged it into a Samsung USB charger that other devices tolerate, it wouldn't boot up or resume charging.

The biggest uncertainty over the 900's worth, and that of WP7 in general, is the iffy selection of Microsoft's 80,000-app Windows Phone Marketplace. Although such popular titles as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp and Evernote now offer WP7 versions, their quality varies widely. Foursquare's artful efficiency has no match in Twitter's buggy release.

The Pandora Web radio app still doesn't support WP7. Even Microsoft's own Skype has yet to grace the Marketplace with a version of its video-calling app for the 900's 1 megapixel front-facing camera.

Nokia 800C, Nokia Lumia 610, Nokia’s Windows smartphones to be sold in China

Nokia 800C, Nokia‘s China version of Nokia Lumia 800, Nokia‘s first Lumia Windows smartphone, was unveiled in the country on Wednesday, March 28, 2012, which will be available this coming April, with Nokia Lumia 610 also to arrive later.

Wang Xiaochu and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop

As noted in a press release, China Telecom and Nokia made the announcement of Nokia 800C in China, to join the competition in the world’s largest smartphone market. 

“We’re excited to introduce our first Lumia smartphone, the Nokia 800C, to this important market with our exclusive launch partner, China Telecom.” Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia, was quoted in a press conference.

“Working closely together, we’ve created a compelling, locally relevant experience on the Nokia 800C especially tailored for people in China.” Mr. Elop added, who was joined in the stage by China Telecom Chairman Wang Xiaochu.

“This grand launch for China‘s first CDMA Windows Phone represents our optimism and excitement for the future of Windows Phone and Nokia Lumia in China.” Mr. Xiaochu said in return, expressing his enthusiasm for Nokia 800C.

Meanwhile, Nokia also revealed that Nokia Lumia 610, which is being targeted to younger customers, will be available in China via China Telecom with CDMA support in Q2, 2012, but did not mention any specific date yet.

SPECIFICATIONS

Nokia Lumia 610, which sports a 3-megapixel camera and a 3.2-inch display and can be used to browse the Web with Internet Explorer as well as access games at Xbox Live, will be available in white, cyan, black, and magenta.

Among the key features of the Nokia Lumia 800, which was unveiled last October, includes having a 1.4 GHz processor, 16GB of internal user memory, 512 MB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera, and a 3.7-inch, curved-glass, AMOLED screen.

Nokia Lumia 900 on AT&T release date, pre-orders to start on March 30

US carrier AT&T announced on Monday, March 26, 2012 the release date of Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone as well as its price, with pre-orders to start this coming Friday, March 30.

According to a press release by AT&T, Nokia Lumia 900 will be available starting April 8, 2012 for $99.99, with the Nokia Windows phone to run at 4G LTE network. As noted by AT&T, Nokia Lumia 900, which was unveiled during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2012) event last January by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop and the third Nokia Lumia smartphone series, will be available with a two-year contract.

“AT&T and Nokia‘s relationship spans many years and we’re thrilled to introduce their first 4G LTE Windows Phone. The Lumia 900 is impeccably designed with clean lines and a camera that rivals stand-alone digital cameras on the market today.” AT&T Mobility Devices SVP Jeff Bradley said.

“Combine that with the people-first Windows Phone experience and our 4G networks – the nations’ largest – and it’s clear that this is one of the best phones customers can find.” Bradley added, with the Nokia Lumia 900 to be available in cyan blue and a matte black on April 8; while the white version will be available starting April 22.

Back in February, Nokia announced that Lumia 900 will be available around the world in a DC-HSPA variant for high speed data connection in countries where LTE is not available, in which Europe and China are being expected to be included later.

Among the key features of the Nokia Lumia 900 includes having a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display, an 8-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and a 1.4GHz single-core processor.