Items tagged with lumia
If you’re becoming bored to death with Microsoft’s steady cavalcade of budget Lumia Windows Phone releases, you’ll be glad to know that new flagship will soon be upon us. Instead of boring us to death with low-end Snapdragon processors, 1GB of RAM, and “mere” 720p displays, Microsoft is finally on the verge of delivering a true successor to the Lumia 930. Microsoft will deliver a two-pronged assault on the high-end market with the Lumia Cityman and the Lumia Talkman, according to WMPoweruser. The Cityman will be the true flagship with a 5.7-inch QHD (2560x1440) display, octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor (is it getting hot in here?), 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage. If that...
Read more...
The latest builds of Windows 10 look promising and Microsoft is assuring customers that the anticipated OS is on track for a summer 2015 release. It’s enough to make you think that Microsoft has its act together. There are some caveats to Microsoft’s assurances, though, and at least some customers will consider them to be pretty big. For one thing, Microsoft’s idea of a finished Windows is going to be looser than in the past. While Windows has always received updates, it sounds like Windows 10 will be more of a ‘work in progress’ than past versions. Expect to see noteworthy features, including Extensions and Windows 32-bit apps arrive after the official release. Another caveat to the summer Windows...
Read more...
Nokia’s mobile phone woes continue, but now they are Microsoft’s woes, thanks to the company’s $7.2-billion acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone business early last year. Microsoft recently filed a 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that, notes Computerworld’s Gregg Keizer, suggests a loss of about 12 cents per phone. Is Microsoft planning a write-off of the Nokia acquisition? Microsoft Lumia 640“Given its recent performance, the Phone Hardware reporting unit is at an elevated risk of impairment,” the report states. “Declines in expected future cash flow, reduction in future unit volume growth rates, or an increase in the risk-adjusted discount rate used to estimate the fair...
Read more...
Windows 10 Build 10051 for phones brings with it a number of great updates, with the Spartan Web browser being the most notable, but for some, it introduced something extra: phone bricking. In response, Microsoft has posted a discussion thread at the Windows Insider site that helps fill us in on what went wrong, what's being changed in the future, and whether or not current bricked phones can be fixed. At the forefront, Microsoft believes that what caused certain devices - namely the Lumia 520 and 521 - to brick is that the data blocks being sent to the device were too large. In response, Microsoft has adjusted its recovery tool (WPRT) to send 128KB chunks rather than 2MB. Further, it'll...
Read more...
As we’ve reported numerous times, Microsoft just can’t get over budget smartphones. While we understand the need for Microsoft to embrace the entry-level market, it seems like this is the only market that the company is interested in these days. Over 70 percent of Windows Phones out in the wild have just 512MB of memory or less, and nearly 33 percent of all Windows Phones sold are the lowly Lumia 520. And just like fans of a losing sports franchise sitting in the stands hoping that a new star comes to lead their team to a championship (or at least the playoffs), Windows Phone users are looking towards a new flagship to set the tone for the Windows platform. Unfortunately, that won’t happen for...
Read more...
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processor has a found a home in a number of smartphones that we’ve discussed over the past few months including the LG G Flex 2 and the Xiaomi Mi Note Pro. However, the Snapdragon 810 has also been dogged by reports of overheating, the first of such reports started airing in late 2014. More recently, Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S6 has been the subject of much speculation with regards to its use of the Snapdragon 810. Some reports have suggested that the flagship smartphone will use a revised version of the chip that produces less heat, while Qualcomm’s most recent earnings report seems to suggest that Samsung has passed over the Snapdragon 810 in favor of its homegrown...
Read more...
Microsoft’s earnings are up, driven in part to blazing sales of the Microsoft Lumia smartphones and Surface tablets. In its quarterly earnings statement, Microsoft announced that it had revenue of nearly $26.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014, up 8 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. Microsoft's Lumia 435 Smartphone. Microsoft’s entry-level Lumia smartphones have been getting plenty of attention from the press, and it turns out that they’re getting love from customers, too. The Lumia is one of the better-known phones at the lower end of the market, probably due in part to Microsoft/Nokia brand recognition. In the last quarter, Microsoft sold 10.5 million Lumia phones, driving a...
Read more...
It looks as though Microsoft might have a winner on its hands with the smartphone version of Windows 10. Microsoft officially announced the operating system yesterday, and is bringing a wealth of improvements compared to its predecessor, Windows Phone 8.1. Windows 10 brings a number of new features including a new dictation option, enhanced messaging capabilities, universal apps, a revamped Office suite, new Outlook mail client, and support for Microsoft’s wonderful new Spartan Internet browser. But while the new features are a definite plus for existing Windows Phone users, two of the biggest questions that remain revolve around the topics of availability and compatibility. To the first point,...
Read more...
Everyone loves to pick on Apple for saddling its smartphones with only 1GB of RAM (even the flagship iPhone 6 Plus is limited to just 1GB when most Android flagships are packing three times a much memory). However, Microsoft just reminded us of that its most popular smartphones are running on a mere 512MB of RAM (or less). In a blog posting last week, Microsoft provided some insight into the latest trends for the Windows Phone platform though November 2014. Some of the numbers weren’t very surprising at all. Windows Phone 8.1 now accounts for 65 percent of all traffic through the Windows Phone store, while legacy devices running Windows Phone 7.x make up than less than 5 percent of traffic. But...
Read more...
If you’re one of the millions of Nokia Lumia smartphone owners out there, you’ll be delighted to hear that Microsoft is officially rolling out the Lumia Denim firmware for Windows 8.1. Microsoft notes that while the rollout has commenced, it’s up to your individual wireless carrier to get the updated pushed out to you. “The Lumia Denim update has started rolling out to a limited number of devices in selected markets, and will continue arriving in waves by device,” said Adam Fraser, a staff writer for the Conversations blog at Microsoft. “A wider rollout of Lumia Denim to all Lumia smartphones running Windows Phone 8.1 is expected to begin in early January, following partner testing and approvals.”...
Read more...
It seems like we can't go a single month without seeing a major change happen at Microsoft that wouldn't have likely happened had the company still been under the rule of Steve Ballmer. Today, another such change is tossed on the pile, and it's a great one for anyone using a Windows Phone 8 device. When Windows Phone 8 dropped, it left a lot of WP users in the dark - they simply had no hope of updating their phone to Redmond's latest and greatest. Considering the fact that Microsoft's a follower in the smartphone market, you'd think that it'd try very hard to cater to its pre-existing customers, but in this particular case, it hadn't. Now, we can see that the company has likely learned its lesson,...
Read more...
It looks like a Nokia, and it smells like a Nokia... it must be a Nokia, right? Not so fast. Now that Microsoft has swallowed up Nokia's devices division, it's putting that fabled name to pasture. The Lumia branding remains, but there's no Nokia logo here -- this is the Microsoft Lumia 535. It's the first phone to ship from the newly-merged duo, and it's the first step towards a future where one of the most iconic mobile names in the world won't be seen nearly as frequently. Nostalgia aside, the Lumia 535 packs a lot of oomph for its tiny price tag. Specifications wise, there's a 5-inch display, 5-megapixel front-facing camera, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, and a built-in software suite atop...
Read more...
A new era in the smartphone business is about to begin. Come next Tuesday, Microsoft will fully unveil its first Lumia handset without the Nokia brand attached, a decision the company made by choice rather than being forced into due to any legal roadblocks. In fact, when Microsoft purchased Nokia's mobile phone business for $7.2 billion earlier this year, Microsoft negotiated the rights to use the Nokia brand on mobile products for the next 10 years. Nevertheless, this doesn't come as a surprise, especially after reports of Microsoft's upcoming plans surfaced a week ago. The Nokia brand has been tied to Microsoft's Windows Phone platform, though was never able to build up any significant market...
Read more...
It's no secret that Microsoft's been wanting to snuff out its Nokia and Windows Phone brands, so you'll have to excuse us for not even bothering to feign surprise that the Redmond outfit has finally gone through with it. In Nokia's place, Microsoft will roll with "Microsoft Lumia" for its branding and related advertising of handsets. This doesn't mean that Nokia is gone from the world (though when visiting Nokia.com, you're now urged to click through to the Microsoft Mobile website) -- the company is still around as a separate entity focused on digital mapping and navigation services, as well as telecommunications network equipment. However, Nokia sold its phone business to Microsoft back in...
Read more...
If you’re an AT&T customer who has been eyeballing the Nokia 830, you won’t have to wait much longer. AT&T confirmed that it will be carrying the “affordable flagship” phone, which is getting attention for having a stylish body and high-end features at what is expected to be a low price. Sadly, AT&T isn’t saying yet just what that price will be. It’s keeping mum about a release date, too, but given that Nokia expects the phone to be available this month, AT&T’s plans probably aren’t much different. Nokia Lumia 830 series Despite being an unusually thin and light Windows 8.1 smartphone, the Lumia 830 is loaded with hot hardware and...
Read more...
No company ever announces job cuts by saying, “We’re scuttling thousands of jobs, and that sucks, but that’s business”. Microsoft’s version of tap-dancing around the nasty business of layoffs is an email from CEO Satya Nadella titled “Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture” wherein he announced that the company will cut some 18,000 jobs from its workforce over the next year, which is a move that we expected. Calling it “The first step to building the right organization for our ambitions is to realign our workforce”, Nadella said that many of the cuts are coming from the Nokia Devices and Services division as the company figures out...
Read more...
There's been a ton of focus on camera performance and features in the smartphone space, but what about videos? If you're an armchair director and video buff, you're going to love what the Video Tuner app brings to the Windows Phone 8.1 platform. Rather than have to extract videos from your Lumia device to edit them, Video Tuner lets you tweak your videos in real time on your smartphone. You won't find the same controls as full featured (and awfully expensive) video editing programs offer, but Video Tuner is free and offers some neat tools. For example, you can trim, crop, rotate, flip, mirror, and change the speed of your video as you're watching it. "Delve deeper and you'll find more advanced...
Read more...
Since 2007, smartphones have largely looked the same. Form factors have grown slimmer, and displays are denser, but the overall motif really hasn't evolved much. So, what's truly "next" for smartphones? Perhaps it's intelligence. With Siri, Google Now, and Cortana taking the stage as personal assistants, Microsoft is hoping to take that notion another direction with 3D Touch features. The rumored addition could ship in Lumia handsets "later this year." As of now, a codenamed "McLaren" product has integrated Kinect-like features that put focus on gestures and motion, and require less tapping and swiping. 3D Touch (or Real Motion) would be the feature that Microsoft touts as its version of Samsung's...
Read more...
If you want the latest and greatest Nokia-built Windows Phone phone, and you’re an AT&T customer, the Lumia 1520 is a beast of a smartphone, but it’s not available to Verizon customers. Instead, Verizon offers the newer, and arguably more refined, Nokia Lumia Icon, which has nearly all of the same internal specifications as the 1520, but with a few key differences. The most obvious difference is the size; the 5-inch Lumia Icon is a sizeable smartphone whereas at 6 inches, the Lumia 1520 falls squarely into the phablet category. Otherwise, under the hood the two devices are quite similar--they are both powered by the same SoC, have similar amounts of RAM, and feature the same base...
Read more...
If you want the latest and greatest Nokia-built Windows Phone phone, and you’re an AT&T customer, the Lumia 1520 is a beast of a smartphone, but it’s not available to Verizon customers. Instead, Verizon offers the newer, and arguably more refined, Nokia Lumia Icon, which has nearly all of the same internal specifications as the 1520, but with a few key differences. The most obvious difference is the size; the 5-inch Lumia Icon is a sizeable smartphone whereas at 6 inches, the Lumia 1520 falls squarely into the phablet category, occupied by devices like the Galaxy Note III. The 1520 also has a larger battery (which makes sense given the larger display),...
Read more...
Sometimes, it feels like some companies keep a potential product on hand just in case it needs to be launched to help dampen some fire. In Lumia Icon's case, that fire is yesterday's rumor that Nokia is soon to be getting into the Android market, with a supposed reveal to happen at this month's Mobile World Congress. Hastened release or not, Nokia's Lumia Icon is an attractive-looking Windows Phone device from both an aesthetics and features standpoint. A major highlight is the fact that it bundles in a 20 megapixel PureView camera, which like the 41 megapixel Lumia 1020, utilizes Zeiss optics. Other multi-media perks include 4 "high-performance" mics (which utilize Nokia's Rich Recording), full...
Read more...
It might be a little late in the game, but rumor has it that Nokia will be unveiling its first-ever Android smartphone at Mobile World Congress later this month - a significant change from being a 100% Windows Phone-focused vendor. It's being said that this phone will target the low-cost market, so it could be that Nokia just wants to dip its toes into the Google water before shaking its portfolio up too much. This move is made interesting based on the simple fact that Nokia has been focused on Windows for so long, but the intrigue is taken to the next level given that Microsoft is in the process of completing a deal to acquire Nokia's entire handset division. While Nokia's move here...
Read more...
