Recently I was on holiday visiting a good friend in Vienna, Austria and was told of a surprise on the Wednesday but was not going to be told what it was until nearer the time.
Turns out Nokia Austria held an event for Nokia World but not everyone could attend so they held a special extra event at their offices for a select few people to experience the new Windows Phone devices….. and I was lucky enough to have been invited along!.
Due to the surprise of this event I only had a Nokia N9 with me for photos but at least I was able to get some good shots to share with everyone, I will also give you my thoughts on the short time I had with the two devices.
Also before I get into the photos, something worth pointing out is my history with Nokia, many of you will be unaware that before I started writing for CoolSmartPhone I had my own website which was running for 3 years called World of Nokia which was as you might guess a Nokia only website. This was because I am a big fan of Nokia hardware it was the Symbian OS which was the biggest problem for me so when Nokia announced a partnership with Microsoft I was very sceptical of what was going to be the end product…. thankfully after some hands on time I now have a very good idea.
Nokia 710
The Nokia Lumia 710 is the mid range handset in the Windows series and despite the bright yellow back and plastic build quality it it actually rather nice!. There are two versions available a Black and a White one and there are also different back covers available so you can really customise the handset your way.
The three main buttons at the bottom are real buttons, not touch sensitive ones, there is also a dedicated camera key which is used to load the camera and also used tot take photos or record video clips. The camera is 5 megapixels and can record 720p HD video as most Nokia phones do a the moment.
As with the Lumia 800 there is no front facing camera which is a shame and even though new features will be added into Windows via software updates, there is no way to get a 2nd camera on the hardware so video calling will always be a no-no.
No UK network has confirmed the Lumia 710 from what we have seen, also there has been very little to no information confirmed here in the UK on a sim free price, most focus has been on the Lumia 800.
Once we hear more then this will be updated.
Nokia 800
The Lumia 800 is the one everyone is talking about and the handset being pushed with a MASSIVE advertising campaign both online, in print and on TV.
It looks 99% like the Nokia N9 which was their Meego phone, the cosmetic differences I have noticed are the 800 has the dedicated camera key, the flash is now next to the camera instead of on top of it and also the lack of front facing camera.
The main camera is 8 megapixels with a Carl Zeiss lens which is great for getting low light shots thanks to the f2.2 lens setup.
Made from a single shell with a gorilla glass curved screen on top the Nokia Lumia 800 is a stunning creation from the company and with 16GB of internal memory and 512MB RAM you are getting a powerful device especially as Windows Phone is not a resources draining OS so you get more for your RAM.
Available on launch in Black and Cyan, there is also a Magenta version available which you will have seen I got hands on at the Nokia Austria offices in an earlier post.
- Nokia Maps WILL be available on other manufacturers devices, but Nokia Drive which is the specific voice turn by turn setup will ONLY be available on the Nokia handsets as it is an exclusive service.
- Also a lot has been said about lack of Internet Sharing ala Tethering on the Lumia range. This has been addressed by Nokia and will be released as a software update so sometime soon the Lumia range WILL get tethering use.
Your a lucky bugger Dan.