Nokia 808 PureView to launch in India and Russia from this month
Nokia has said that it will begin rolling out its Symbian-powered Nokia 808 PureView to “select markets” in May, initially launching the 41-megapixel handset in Russian and Indian markets.
Having been unveiled in this year’s Mobile World Congress, the 808 Pureview won awards for its impressive optics and ability to capture incredible amounts of detail in its photos.
The company noted at the time that it would look to launch the device as soon as possible but it has today confirmed that it will be available in two of its most popular markets from this month. Read more...
Nokia’s 808 PureView promo quite literally speaks for itself
I often believe that one of the best adverts for a device is when its maker is able to showcase its features using images or footage produced directly by it.
With its 41MP image quality, Carl Zeiss lens, and PureView imaging technology, Nokia demonstrates the imaging capabilities of the device front and center, but also shows off its social capabilities, really appealing to those who want the very best optics in their smartphone device. Read more...
Major European operators label Nokia smartphones expensive, unoriginal and buggy
European mobile operators appear to have dealt Nokia a fresh blow in its bid to overturn its flagging smartphone business, with its latest devices receiving a lukewarm response from four of the continent’s major carriers, Reuters reveals.
Nokia, which signed an agreement with Microsoft to power its new smartphones with the Windows Phone operating system in early 2011, has been accused of lacking innovation, inflating the price of its handsets, launching devices with major software issues and failing to back up launches with a big marketing spend. Read more...
Nokia makes its play for China with the launch of the Lumia 800C – but can it succeed?
Today Nokia has finally unveiled details of its play to rival Apple, Samsung and others in China with the launch of the Lumia 800C, a Windows Phone 7 device that becomes its first CDMA release in the country, as had been expected.
Following Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 China launch last week, Nokia CEO Steven Elop was in town as the Lumia 800C was unveiled alongside China Telecom, the country’s third largest operator, at an event in Shanghai today. Read more...
Nokia launches low-end Windows phone and a 38-megapixel camera phone
Nokia focused on its low-end phone offerings at Mobile World Congress on Monday, a year after announcing it would try to boost its smartphone sales by giving up its home-grown operating system in favor of Windows Phone.
It introduced a new, low-end Lumia phone, three new phones designed for emerging markets, a new Symbian phone that can take 38-megapixel photos, and a handful of new services to run primarily on Lumia phones.
The Lumia 610 will be Nokia's lowest-priced Windows Phone yet. The company did not say where it expected to launch the phones, but said they'd likely retail at a!189 (US$254) and be available in the second quarter.
"Now we're able to cover a range of needs and price points," said Jo Harlow, executive vice president of smart devices for Nokia. The Lumia 610 is the fourth phone in the series. Read more...
Strategy Analytics: Nokia became the world’s biggest Windows Phone vendor in Q4
A new report by research firm Strategy Analytics has revealed that Finnish mobile manufacturer Nokia became the world’s biggest Windows Phone vendor in the fourth quarter, as global shipments grew 36% to top 2.7 million units.
Accounting for almost a third of all Windows Phone shipments (33.1%), Nokia captured the top position for the first time in its history — replacing Taiwanese vendor HTC — helped by sales of its Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 smartphones which both launched in November 2011.
Strategy Analytics puts Nokia’s global Windows Phone shipments at around 0.9 million units, although the company itself announced that it had sold over 1 million units in its fourth quarter financial report. Read more...
Nokia gets another OS
Nokia has gone out and bought itself another operating system. It has snapped up the privately-held Norwegian company Smarterphone, which licenses a touchscreen featurephone OS, for an undisclosed sum. The company describes its eponymous platform (now up to version 3.0) as competing in the market of $25 to $75.
The business has been around since 1993, but operated under the name Kvaleberg until a year ago. It boasts a clutch of Asian licensees including Compal. Industry readers with long memories may remember OpenWave's V7 software; parts of that are included in the Smarterphone stack. Read more...
Amazon, MS and Nokia sniff around RIM
Buyers including Amazon, Microsoft and Nokia have expressed some interest in hoovering up the remains of Research in Motion, as it reeled from one disaster to another this year.
But the Canadian firm is determined to sort itself out, people with knowledge of the situation told Reuters.
Etail giant Amazon hired an investment bank over the summer to look into a potential marriage with RIM, but it didn't make any formal proposals.
Meanwhile, RIM's board are still keen on letting co-chief execs and chairmen Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie do their best to turn the business around and recoup some of its massive share losses. Read more...
Nokia, Microsoft bring Word, Excel and PowerPoint to Symbian phones
Microsoft and Nokia have announced that Word, Excel and PowerPoint will be brought to devices running Nokia's Symbian OS next year.
The productivity apps move is the latest fruit of an enterprise alliance announced between Nokia and Microsoft back in 2009 - before the pair agreed to collaborate at the OS level too.
Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 (WP7) OS - the smartphone platform Nokia is transitioning to as its primary OS - already supports Word, Excel and PowerPoint but compatibility will be extended to Nokia smartphones running the Belle iteration of the Symbian OS in the first half of 2012, the two companies said today.
The aim is to have a broad church of Nokia devices - both WP7 and Symbian-based handsets - supporting Microsoft apps, according to Nokia, in order to give busineses a wider choice of handsets. Nokia plans to support the Symbian platform until 2016. Read more...
Nokia developer forum hacked, still unavailable
The community section of Nokia's developer site was hacked, and some member's email addresses have been accessed, the mobile phone maker said.
The part of the site has been taken down, and instead delivers a statement from the company about the hack.
Nokia said that during its ongoing investigation of the incident, it discovered that a database table containing email addresses of developer forum members was accessed, by exploiting a vulnerability in the bulletin board software that allowed an SQL injection attack. Read more...
Symbian Anna makes her debut
Owners of the latest Nokia phones can now update to Symbian Anna, assuming their operators permit it, but having caught a glimpse of her younger sister they might not be impressed.
Anna was announced back in April, and has been available to developers for a while, but can now be installed on N8, C7, C6-01 and E7 handsets. It provides a portrait keyboard, faster browser, better mapping app and split-screen view, as well as reminding everyone that there are still a lot of Symbian handsets out there. Read more...
Nokia ‘giving away phones at cost’
Nokia's financial results for the second quarter of 2011 are due tomorrow, and the company has already warned investors of very bad news coming. Yesterday, it issued a peek into just how tough things have got in 2011. Nokia said its smartphone profit margins were down to 6.2 per cent in Q1 2011, with margins of 16.4 per cent on basic phones.
In other words, Nokia's bargain basement models, sold to emerging markets and typically making use of very old technology, make it more money than its premium "flagship" models which boast its "state of the art" features.
"There are no very big cuts per model, but the scale – across the portfolio – is unseen for a very, very long time," Reuters quotes one unnamed source at a European operator as saying. Read more...
Nokia sells messaging unit to Synchronica
Nokia is selling its operator-branded messaging business to Synchronica, a British developer of mobile messaging software, the companies said Thursday. The business unit provides email and instant messaging services to the likes of AT&T and Verizon.
Synchronica is paying $25 million in cash for the assets, all but $4 million of it deferred, and will also issue Nokia warrants for 18.3 million common shares in Synchronica.
As part of the deal, Synchronica will take over contracts serving 10 mobile operators in North America, and obtain source code for Nokia's client and server software, as well as some patents and patent applications. Read more...
Report: Nokia CEO Will Kill MeeGo Even if N9 Succeeds
Not long after "leaking" Nokia's first Windows smartphone, codenamed "Sea Ray," CEO Stephen Elop told a Finnish newspaper that even if the new MeeGo-based N9, launched the day before, succeeds, it will be Nokia's last device on the Meego operating system.
"In Elop's words, there is no returning to MeeGo, even if the N9 turns out to be a hit," wrote the Finnish daily, the Helsingin Sanomat.
On Thursday, Elop stirred the blogosphere when he teased what he called the first Nokia Windows device, which is rumored to be launching this fall. Read more...
Video shows first Nokia Windows Phone
The first Windows Phone from Nokia is code-named Sea Ray, comes with an 8-megapixel camera and uses the Mango version of Microsoft's OS, according to a video sent to Hungarian website Technet.hu.
The video, which seems to come from an internal meeting, starts with Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop saying that the industrial design of the MeeGo-based N9, which was announced earlier this week, will live on, and he asks the audience to put away their cameras and turn off all recording devices because what he is about to show is "super-confidential." He then takes out the Mango-based Sea Ray, a functional Windows device that has a screen protected by Gorilla glass, a pillow-shaped back, and an 8-megapixel camera, according to Elop. Read more...