Friday, 1 November 2013

Nokia Lumia 525 “Glee” tipped to come in Yellow, White and Orange

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According to  trusted smartphone leaker, @evleaks, Nokia’s upcoming low-end WPsmartphone Nokia Glee aka Lumia 525 will come in three colors – yellow, white and orange.


As we reported earlier, the upcoming Lumia 525 is rumored to be a media player device. Not much is known about the device right now, except than its going to be a upgraded version of the Lumia 520 with slightly better specs and feature sets.
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Nokia Lumia 1520 vs Nokia Lumia 1320

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Last week, the Finnish Smartphone manufacturer, Nokia heated up the news blogs once again with the launching of five new phones and Nokia’s first Windows tablet in the Nokia World 2013 event held in Abu Dhabi. The Finnish firm Nokia, who has sold its hardware division to Microsoft, seemed all prepare for rocking up the launch dice at the Nokia World 2013 event in Abu Dhabi.

It is well known that the phablet segment has witnessed major growth in the last few quarters. Major Smartphone manufacturer, Samsung is already ruling the phablet segment. For which, Nokia launched two new Lumia phablets named as Nokia Lumia 1520 and Lumia 1320 at the Nokia World 2013 event. Both Smartphones boast 6 inch display and run latest Microsoft Windows Phone 8 Operating Systems. Nevertheless, both have major conflicts with them including specs & price tags. Nokia Lumia 1520 is almost $400 costlier over Lumia 1320.
Here, we bring you a burning comparison between the two most promising devices Nokia Lumia 1520 and Nokia Lumia 1320. Tighten up your seat belts for the roller coaster comparison ride.

Design:

Both these Smartphones carry a 6 inch display, but both boast different looks. The Nokia Lumia 1520 looks similar to Lumia 920, while Lumia 1320 looks similar to Lumia 925. Nokia Lumia 1520 has squared edges while Lumia 1320 has curved edges.
The dimension of Lumia 1520 makes it smaller measuring 162.8 x 85.4 x 8.7mm, while the Lumia 1320 measures 164.2 x 85.9 x 9.8mm. The Lumia 1520 is lighter weighing 209g over Lumia 1320 weighing 220g.

Display:

Nokia Lumia 1520 & Nokia Lumia 1320 both sports a 6-inch ClearBlack IPS LCD Touch Screen. However, Nokia Lumia 1520 is a clean winner in this segment producing 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution at a rate of 367 pixels per inch. Nokia Lumia 1320 lags behind producing 1280 x 720 pixels resolution at 244 pixels per inch. For its safety, both Smartphones are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 2.

Hardware configuration & OS:

Nokia Lumia 1520 is a powerful device carrying a 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset processor supported with 2GB of RAM. While the Nokia Lumia 1320 is powered by a 1.7GHz Dual Core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset supported with 1GB of RAM. Both Smartphones run on latest & updated Microsoft Windows Phone 8 Operating Systems.

Camera:
Nokia Lumia 1520 steps one more place ahead in this segment. It carries an excellent 20 megapixels PureView camera on its back. It boasts superb features including optical image stabilization, Zeiss optics and a 1/2.5 inch sensor size and Dual LED flash. This smartphone also carries a 1.2 megapixels front camera for video calling.
Nokia Lumia 1320 carries a standard 5 Megapixels rear camera with single LED flash and 1/4 inch sensor size. It also boasts a poor VGA camera on its front.

Storage:

Nokia Lumia 1520 offers 32GB of internal storage capacity while Nokia Lumia 1320 only 8GB of internal storage. However, you can add an external MicroSD card of up to 64GB on both these Smartphones.

Connectivity:

For connectivity, Nokia Lumia 1520 supports 3G, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS with A-GPS, WI-Fi, WI-Fi hotspot, NFC, USB 2.0, MicroUSB and other standard options like 3.5mm audio jack.
Nokia Lumia 1320 has almost same connectivity features but it misses NFC connectivity for payments, sharing or tagging.

Features:

Nokia Lumia 1520 and Nokia Lumia 1320 promise a wide range of features on them. These Smartphones come with many pre-installed innovative Nokia Apps for camera and other needs. You can download tons of applications and games from Windows Store to enhance the performance of your device.

Nokia Lumia 1520 supports HERE Drive+ App with global navigation support while Nokia Lumia 1320 supports HERE Drive App with regional navigation support only.

Battery:
Both these Smartphones are fuelled by same 3400mAH non removable battery with wireless charging features.

Final Verdict:

No doubt, both Nokia Lumia 1520 and Nokia Lumia 1320 are power packed smartphones which redefine Windows Phone on a bigger screen. Nokia Lumia 1520 is much more ahead of Lumia 1320 in this comparison. It produces much better resolution and picture elements per inch than Lumia 1320 and many other competitors present in the marketplace.
Lumia 1520 has a powerful processor and better RAM than of Lumia 1320’s. Comparing the performance of Lumia 1520’s 20 Megapixels PureView camera with Lumia 1320’s 5 Megapixel camera would be unfair.

Nokia Lumia 1520 comes with a price tag of $749, whereas Nokia Lumia 1320 is a budget friendly smartphone coming with a price tag of $339. The difference of around $400 can be seen while comparing the specs of both the smartphones. However, Both Nokia Lumia 1520 and Nokia Lumia 1320 can be called as the best Windows Phone till date in their respective price segments. The final decision rests in the hands of the buyer and mostly on his budget.

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Smart Resize for Windows Phone 8, Smart Picture Resizing App

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Smart Resize first hit the radar last month as the winning app in Nokia's Future Capture contest. The Windows Phone 8 photography app is now available over in the Windows Phone Store and takes an interesting approach to editing things out of your photos.
Instead of cloning or cropping unwanted items or empty space out of your photo, Smart Resize downsamples the image. It utilizes a content-aware scale algorithm that differentiates between the less important and more important parts of the image.
In a manner of speaking, Smart Resize squeezes out the unwanted areas of your photos.
When you first launch Smart Resize you can walk through the help screens or tap the Windows Phone Back Button to jump into the editing app.  Once you exit the help screens, Smart Resize launches a camera app where you can capture new images to resize or you can pull up an image from your Windows Phone Pictures Hub to edit.



The first order of task is to highlight the unwanted or unprotected areas and highlight the wanted/protected areas. You'll need to tap the brush button to pull up the protect/remove tools.


 Once you mark all the areas, tap the done button and you can start the horizontal compression. Just pinch the image to compress the image and squeeze out the unwanted portion of your image. Once done you can move to the vertical compression screen and squish your image further.


Smart Resize also has a collection of thirty one effects filters that can be applied to your photos once you've resized things. Once you've got all the resizing and filters complete, tap the check mark and Smart Resize will process your image. You can then save, share or remove the edits and restart the entire process.
In using Smart Resize for a short period, I found the final stitching/blending of the image to be decent.  It would appear that the key is highlighting enough of the area you want to remove and not to compress the image too much.  There seems to be a point of no return when downsampling the image that if you pass it, the stitching can be more noticeable.









Smart Resize is definitely an interesting photo editing app and does make an good first impression. However, the app still needs a little fine tuning. Nothing mission critical but fixes that would make the app a little more user friendly.
For example, when you view images in landscape orientation, the control buttons do not rotate. I also wouldn't mind seeing an "undo" button in the mix. The back button doesn't always do the trick and it's easy to forget about the reset command that's hidden under the three-dot menu.

Overall, Smart Resize is an appealing app and it's easy to see how it took first place in the Future Capture contest. Smart Resize is a free app, available for Windows Phone 8 devices, that you can pick up here in the Windows Phone Store.

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Nokia bumps Transfer My Data app for Lumia WP8 devices with new features

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Quick heads-up, Nokia has updated its Transfer My Data system app for Lumia WP8 smartphone to version 5.1.0.19. The update brings expanded compatibility for transfer of text messages, support for DRM-free music transfer from certain Symbian and S40 handsets and the usual bug fixes.
Transfer My Data is a Nokia exclusive app to allow quick and painless migration of your data from your old phone (Symbian, Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone) to your shiny new Lumia device. The app allows you to copy contacts, text messages, pictures and DRM-free music from old phone to your new Lumia using Bluetooth.

What’s new:
  • Expanded compatibility for transfer of text messages
  • Transfer DRM-free music from certain Symbian and S40 phones
  • Bug fixes

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Nimbuzz, SysApp Pusher, Avirall Time Suite and NBA Game Time app updated for Lumia WP smartphones

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Here are few more WP app updates. The popular cross platform messenger Nimbuzz, utility app SysApp Pusher, productivity tool Avirall Time Suite and basketball game app  NBA Game Time for Nokia Lumia WP smartphones updated.
1- Nimbuzz updated to v1.1.4:

What’s New:
  • Now make Free Voice Calls with all your Nimbuzz Messenger contacts
  • Bug Fixes

2- SysApp Pusher updated to v2.4.7:

What’s New:
  • Removed some outdated Nokia apps
  • Added Slovenian translation

3- Avirall Time Suite updated to v1.2.8544.0:

What’s New:
  • 3 new time styles
  • Project report image design update
  • Now supports 6 languages – en, fr, de, nl, ch, ru
  • Peek view re-designed
  • Quick stopwatch digital area redesigned
  • Large tile for 7.8 and 8.0
  • Bug Fixes

4- NBA Game Time updated to v1.15:

What’s New:
  • Features 50+ new video highlights per day and access to live and on-demand games through League Pass (blackouts may apply).

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Thursday, 31 October 2013

Nextgen Reader for Nokia Lumia WP smartphones updated

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Quick heads-up, Nextgen Reader, the feature-rich popular RSS reader app for Nokia Lumia WP8 smartphones is updated to version 5.31. Normally available for $1.99  the app is free for the next 24 hours at Windows Phone Store.

What’s New:
  • Enjoy the full experience.
  • No ads or feature limitations in trial version for limited period.
  • Small bug fixes and improvements.


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SysApp Pusher, Bright Weather, InstaWeatherPro and Gleek updated for Nokia Lumia WP smartphones

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The popular utility app SysApp Pusher, Twitter client Gleek, weather app InstaWeatherPro and Bright Weather for Nokia Lumia WP smartphones updated.
1- SysApp Pusher updated to v2.4.5:
What’s New:
  • HERE Explore has been added
2- Bright Weather updated to v1.1.1:  

3- InstaWeatherPro updated to v1.3.9.3:

4- Gleek updated to v1.91.1.2:

Note: No official changelog has been released for Bright Weather, InstaWeatherPro and Gleek app updates. But the small bump in version suggests a bug fix or optimization. If you find anything new in this update, please do let us know in your comments below.
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Wednesday, 30 October 2013

6tag, Phriz.be and Amazon Mobile app for Nokia Lumia WP smartphones updated

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Here are couple of more app updates. The popular third party Instagram client 6tag, Amazon Mobile app, newly released sharing app Phriz.be and image resizing app Smart Resize for Nokia Lumia WP smartphones updated.

1- 6tag  updated to v2.0.2:
What’s New:
  • Save picture without posting
  • Maintain default share options
  • Improved map view
  • Improve manual blur
  • Bug fixes

2- Phriz.be updated to v1.0.1.6:
Minor Update: No official changelog has been released. But the small bump in version suggests a bug fix or optimization.


3- Amazon Mobile updated to v2.2.80.9:
What’s New:
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Tuesday, 29 October 2013

Nokia Q3 2013 sales at Eur 5.66 billion, 8.8 million Lumias sold

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Nokia just published its quarterly earnings report for Q3 2013 and has reported sales worth Eur 5.66 billion in the quarter ending September. While sales have gone, profits have also increased at Eur 118 million which is a huge improvement over the Eur 115 million losses that it reported last quarter. 

The Finnish smartphone manufacturer has managed to sell 8.8 million Lumia devices in Q3 which is up from 7.4 million in the previous quarter. The increase in shipment can be owed to budget and volume segment phones like the Lumia 520. This is reflected by the smartphone ASP that is decidedly low at $143. The company has also sold 1.4 million Lumia devices in the US this quarter which is a 180% increase over the last quarter. Nokia’s Lumia series finally seems to be gaining some traction in its attempt to garner a significant market share. What makes this a bit sad is that this is likely the last earnings release before the entirety of Nokia’s Devices and Services business gets bought by Microsoft for $7.2 billion. Nokia will essentially be then relegated to their HERE Maps division that will focus on improving mapping technology. HERE Maps reported sales worth Eur 0.2 billion. The other half of Nokia will be NSN ie their network division that was slightly down at Eur 2.6 billion this year.

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Viber for Nokia Lumia WP8 smartphones updated

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Quick heads-up, Viber, the popular messaging and VoIP client for Nokia Lumia WP8 smartphones gets a major update. The latest version 3.1 brings a fresh new UI, seamless integration with desktop app,background, Improved push notifications and more to the app, check out full changelog after break.

What’s New:
  • Support for the Viber Desktop application on Windows and PC
  • Seamlessly transfer calls between Viber Desktop and your device
  • Select new backgrounds from an all new Background Gallery
  • Windows Phone 8 Live Tiles, which let you pin your favorite conversations to your Start screen and see them update in real time
  • Improved push notifications ensure you never miss a  message or call
  • Refreshed look and feel, focused on improved readability and usability

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