News : Maxis the first carrier to roll out 4G LTE in Malaysia

Maxis kicks off the new year with a surprise announcement yesterday that they are now rolling out 4G LTE service beginning with selected parts of the Klang Valley, making them the first carrier in Malaysia to offer a “true” 4G network here.

The 4G service is now live in Taman Tun Dr. Ismail, Damansara Utama, Desa Sri Hartamas, Bandar Puchong Jaya, Bandar Sunway and Cyberjaya. While it’s a small coverage area at this point, Maxis promises to launch the LTE service to other areas “very soon.”

According to Maxis the following locations are also able to enjoy partial coverage: SS2, Taman Paramount,Section 17 and 19 in Petaling Jaya, Plaza Damansara, Bandar Kinrara and Taman Wawasan in Puchong

LTE stands for ‘Long-term Evolution’ and was developed by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as a standard for wireless communication found in smartphones and other mobile data terminals. It was also based on 2G (GSM/EDGE) and 3G (UMTS/HSPA) technologies.

4G LTE has a theoretical downlink of 300Mbps and uplink of 75Mbps, and Maxis claims that they will be able to offer speeds of up to the latter, 75Mbps, though average speeds of 10-30Mbps are expected. That accounts to roughly 5-10 times the speed of a regular 3G connection. If able to achieve such connection consistently, a 5MB audio will take just 2 seconds to download and a 750MB video, a ridiculously fast 5 minutes.

Maxis’ 4G LTE is able to integrate seamlessly with our existing 3G and 2G networks, with the 4G connection falling back to 3G (or 2G) when not in coverage area. Dual Carrier HSPA+ offers theoretical downlink of up to 42Mbps, while good old HSPA+ gets 21Mbps max. Maxis stated that the former has over 3,500 sites covered, and the latter already covers 81% of the population from 5,200 sites.

Maxis has yet to offer a contract with LTE-enabled phones, but subscriptions can be made now with their Wireless Broadband packages over at KLCC and TTDI’s Maxis Centers. According to the press release, currently Maxis only offers three plans with the 75Mbps USB modem: 20GB (RM88), 28GB (RM128), 48GB (RM158).

It’s a 12-months contract with an upfront modem and activation charge of RM400 and RM150 respectively. Current subscribers could also upgrade their existing USB modems for RM400.

While Maxis is the first carrier to launch 4G LTE, seven other companies were given access to the spectrum as well: Celcom Axiata Bhd., DiGi Telecommunications Sdn. Bhd., Packet One Networks Sdn. Bhd., Puncak Semangat Sdn. Bhd., REDtone Marketing Sdn. Bhd., U Mobile Sdn. Bhd. and YTL Communications Sdn. Bhd.

As far as we could tell at this point, there are only three smartphones that support the 2600MHz band allocated by MCMC for our carriers: ASUS Padfone 2, Nokia Lumia 920 and 820. It is our understanding that existing Maxis subscribers already has 4G LTE enabled, provided their devices also supports the 2600MHz band. If you happen to own one of these devices and are a Maxis subscriber, please do chime in on the download speeds you’re able to achieve.

For more information on Maxis’ 4G LTE service, head on to their site here.

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[Updated]Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 Device Announced: Features 4.5-inch Display, Wireless Charging, 8.7MP PureView Camera And More

After weeks and weeks of almost blind speculation, Nokia has finally taken the wraps off its Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 device, which will no doubt serve as the company’s flagship smartphone. With Microsoft allowing vendors to really push the hardware boundaries with Windows Phone 8, the Finnish outfit certainly hasn’t disappointed with the 920.

An upgrade of the critically-acclaimed Lumia 900, it features a beautiful 4.5-inch display, and although the design looks almost identical to that of its predecessor, that’s most definitely to the advantage of the consumers, for the previous offering was easily among the most aesthetically-pleasing on the market.

Aside from the physical, it’s certainly gotten an impressive hardware bump, now packing in a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor to keep things ticking over, as well as a 2,000mAh battery. Interestingly, it will also support wireless charging with Qi standard, and is one of the first "big" smartphone releases to do so. Whether the market is ready to adopt wireless charging technology remains to be seen, but it’s a step in the right direction, and will undoubtedly push the profile of the Lumia range and Windows Phone alike.

Speaking of Windows Phone, it’ll be among the first devices to run Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 operating system, and packs in all the juicy features the Redmond company showcased earlier this year, including Live Tiles, Internet Explorer 10, and turn-by-turn navigation through Nokia’s very own Maps service. Speaking of maps, Nokia Maps are now an integral part of the Windows Phone 8 ecosystem, so you can rest assured that you will be blessed with Nokia’s high-quality turn-by-turn navigation which we’ve come to love.
The new Nokia Lumia 920 display is being painted as the "Pure Motion HD+," and will complement snaps taken on the "PureView" 8.7 megapixel snapper at the rear of the device. Nokia’s calling its new display the "best smartphone display innovation" its has ever made, and although the resolution isn’t particularly game-changing at 1280×768, it will offer a great viewing experience thanks to fast refresh rates. Now here comes the fun part of the display, if you’re living in an area which is freezing cold and you’re bound to wear gloves then worry not, as the Lumia 920’s screen is operation even if you’re wearing gloves. Pretty neat.
Taking screenshots has finally been added to the list of features in Windows Phone 8 – an implement which was strangely missing from Windows Phone 7.x, while images taken in full high res can be uploaded straight to SkyDrive from Windows Phone 8. Microsoft has placed a lot of emphasis on Windows 8′s "Cloud OS" credentials, and third-party apps will also be able to include the seamless uploading feature.
Apart from the usual bits and pieces, the Lumia 920 comes equipped with NFC for sharing content, or more specifically, using the device as your digital wallet for making payments. More functionality is yet to be revealed in the days to come.
The Lumia 920 will arrive in yellow, red, white, gray, and black, modeled in the familiar polycarbonate uni-body.

Updated : Latest Detail (Pic) on Our FB 

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News : Nokia Lumia 820, 920 leak out: PureView coming to Windows Phone

daThe new Nokia Lumias have leaked out and they bring great news for Windows Phone fans - Nokia is bringing its PureView imaging technology to Windows Phone 8 with a monster 4.5-inch Nokia Lumia 920, designed in Nokia’s best N9/Lumia 800 traditions and with great new colors, at least if this here leak proves true. 

Along with it comes a lesser specced and non-PureView 4.3-inch Nokia Lumia 820 with equally colorful jazzy looks and probably a more affordable price. 

Both the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820 seem to focus on the camera with Carl Zeiss lenses on both gadgets.

We don't know the actual resolution of the allegedy Lumia 920 PureView camera, but so far we've heard speculation that a PureView Windows Phone Lumia could sport a 21-megapixel sensor. This would allow the PureView oversampling technology to combine four pixels into one super pixel when you shoot at 5 megapixels, which in turn would mean less noise and better performance in low light conditions, as well as some non-degrading zoom capability (not just plain digital zoom). Still, in all likelihood this won't be exactly like the monster 41-megapixel sensor on the Nokia 808 PureView Symbian device, but somewhat less capable. On the bright side of things - you don't have to deal with a huge bulge on the back of the device, and the upcoming Lumia 920 definitely looks very, very sleek, much better than the bulky 808 PureView.

We love the colors on both the Lumia 920 and 820. That amazing yellow and vivid, almost crimson red right in the middle seem to set the new trend for Nokia Windows Phones.

As good and veritable as it sounds, this is still a leak so the final handsets Nokia unveils on September 5th might differ from what we see here. Still, to us it seems that there is all likelihood that those images are legit. If so, there will be a lot to get hyped up about in less than a week. 

How do you like what you see? Could that be your future phone right here? 

source: evleaks (1), (2) via PocketNow 

Nokia Lumia 920 with PureView	Nokia Lumia 820, no PureView

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