News : Unofficial WP7.8 for first-gen Lumias available on Navifrim

 

The Windows Phone 7.8 update for first generation WP phones was neglected by Microsoft for a while, but the company committed to an early 2013 release and now builds for the WP7 Lumias have started to appear on Navifirm.

The firmwares are version ****.****.8858.***** and are available for the entire first-gen lineup - that is the Lumia 510, 610, 710, 800 and 900. They can be downloaded and installed using the Navifirm tool.

We should note that these are not official firmware updates, so if you choose to install them you will be doing so at your own risk. With the end of 2012 in sight, you might be better off just waiting for the official update to hit.

If you're not clear on what changes the Windows Phone 7.8 update will bring (Microsoft was mum on this for a long time), you can check out this Lumia 900 that runs on the updated firmware.

Thanks to Sajan for sending this in!

Source

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News @Nokia Unveils Lumia 820 WP8 Device: 4.3-inch Display, 8MP Camera, Exchangeable Covers, Wireless Charging And More [VIDEO]

If you are growing tired of deciding whether or not to wait for the next-generation iPhone or grab one of the latest and greatest Android powered devices, then it might be the right time to extend your mindset and cast your net a little further afield. Microsoft has been attempting for quite some time to nurture and grow interest in their Windows Phone platform, and partnering with Nokia during the Mango stages indicated their intention to eventually make a mass assault on the smartphone market.

As part of a joint media event in New York City, executives and representatives of both Nokia and Microsoft have taken to the stage to introduce the new features of Windows Phone 8, as well as two new pieces of Nokia hardware that will be built around the aforementioned software on board. As expected, we witnessed the official unveiling of the Lumia 920, a high-end device that look seriously tantalizing and brings some impressive features to the market. In addition to that, Nokia has also introduced the mid-range Lumia 820 smartphone that is built for those who may have a smaller budget, or don’t require all of the features and power which the Lumia 920 offers.
Like its bigger brother, the Lumia 820 will come bundled with Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 OS, and will actually be powered by the exact same processor that has been included with the Lumia 920. The Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU is a dual-core 1.5GHz monster that will make browsing apps and multitasking a breeze on both devices. The device will come with a standard 8GB of internal storage capacity, but is expandable through the use of a microSDcard, and will have a slightly smaller 4.3-inch display with a screen resolution of 480×800, that’s WVGA in geek speak. In place of the 920′s 8-megapixel camera, Nokia is building their mid-range device with an 8-megapixel camera without the all-so-awesome PureView tech, but does come with Carl Zeiss optics.

As you would expect in this day and age, the Lumia 820 comes with a rather gorgeous capacitive touchscreen display, and just like the Lumia 920, it is actually usable when wearing gloves, which is extremely handy for those like myself who live in colder climates. To finish off what is a very nice little device, Nokia has included the ability to change the cover on the device, great news for those who like a little bit of variety in life. Apparently, it will be possible to purchase a nice little cover that actually brings with it the ability to take advantage of wireless charging on the device. Perfect for those potential Lumia 820 owners who feel like they might be missing out on owning a Fatboy charging pillow.

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News " Images of a cancelled Nokia MeeGo prototype have emerged

Images of a cancelled Nokia MeeGo sporting prototype have emerged, showing us what life after the already iconic N9 could have been. Dubbed as Nokia "Lauta" RM-742, the fully functional hardware QWERTY device was originally pegged as an immediate successor of the Nokia N9.

   

The specs of the leaked Nokia were reportedly identical as those found in the N9, save for the hardware keyboard. The latter makes the device an even closer relative to the developer centric Nokia N950. The Nokia "Lauta" was originally scheduled for release in Q4 of 2011.

Source

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News : Nokia announces New Purity Pro Wireless headset refresh

The new wireless Purity Pro headset

Along with the new PlayUp mobile speaker from JBL-Nokia, it looks like those Purity headphones (over the ear) from Monster will also be getting a slight makeover.

The new version, which should be available later this year are not cheap: €299 or about $376. Last we checked, that’s a lot of money for some headphones.

The good news is you’re getting some neat technology this time around as Nokia has made these wireless with NFC pairing and Bluetooth streaming (you can also pair via BT).

The headphones come in four colors including black, red, yellow and white. Sadly, no cyan just yet but that yellow color seem to be the big new color for the Lumia line this year.

Source: Nokia Conversations

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News " Nokia Public Transport for Symbian updated to v2.1

 EEKA

Nokia Beta Labs has released a pretty significant update to the Public Transport app. Nokia’s navigation for public transportation is a fairly far reaching application, with time based information on mass transit services across Europe as well as major mass transit markets in the US and Canada. Time-estimated routing is also available in parts of South America, South Africa, India, China and Australia.

Nokia has provided a long list in the change log. All builds of the touchscreen Symbian platform are supported (with a few differences between firmware versions). There is more coverage for the US and China. The app is also integrated with Nokia Maps.

You can download Nokia Public Transport from Nokia Beta Labs or the Ovi Store.

sources: Nokia Beta Labs, My Nokia Blog

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News : Microsoft and Nokia to hold joint press event on September 5

In a rather bold statement, Nokia's executive VP of sales and marketing has called out Samsung directly in anticipation of Nokia and Microsoft's press event scheduled for September 5th during Nokia World.

Samsung take note, next generation Lumia coming soon. #nokiaThu Aug 16 04:00:57 via webChris Weber
CWeberatNokia

Just as expected, Nokia World will be the venue of choice for Nokia and Microsoft to unveil the first Lumia devices running on Windows Phone 8. The latest version of Microsoft's mobile OS wasunveiled in June and everyone has been eagerly waiting to see some actual phones powered by it.

It's no secret that Nokia has lost major ground to iOS and Android devices in the smartphone realm. The largest portion of that has gone to Samsung, which now controls some 21.6% of the global mobile market (this includes both smart and feature phones).

So now that the first volleys of the WP8 hype-war have been fired, we won't have to wait long to see if the platform will be enough to dig Nokia out of its hole.

Source 1 | Source 2

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News | Nokia X2 stops bullet, saves a life in Syria

There are plenty of memes going around that feature the classic Nokia 3310 feature phone, where it proved to be one tough cookie. Well, are all Nokias built tough? That remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure – earlier this morning, someone on Facebook reported about an incident that happened in war torn Syria, a country that is going through the bitter struggles of a civil war. It seems that an owner of the Nokia X2 was filming the action that is happening between the rebels and military, where bombs and bullets were let off with wanton abandon. This did not fail to deter the Nokia X2′s owner who moved closer to the action, and when he was still shooting a video halfway with the Nokia X2 remaining nearly in front of his mouth as his right hand held it, the incident happened. A bullet struck the Nokia X2, but remained stuck in the handset, meaning it stopped the bullet altogether, sacrificing its digital life for its human owner. The image above does seem to indicate otherwise, however. No idea on just how true this is, but it is a heart warming incident to read about where technology saves another life yet again, an old one at that.

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Rumor: Leaked yellow Nokia prototype is the ‘Phi’ Lumia 800 successor

Is this the Nokia 'Phi' Lumia 800 sequel?

File this under rumor but certainly plausible. The fan site Nokia Innovations is reporting that the alleged Nokia prototype phone that was leaked last night is in fact the Nokia ‘Phi’. Mind you that’s the code-name not product name, much like the Ace and SeaRay were used for the Lumia 900 and 800 respectively. What’s interesting about Nokia Innovation’s post is that it slghtly pre-dated those images by a few hours as that site was expecting their own images to come forward too.

The notion that Nokia would make a successor to the Lumia 800 is not far fetched at all. It’s a wildly popular design, one that we prefer even over the Lumia 900 due to the curved screen. Evidently Nokia CEO Stephen Elop was impressed with the Lumia 800 that he doesn’t want to let the design go, just have it evolve which to our ears makes sense.

So without further ado, here are some of the rumored specifications of the Lumia 800 successor aka the ‘Phi’...

• It has the same curved screen but bigger screen size (cannot confirm if it will be bigger than the Lumia 900s 4.3inch or the same) hence it will be thicker and far heavier than the Lumia 800. [Edit: We've heard it is closer to ~4.65 inches --Daniel]
• It has the same form factor, that is, polycarbonate unibody with irreplaceable battery (just like the Lumia800)
• No physical buttons on the front
• 4 physical buttons on the right side: up/down vol keys, power button and camera
• It will run on a Qualcomm Dual Core CPU (First Nokia Dual Core WP8 phone)
• It will have external SD card slot
• NFC chip on board.
• LTE enabled

Many people in our comments noted that the phone shown last night is a Lumia 800. But unless the person holding it has unusually small hands, the phone seems bigger than the minute Lumia 800 which only has a 3.7” screen. Indeed, this looks like something in-between the Lumia 800 and 900 with a 4” or bigger display.

It also helps explain the discrepancies with the speaker and slight changes in design. As to why the old flag versus the new one, that is certainly curious although perhaps it was used for 'open' testing and having the new flag may be a dead giveaway.

This device is rumored to be ready for shipment by the end of October, that may lend credence to the idea of why these images leaked in the first place. If coming out of China these images may have originated from one of Nokia’s partners for manufacturing much like the original SeaRay video that was leaked last summer.

Thoughts? Sound off in comments.

Source: Nokia Innovations;

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News MeeGo isn’t dead yet: Jolla plans to launch smartphone with MeeGo software

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Nokia may not be making smartphones with MeeGo Linux anymore, but a new company is hoping to keep the open source, Linux-based mobile software platform alive. Jolla plans introduce a new smartphone running MeeGo-based software later this year.

Nokia N9 with MeeGo

MeeGo was formed when the Moblin netbook operating system and Maemo smartphone OS merged a few years ago. Nokia was the primary backer of the project, but Nokia pretty much dropped the platform after releasing the Nokia N9 smartphone. Instead, the Finnish company is now partnering with Microsoft to release devices running Windows Phone software.
Jolla isn’t just a group of enthusiasts hoping to keep MeeGo alive though. The Jolla team includes folks that worked on the Nokia N9, including former directors of the project.
MeeGo isn’t under active development anymore, with much of the action now focused on the the Tizen Linux operating system, which emphasizes web-based technologies. But there is an open source continuation of the MeeGo project called Mer, and Jolla’s new phone will include software based on both MeeGo and Mer. It will Jolla’s own custom user interface.
Jolla is based in Finland, and has been working on its new phone since late 2011.

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News : Forget the Nokia Lumia 910, now the Nokia Lumia 1001 appears

Recently, Nokia's Remote Device Access showed a Nokia Lumia 910. For those unaware, the Remote Device Access allows those using a browser to access Nokia hardware. It is designed for developers to use to test out their code on hardware that they don't actually have physical access to. The RDAhelped reveal the Nokia Lumia 900 last year, when it was referred to as the Nokia 900 Windows Phone.

Nokia's RDA shows the Nokia Lumia 1001

While the Nokia Lumia 910 showed up recently, that device has been rumored to be around since February when accessories for the device appeared on Amazon and a Dutch retailer posted all about the device including its 12MP camera. Nokia's top camera executive, Damian Dinning, denied that such a device existed. Now, the RDA is showing the Nokia Lumia 1001and once again we are left wondering about the legitimacy of the model number.

It should be noted that when an unreleased model like the Nokia Lumia 1001 appears on the Remote Device Access tool, it doesn't give users access to those models. Those model numbers show up when a user takes a Nokia branded device to search for other Bluetooth enabled units nearby. The person who found the Nokia Lumia 1001, a member of the TechCrunch crew, was using a Nokia 500 when he spotted the Nokia Lumia 1001. Just to make sure he wasn't seeing things, he tried it again with a Nokia N9 and the Nokia Lumia 1001 was still there.

With the Lumia line, the higher the model number the higher-end the device. So with that in mind, perhaps the Nokia Lumia 1001 will be the first Nokia Windows Phone 8 model. Remember, we already know that current Windows Phone flavored handsets are not getting updated to the next build of Microsoft's mobile OS. Sorry, Nokia Lumia 900 owners, you can't have the flagship Windows Phone model forever.

source: TechCrunch

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Nokia outs exclusive Camera Extras app for Lumia phones

Nokia has released a special app for its Lumia series of smartphones. Currently available on the Windows Phone Marketplace, the Camera Extras app will give users four new shooting modes for their devices.

The new modes are Smart Group Shot, Action Shot, Self-timer and Panorama shot. The first one allows you to capture burst shots of a group of people and then automatically chooses the best one judging by face expressions, while the second allows you to capture fast-moving objects improving shooting speed. The other two are quite self-explanatory.

For now only users in China and the United States are bound to get the update. Other countries will follow later in July. Head to the Windows Phone Marketplace to get the juicy app now.

Source | Via

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Update : Nokia 808 PureView gets its first firmware update

It's just been over a week since the Nokia 808 PureView went on sale and Nokia has already given the phones its first firmware upgrade.

Although an official change log is not available, but according to All About Symbian, the update brings with it improvement in scrolling performance, quicker saving of the 38 megapixel images, smoother auto-rotation and other performance enhancements and bug fixes.

The v112.020.0310 update is now available over-the-air and can be downloaded directly on to your phone, or you can download it by connecting your phone to Nokia Suite.

Source

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Nokia 808 PureView US launch confirmed by Nokia

Recently, we heard that Nokia will be launching the Nokia 808 PureView in Mexico. This was after the company publicly announced that it won't be selling Symbian and S40 phones in North America any more and also excluding the continent from the 808 PureView list of launch countries.

Now, Nokia US President Chris Weber himself confirmed to PCMag.com that the 808 will indeed be launched in North America in the next couple of months. The 808 PureView won't be available through any of the carrier but will be sold unlocked and will be compatible with T-Mobile and AT&T.

It makes us wonder what caused this sudden change of heart for Nokia. Perhaps the Windows Phone-only for North America strategy isn't working out as well as Nokia expected. But if that's the problem then an unlocked Nokia 808 doesn't sound like the best solution.

Source

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NEWS|NOKIA|Is this Nokia Lumia PureView? We hope not

What we have for you here are two leaked slides, which allegedly show a concept design and the actual specs of the upcoming Nokia Lumia PureView. It should be the Windows Phone twin of the Symbian-based 808 PureView.

According to those slides, the Lumia PureView should pack a 4.3-inch HD screen, a dual-core 1.5GHz Krait processor, Adreno 320 graphics, a 41MP camera sensor – same as on the Nokia 808 PureView with 1080p video recording and Windows Phone Apollo ticking inside.

Well, the specs sound quite right for a next generation WP flagship and Nokia would certainly be bringing the PureView technology to its Lumia range, but that design is plain ugly. We know that the huge sensor mandates a thicker profile, but that's just ridiculous.

We really hope that, if these slides are indeed real, Nokia will choose a different design for its Lumia PureView smartphone.

Source | Via

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[News]Nokia Lumia 719 image leaks, coming soon to Asia and America

What we have today is the first picture of the upcoming Nokia Lumia 719. The phone is destined for the Asian and American markets and as can be deduced from the name will be placed above the currentNokia Lumia 710.

The Lumia 719 has a very basic design. Although it's hard to tell, the phone seems to be much thinner than the Lumia 710 and keeps the physical keys below the display. The phone is said to have a 3.7-inch, AMOLED display with Nokia's Clear Black technology, 5 megapixel camera and HD video recording, the last two being par for the course for a Windows Phone device.

We are expecting the device to be officially announced in China on March 28, which is when Nokia will be holding its Lumia event there.

Source

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[News][Update]Nokia N9 PR1.2 new features detailed

The new update to MeeGo on the N9 has been available since last week, and now we have some details on what exactly has been added.

The most notable is the introduction of the Google Talk Video Call app, which is the first app to take advantage of the N9′s front-facing camera for video. You can also show the person at the other end of the call what you’re seeing by simultaneously turning on the rear-facing 8MP shooter.

Also, thanks to the new continuous shutter featuer, you are able to snap up to nine pictures in quick succession by holding down the capture button. Finally, Nokia’s face recognition technology is able to tag your friends in your photos and upload them to your social networking sites.

Nokia Drive now allows you to adjust your routing options so you can avoid traffic or toll roads, and you can also sync with your favorite locations on maps.nokia.com. It can also tell you if you’re speeding, if you’re to be in an unfamiliar area, for instance.

Other cool improvements include wireless media sharing to select TV’s and game consoles, 3rd part app update notifications, improved media management, improved web browsing capabilities, as well as support for five additional languages: Vietnamese, Thai, Persian, Hebrew and Kazakh.

At the time of this writing, the update should be available OTA WiFi to over 70% of all N9 handsets, with full implementation expecting over the coming weeks. 

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A PureView camera headed to the Lumia lineup soon

A few days ago the Nokia 808 PureView caused a lot of jaws to drop, only to be raised back up again to ask "wait, Symbian?" However, when you take into account that the PureView project started 5 years ago the things become clear - Windows Phone just didn’t exist back then.

Jo Harlow, Executive Vice President of smart devices at Nokia, spoke to a Finnish newspaper saying that the PureView technology is heading to a future Lumia phone. According to her, it shouldn't be too long before such a phone materializes.

Performance shouldn't be an issue - the Nokia 808 uses a single-core 1.3GHz processor with 512MB and it's a custom chip that does all the heavy lifting. That's well within reach of current WP7 phones though they'll have to adjust the processing for a Qualcomm platform.

But, of course, that doesn’t mean a Nokia Lumia PureView phone is just around the corner.

Either way, this phone can't come soon enough. Until then, you can have a look at the camera samplesand check out our blog post on how PureView works.

Source (in Finnish)

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