You know, sometimes, the best place to start something, is right at the bottom. And if you are already there by fate, it’s how you make of that opportunity that counts. And Nokia seems to be doing just that pretty well.
Nokia recently launched 3 new devices, two phablets (a slang for phones and tablets mashed up together), the 1320 and the 1520, and a 10.1” tablet, the 2520!
But the reason for excitement (and this article), are not just the devices, but the fact that lots of apps are coming too! More on that later. Let’s focus on the devices and their spec sheet first.
Cutting cost, not cutting-edge
Let’s start with a budget-mammoth, the Lumia 1320.
Now, since both the new devices being 6” phablets, there has to be some difference between them, right? There is. The 1320 is a low-end phablet that slightly falls weak when it comes to specs. To begin with, the resolution is NOT 1080 but 720. Secondly, the camera is pretty weak, a mere 5MP and super-archaic VGA camera in the front (what is this, 1999?).
It doesn’t end here. The Lumia 1320 comes aboard a slightly old dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor. I have to admit, the phone is clearly targeted to a lower-end market, unsure whether to jump the boat from Android or iOS.
You get this (spec-wise) ugly cousin of the Lumia family for a 339$. Not bad, but not good either if you ask me.
Beauty meets bad-ass!
Now comes the real behemoth, the Lumia 1520.
Packed with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 which is clocked at 2.2GHz and is a Quad Core, this is where Windows turns into a threat for the competition.
Again a 6” screen, this one is full HD 1080p LCD, ClearBlack with super sensitive touch, all safe under a Gorilla Glass 2. Enough for your iSheep and Lagdroid fanbois to choke on that glass of water for now.
It also has a PureView 20 MP (Carl?) ZEISS optics lens, OIS and a dual LED flash. Battery is a 3400 mAh, a winner, in simple words.
My reservation is only with the screen technology of the 1520. I haven’t been a very big fan of LCD. In my humble opinion, only AMOLED compliments a Windows Phone OS.
A tablet to tom-tom about!
Now let’s talk about the evening’s show stopper, the Nokia Lumia tablet, the 2520! Yes! I am pretty excited about this as this IS the first Nokia tablet! And hopefully many more to come!
The specs too are interesting. It has a 10.1”, full HD 1,920×1, 080-pixel (218ppi) display, has Nokia’s (proprietary?) ClearBlack Display filter. It comes on a Snapdragon 800 processor, a 8974 chipset. In the camera department, it has a 6.7-megapixel as the back camera and a 2-megapixel HD front-facing camera for Skype calls. The battery is a 8,000mAh, which promises a 10 hour stand-by time.
Of course there is always a catch…Cue for you to cringe – It runs on Windows RT. Don’t know why, don’t know how. But some of the reviewers said it’s good. And we will just have to take their word for the time being…
Apps Like that…
Now comes the most interesting part of the evening! APPS!! Yes, Nokia and NOT Microsoft, is taking apps very seriously. They have struggled to get some of the biggest names onboard and they have actually succeeded to a great extent. Nokia finally announced that Windows Phone 8 will get Instagram! Not just that, there will be the official Vine app, InNote, Papyrus, Temple Run 2 etc…and of course, there is my favorite – Flipboard!
There were also some new Nokia apps announced, namely the Nokia Story Teller and the Nokia Video Director. A cool picture-viewing and a film making tool, to say the least.
Conclusion
In short, the event was quite a successful one, as we saw Nokia take its next big step in this ever going battle of smartphones.
No harm in saying that they seem to be more serious than Microsoft to see Windows as a successful name/OS in portable computing.
The only thing I badly wanted to see was an 8” tablet! But maybe…not so soon.
Original article:
https://techtrove.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/race-to-the-finnish/