[sc:mobile-category ]The press conference is complete and the 925 is out!

The phone is pretty much what everyone expected, slimmer, lighter and aluminum.  I have to admit the phone looks quite nice but there are a couple of things that still have me scratching my head a little:

1. No SD card slot?  Really?
2. Those sleeves look really fugly on the phone.
3. USB port on the top?

Originally Nokia said that they didn’t have an SD card on the 920 because it would ruin their design, but no such problem here.  They could have made the back removable and placed the SIM and SD card hidden away from sight.  Likewise, a removable back would have allowed for the wireless charging to be built-in to a replacement back so they could still keep their thin and light design but still allow for an easy upgrade.

Let’s face it, the “sleeves” look ugly on such a nice phone.  In fact it’s almost a deal breaker for me.  I want wireless charging on my next phone but built-in would have been better.  The only saving grace here is that it should be easy for third parties to make better looking wireless charging options.  At worst it looks like you could take a knife to the Nokia ones and cut them down to just the wireless components and glue it to the back of the phone.

The USB port on the top of the phone is a little strange, I can see the point of having it on the bottom for “docking” the phone, but with wireless charging a clear possibility there really isn’t much need to dock the phone at all.  Not a deal breaker for me, but strange that they put it there instead of the bottom which would have made everyone happy.

There’s not release date for Canada yet, but that doesn’t really matter as if I buy one I won’t be getting it from a carrier (the 8X is only 6 months in to the 3 year contract).

I’m torn, it’s so close to the perfect phone, just not quite there yet either though…

[sc:mobile-category ]Woohoo!  Looks like it will be CatWalk as Nokia has just announced the 928 on Verizon so there’s no need for a press conference in London to talk about it 😉

[sc:mobile-category ]So Nokia has announced a press conference for May 14th and a second one on May 15th, so let’s talk abut the last one first and the first one last just to keep things interesting 😉

The May 15th announcement is about “Music discovery” and piqued my interest due to the inclusion of Alan Cross, a legend when it comes to the knowledge of music.  Music discovery is kind of a challenge these days, long ago I gave up listening to the radio so finding new music is a challenge.  I’ve been using AlbumReminder.com to keep track of artists I already know releasing new material, but I haven’t really found a good way to find new artists.

I’m interested to see what they come up with, something that I could use to link new artists to my existing ones and download either samples or full songs I could listen to in the car would be an interesting application.

Now then, that May 14th press conference.

It certainly looks like it will be a new high-end Lumia phone to replace the 920 and if it is just the 928 that will be a huge disappointment.  It seems more likely to be the ‘Catwalk’ device which would pretty much eliminate all my complaints about the 920; thinner, lighter, SD card support all included.

In fact, I’d be hard pressed to find anything wrong with the it if the rumors are true.  My HTC 8X is a great phone, but HTC has had to focus on its Android phones to try and recovery financially so their Windows Phone line has pretty much stagnated.  On the other hand, Nokia has no distractions and has been pumping out a stream of low-end phones.  Now it looks like they’re going to turn their attention back to the high-end and that may very well force me to pick up a new phone sooner rather than later.