Category: Mobile

The Nokia 920 and 820

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]So the big pres conference is over but what did we learn?

Not much really.  In fact, while the hardware looks great and has some truly impressive features, we’re still left wondering far too much.

But first things first, what did they get right?

The hardware

The 920 is looking to be a great phone.  The camera tech is truly impressive and if it takes photos half as well as the demo’s it will still be the best camera on a phone yet.  Likewise the wireless charging is a big step forward.  Yes Palm did it first, but it wasn’t standards compliant (because there were no standards at the time) and they didn’t license it out so it was always going to be a niche to them.  The display looks great and the touch screen that works with gloves makes it even better.

The 820 seems to have been the red-headed stepchild of the presentation (quite literally since it was show in red) but has some very desirable features.  The changeable covers, the SD card slot and a slightly smaller display are all good points.

On the hardware front the 920 is missing the SD card slot and I can’t for the life of me understand why.  It’s the high-end phone, its supposed to have all the features of the 820 and more, not less!

One change between the 800/900 and the 820/920 that I don’t like is the move towards a glossy case.  I really liked the matte finish on the 800/900, perhaps Nokia will make a sleeve for the 820 that’s matte.

I’m kind of torn here, the wireless charging is a killer feature for me so it seems likely I’ll be buying a Nokia phone.  However what I really want is a 920 with the styling of the 820 and the SD card slot.  I can only imagine that in a few months we’ll be seeing the 1020 or something that will be the 920 hardware in an 820 shell.

The Software

Nokia showed off quite a few software pieces as well, the maps functionality and the lens are both impressive additions to the phone.  However what I really wanted to see was Windows Phone 8 and there was very little to learn that we didn’t already know.

In fact there wasn’t ANYTHING new about the OS that we hadn’t learned either in June or through the SDK leak a few weeks ago.

This was the most frustrating part of the press conference.  This should have been MS’s big moment to shine and show all the new features of Windows Phone 8.  Instead we just got the oft recited “We’ll have more in the coming weeks” line.

And where’s the SDK for Windows Phone 8?  If the launch is going to be this year, shouldn’t the developers already have the SDK so they can be creating apps for the phones at launch time?

What Was Missing

There was so much missing from this press conference that I’m not sure where to start.

  • A release date
  • Carriers
  • Pricing
  • Regional availability
  • SDK Availability

It wasn’t what I was expecting at all.  I expect MS to get on stage and say “Windows Phone 8 will be available on …”.  Then I expected Nokia to get on stage with AT&T and say “The 920 will be available on launch on the AT&T network for $”.

Instead we got NOTHING.

No release date.

No Carriers.

No Pricing.

Nada.

If you don’t have those things lined up, don’t have the press conference.  It’s clear the market was looking for all these things as Nokia’s share price took a dive after the press conference.

How many times do they have to get it wrong before they wake up and realize we’re looking for hard facts, not future promises.  No other phone manufacturer get’s on stage for an hour and a half talking about their new phone and then doesn’t say when, where and how much it’s going to cost.

Sure Samsung didn’t have these details either, but they spent a sum total of about 10 seconds with their phone, not an hour and a half.

Motorola had a press conference later in the day and released 3 phones, pricing and launch dates included.

Apple will be releasing the iPhone 5 next week and you can bet they have a price, date and network all lined up.

The entire press conference seemed like a stall tactic to get in front of Apple instead of the launch of something great.

So Now What?

That’s the real question, after the press conference, Microsoft went ahead and announced limited availability of the Windows Phone 8 SDK would be coming next week.  So why wasn’t that part of the press conference?

And why limited availability?  Is it ready or isn’t it.  If it is, get it out there.  If it isn’t, don’t.

Microsoft’s next big event is the Build conference at the end of October, which seems kind of late to be showing off Windows Phone 8 if it’s going to launch this year.  So are we going to have yet another press conference at the end of Sept. to launch Windows Phone 8?  Will Microsoft use HTC’s event instead to do something on the 19th?

All this guess work is making my head spin.  Microsoft, just get on with it and give us the details.

Samsung, HTC, Nokia and Windows Phone 8

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]Ok, so Samsung has stolen a bit of Nokia’s thunder and announced their first Windows Phone 8 device a week before Nokia’s big event on Sept. 5th.  But is that a bad thing?  Heck no.  The more the merrier at the Windows Phone 8 party and the fact that Samsung felt the HAD to announce something before Nokia is a great sign that they want to complete in the Windows Phone 8 arena.

So first things first.  What the heck is with the name?  ATIV S?  I’ve read a dozen stories about it and I still had to go back and look it up because I couldn’t remember it.  Come on Samsung, you name your Android devices with easy to remember words like Galaxy, why no marketing love for Windows Phone 8?

Secondly, it does look like a great phone.  My first thought though was about the Windows button.  In the first few pictures I saw it kind of looked like it was raised up.  But subsequent images seem to have in recessed.  Either way I’m not sure a mix of physical and capacitive buttons on the front make sense.

HTC still hasn’t announced anything official, but a leaked image of an upcoming WP8 device certainly sets a different tone for their hardware than their WP7 devices.  I don’t think I like the colour, but otherwise it would be great to see HTC make a bold design statement like this.

And then there was Nokia.  The amount of leaks about the press conference is epic.  From everything we know it looks like they will be announcing the 820 and 920.  However just today a juicy tidbit was rumored as well, wireless charging!  And standards based none the less!  This has been on my wish list for years now and if the 920 does support it then it will most certainly be my next phone.

The same article mentions that the PureView will not be the 41 megapixel monster, but a more standard 8mp.  Not an issue for me.  Camera phones are fast and convenient, not for professional level photography.

But what else might Nokia have up its sleeve.  I think it’s entirely possible that they will announce a Windows RT tablet as well.  Nokia has said they want in the table game and Windows is the most obvious choice for them.  Could we see the 820/920/tablet all be available on Oct.26, the official launch day of Windows 8?

Here’s looking forward to a great September 5!

Moving from WP7 to WP8

Greg

[sc:mobile-category ]I’m very much looking forward to Windows Phone 8 and I’ll be getting one as soon as Bell or any other carrier gets one in stock.  Maybe even before if Microsoft continues to carry unlocked phones in its stores.

However there are a few things on my mind about the actual move from WP7 to WP8.  As Microsoft has not provided any backup solution for items like SMS and call logs, how will these move over to the new phone.  Will I simply have to drop them?  Will MS make a migration tool of some kind?  Will WP7.8 add features to sync these settings to Exchange or Live?

Hopefully there will be some kind of migration possible but my gut says there won’t be based upon what we’ve seen so far with the backwards support between the two OS’s.

With the count down to release well underway, hopefully we’ll see some more information about the user components of WP8 this summer, including if there will be any migration path.

 

 

Windows Phone 8 and hardware upgradeability – Part 2

Greg

[sc:mobile-category ]A while ago I wrote an article on the issue of hardware upgradability for WP7 devices, now’ the time to take a quick look back at it.

What we know now is that WP7 phones won’t be upgradable.  Full stop.  WP8 is going to be new hardware only.  From my original article:

However if MS does go with the NT kernel (and in my opinion they should, they get all kinds of benefits like the standard driver model, true multitasking, etc.), then it seems unlikely any WP7 phones will be upgradeable as the amount of effort to create new drivers for the NT kernel would not have enough return on investment.

Which is spot on.  It comes down to simple economics on this one, writing new drivers for hardware that you are never going to use again makes no sense.

So lets assume the worst case for a moment, no WP7 hardware will be upgradeable to WP8.  First generation devices, like my HD7, will not be upgradeable, however they will have been out for over 2 years by the time WP8 ships.  For most users this will be at the end of their contracts and they will be looking to upgrade to new hardware anyway.

My worst case scenario above has come true, but the mitigation for most users of first gen WP7 devices is easy, a few extra months with WP7.8 and they will be able to upgrade to new hardware and get WP8.

Where it gets ugly is for the people who just picked up their shiny new Titan II or Lumia 900, these users, if no upgrade is available, are likely going to be stuck with WP7.

Again, those that just purchased their phones are the ones hardest hit.  But this is true any time you buy a new phone, there’s always something better coming along.  Even with that though, a Titan II or Lumia 900 will still be a great phone for the majority of users until their contracts expire.  The questions of application support will likely be the critical issue for these users and in general the apps that are available now will continue to be so.  The new apps will continue to roll in for at least the next six months and more likely year or more as it will take a while for WP8 to get similar market share to WP7.

But when I say “stuck”, perhaps “stick” would be a better term.  Let’s face it, WP7 is great and no matter what WP8 is, that won’t change.

This is still true, WP7 is GREAT.  To make it better WP7.8 will at least bring the new start screen to WP7 devices and maybe more.

So yes, there may be some disappointment about when a user can upgrade to a WP8 device, but that is just life in the fast moving world of mobile phones.

This is true in all technology, just even more so these days in mobile.

 

Doing the Tango… on Canada Day!

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]Previously I updated my HD7 to WP 7.5 Build 8107 manually and now that Tango is out (Build 8773) it’s time to do it again!

You can go over to the XDA Forums and find the links to the update cabs here.

Something I missed in the first manual update was to figure out which languages my phone had installed on it.  In reality it doesn’t matter much as I only use English, but for the sake of completeness this time I downloaded and installed the “version and languages” app that’s contained in the first post at the XDA forums thread.  Of course if you don’t have an unlocked phone that’s not going to work 😉

It turns out Bell ships several languages with the HD7:

  • 0407: Deutsch
  • 0409: US English
  • 040C: French
  • 0410: Italian
  • 0C0A: Spanish

So the first thing I did to my phone was to load the extra 4 languages from the original 8107 update that I performed.  At this time I also did a device backup, just in case anything went wrong later on.

Note, if you try to send a language to the device that isn’t on the device it will fail the installation of all the cab’s you’ve sent.  So make sure to send the right ones.

Getting to Tango actually requires two updates to be done, the 8112 update and then the 8773 update.  I’m not sure what 8112 contains, but it seems like a small move up from 8107.

Using WP7 Cab Sender makes it easy enough to send the update and unlike the first time I decided to install the languages and the update at the same time.  This seems to have worked fine and I repeated the process for 8773.  Having taken the backup while installing the language files for 8107, I didn’t bother repeating it again during the 8112 ro 8773 updates to save time.

Like before, I did all these steps on my development phone before executing them on my primary phone.

So far everything is still working, tethering is still enabled so it all looks good.

Happy Canada Day everyone!

Source: XDA Developers, wpcentral