Microsoft
and Nokia have done it again in a partnership that is sure to draw much stares
of envy in the tech world. This as they have now launched the 4.5” Lumia 920
and the 4.3” Lumia 820 smartphones on Wednesday 5th September 2012AD
with a dazzleing array of features as stated in the article “Nokia
aims to dazzle with Windows Phone 8 Lumia 920”, published September
5, 2012 7:11 AM PDT by Roger Cheng, CNET
News.
Possibly
a much improved dancing partner to the Microsoft Surface Tablets as unveiled by
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop? So far so good, as it appears to already impress many
tech journalists. This as duet of smartphones in visage of the Lumia 820 and
the Lumia 920 is the second culmination of the Microsoft-Nokia partnership much
vaulted in the media.
Matt
Warman of the UK Telegraph gave the pair’s second smartphone attempt a solid
thumbs up on both Nokia’s hardware and is new Microsoft Windows Phone 8
software in the article “Nokia
Lumia 920 - first impressions”, published 6
September 2012 by Matt Warman, The
UK Telegraph.
I
personally like the fact that not only does it feature a much improved larger
4.5” screen, but it also has wireless charging built in as stated in the article
“New
Nokia Lumia 920, 820 to feature wireless charging”,
published September 3, 2012 10:55 AM PDT by Steven Musil, CNET News.
Not to mention the fact that it comes in a
rainbow of colours, albeit only for AT&T customers, saving money on the
purchase of a phone skin as per the article “Nokia
Lumia 920 Adds Color To Mobile, But Only For AT&T Customers”,
published 07-09-2012 by Connie Guglielmo, Forbes
Magazine.
In
my
blog article entitled “Nokia
+ Microsoft, Tablet and smartphone Prospects by 2015 - Three Software
Musketeers” I had praised the partnership between Microsoft
and Nokia as being an excellent partnership. It combines Microsoft’s phone OS
and software engineering skills and Nokia’s excellent hardware and distribution
network to sell smartphones and tablets produced by the partnership.
Thus
pundits should expect mobile phones that have compatibility with Microsoft
software Applications straight out of the box, an attraction to Corporate and
Enterprise looking for a standard replacement for Blackberry smartphones that
can get work done on the go. This in stark contrast to the Apple iPhone and
Google Android smartphones which make up the lion’s share of the smartphone
market but thus far do not come with Native Support for Microsoft Office or
Bing Search Engine.
However,
the partnership thus far has produced the Lumia 710, Lumia 800 and the Lumia
900 which has LTE baked in, all of which were greeted by rather lukewarm sales
of approximately six hundred thousand (600,000) units. A commercial failure for
the Nokia+Microsoft phone, whose name in Spanish literally means “Prostitute”.
Thus
a commercial success for this Lady of the Night is required of both the Nokia
820 and the Nokia 920 for the partnership to be worthwhile, based on the
analysis in the article “Nokia
again faces make-or-break point with new Lumia phones”,
published September 3, 2012 4:00 AM PDT by Roger Cheng, CNET News.
The
smattering of specs below (lists I frown upon as they give no idea of how the
phone handles in the real World!) may guarantee this success:
Lumia 820 and Lumia 920
- 4.3” Capacitive Touch Screen for the Lumia 820
- 4.5” Capacitive Touch Screen for the Lumia 920
- AMOLED 1,280x768 pixels, 332 ppi screen for the Lumia 920
- 8GB of Internal Storage for the Lumia 820
- 32GB of Internal Storage for the Lumia 920
- MicroSD Card slot for the Lumia 820
- MicroUSB Charging Port for the Lumia 920
- 8.7-megapixel for the rear-facing camera for the Lumia 920
- 1.2-megapixel for the front-facing camera for the Lumia 920
- PureMotion HD Plus Display with a WXGA resolution of 1,280x768 pixels
- Built in Wireless Charging that supports the Qi wireless charging standard
- NFC (Near Field Communications) for Wireless File Transfer and Wireless payments
- Nokia Maps (Nokia-Microsoft light a small fire against Google Maps)
- City Lens and AR (Augmented Reality) Advertising feature for places to visit
- PureView Camera technology for image stabilization and higher photosensitivity
Nokia’s
emphasis on the camera and the cleanness of the design is interesting. It
appears that customer feedback has suggested to them that the main thing
customers use their smartphone to do, aside from productive work, is taking
photographs.
To
this end, they have developed PureView camera technology with a very high
megapixel count of 8.7-megapixel for the rear-facing camera and 1.2-megapixel
for the front-facing camera as stated in the comparison article “iPhone
5 vs. Galaxy S3 vs. Lumia 920: By the numbers”, published September 12,
2012 3:10 PM PDT by Brian Bennett and Jessica Dolcourt, CNET News.
The
camera megapixel count is good enough for the
almost-Retina display-like PureMotion HD Plus Display which
is a 4.5-inch AMOLED 1,280x768 pixels, 332 ppi screen to render the excellent
images taken by the camera.
In
addition to nixing Google Maps in favour of their own proprietary mapping
technology dubbed Nokia Maps built in Windows Phone 8, Nokia has also nixed the
SD Card slot from the Lumia 920, albeit they did keep it for the Lumia 820.
The
reason?
Nokia
Executive VP Kevin Shields has apparently in awe of the phones so-so success
thus far, has put the Lumia’s on a pedestal, wishing not to ruin their
elegance, quote: “We started with the premise that we wanted an uncompromised
physical form. To put an SD card slot in it would have defiled it.”
Fair
enough, as with the exception of a heavy camera user, most people who take
pictures are casual persons who snap and post to the Twitter and Facebook
profiles and rarely use up the 32GB of space, opting to store them on their
Social Networks instead. From a purely aesthetics point of view the phones are
excellent design which the Active tiles interface on the much-improved Windows
Phone 8 enhances ease of access to the phone's functions.
As
mentioned before, the Nokia+Microsoft Alliance is one built on the strengths of
each partner, and the Lumia’s second iteration shows this up well. Some nice
names instead of product model numbers as suggested by CNET Editor Jessica
Dolcourt in the article “Hey,
Nokia: Time to give your phones real names”, published September 5, 2012
4:23 PM PDT by Jessica Dolcourt, CNET
News, would however, make the Lumia more……..friendly.
There
have been some rather strange gaffes on the part of Nokia and Microsoft though,
mainly relating to marketing the phone, but one would consider them silly,
being as this is the norm in the advertising world. Even the pictures in this
blog article are cropped and adjusted to make them look original.
No
word yet on the time for the Product Launch, but Friday November 2nd 2012AD
appears to be the date according to Reuters sources as quoted by CNET in the
article “Nokia
plans to launch Lumia 920 on November 2, report says”, published September
7, 2012 6:25 AM PDT by Don Reisinger, CNET
News.
Clearly
the timing of this product launch only a week after the Microsoft Surface
Tablets and Windows 8 Tablets go live as stated in my blog article entitled
“Microsoft
debuts Windows 8 with new Surface Tablets - PixelSense rebranding as the Dark
Knight Rises to defeat PC World” suggests the two (2) may be indeed be
dancing partners.
Nokia+Microsoft
partnership is this more than just about smartphones. It may also be about them
using their partnership to create an Ecosystem of products that work together
seamless via the Cloud as predicted in my blog article entitled
“Windows
8 is Windows Phone 7 Overlay - Voyage Back to the Future in the Dawn Treader”
in much the same way Apple Ecosystem is interconnected by iOS and
iCloud.
But
what would make both the Lumia smartphones and the Microsoft Surface Tablets be
a true Ecosystem is if they were able to do Cloud Printing as stated in my blog article entitled
“Windows
8 Tablets and Cloud Printing - Tifa Spells Out Microsoft's Super 8 Advantage”.
HP
(Hewlett Packard) realizes this, which is why they are going back into the
Tablets game with plans for launch of a slew of Tablets with support for Cloud
Printing as stated in my blog article entitled
“HP
to make Tablets that run on Windows 8 – Resident Evil Retribution for Printing”.
This
as they realize that they have no choice but to make Tablets as smartphones and
Tablets are making people realize that they don’t have to print the written
word in order to read it. The lightness and portability of the smartphone and
Tablets means that its’ cannibalizing their Printing business; thus they are
going into Tablets again as a means of saving their bread-and-butter Printing
Business from being gobbled up by the Apple iPad,
the Apple iPhone and their would-be challengers
in these markets.
Cloud
Printing is something which most smartphones and Tablets do not have baked in
but like built-in Qi Standard Wireless Charging, would make these products
stand out and be practical for on-the-go Road Warrior productivity as opined in
my Geezam blog article entitled “Jamaica’s 100MBps
Internet Silver Lining – Tele-commuting Workplace is coming”.
Suddenly,
these easy to charge, High Quality Camera and Screen smartphones and their
equally polished Tablet partners do not seem such an odd couple. Even more
interestingly one of the subscription services that could be part of the deal
to make the Microsoft Surface RT Tablet achieve its price of US$199, Microsoft
SkyDrive, would be worth having to make it easy to synch and share content
between the Lumia smartphones and your brand new U$199 Microsoft Surface RT Tablet
or professionally priced US$249 Microsoft Surface Pro Tablet.
So
again, via this real reasoning, this may be the real reason behind not
including an SD card slot on the Lumia 920; SkyDrive will be part of a bundle
with the Microsoft Surface Tablet. Thus with such a close proximity of their
respective launch dates, the two products may also be sharing other things as
well to make them a true Ecosystem:
- Common SkyDrive and Azure Cloud Storage Platforms
- Common Data Plans from the Telecom Provider
- Common File Standards such as the use of Cloud based Microsoft Office 360
- Common Distribution Networks, with Microsoft and Nokia retailing each other products at their respective stores and other select retailers come Christmas
Christmas
looks Bright (Yellow or any color of your choice?) again with the coming of the
Lumia prostituting with the Microsoft Surface Tablet in a Resident Evil Retribution 3D (2012) against
the Apple iPhone and the Apple iPad.
A
work and play Tablet and Smartphone duo are what the Nokia Lumia 820 and 920
twinned with the Microsoft Surface Tablets represent, giving those media
centric Apple iPhones and Game playing Google Android smartphones something to
ponder.
But
what of the Apple iPhone 5 which launched on Wednesday
September 12th 2012AD? What of the Amazon Kindle and
their recently launched Kindle Fire 2 which set the 7” Tablet Scene ablaze on
Thursday September 6th 2012AD?
Stay
tuned to this blog, as another au pair of
articles is coming up to review these products that are geared up for the
Christmas…..
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