Nokia launches the Lumia 820 and 920 - Lumia prostituting with the Microsoft Surface Tablet in a Resident Evil Retribution 3D

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 5^th 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

1. 4.3” Capacitive Touch Screen for the Lumia 820
2. 4.5” Capacitive Touch Screen for the Lumia 920
3. AMOLED 1,280x768 pixels, 332 ppi screen for the Lumia 920
4. 8GB of Internal Storage for the Lumia 820
5. 32GB of Internal Storage for the Lumia 920
6. MicroSD Card slot for the Lumia 820
7. MicroUSB Charging Port for the Lumia 920
8. 8.7-megapixel for the rear-facing camera for the Lumia 920
9. 1.2-megapixel for the front-facing camera for the Lumia 920
10. PureMotion HD Plus Display with a WXGA resolution of 1,280x768 pixels
11. Built in Wireless Charging that supports the Qi wireless charging standard
12. NFC (Near Field Communications) for Wireless File Transfer and Wireless payments
13. Nokia Maps (Nokia-Microsoft light a small fire against Google Maps)
14. City Lens and AR (Augmented Reality) Advertising feature for places to visit
15. 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 2^nd 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:

1. Common SkyDrive and Azure Cloud Storage Platforms
2. Common Data Plans from the Telecom Provider
3. Common File Standards such as the use of Cloud based Microsoft Office 360
4. 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 12^th 2012AD? What of the Amazon Kindle and their recently launched Kindle Fire 2 which set the 7” Tablet Scene ablaze on Thursday September 6^th 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…..