Windows 7

I love Nokia. I’ll hold my hands up and say it loud and proud. My first phone was a Nokia, and was adored by me for things such as Snake, and texts from girls when I was 13. I sigh wistfully now looking back. Bit of a brick; I had to buy jeans with large pockets, and probably could have defended myself against any takers (assuming, of course, that they too had fallen in love with the Finnish phone), but to this day it holds a firm place in my heart.

It was for these reasons that I was excited to learn about the newest addition to the smartphone market, the Nokia Lumia 800. Nokia have teamed up with Microsoft to bring us a fairly hefty piece of kit, it must be said. Running the latest ‘Mango’ architecture, the Lumia 800 largely retains the same structure as other Windows handsets, but with some notable tweaks. For example, you can link in as many email addresses as you see fit, enabling you to stay constantly in touch with work, home, friends – you name it. Similarly, the Nokia Lumia 800 has a specific People Hub, to streamline your social media interactions. This means that you can Facebook stalk at will, Tweet banalities and tell us all that you’re listening to Michael Bolton on Spotify.

The clever people at Nokia have produced a 3.7-inch ClearBlack display that is slightly convex. The curve is quite gentle, and this makes the touchscreen feel more tactile and smooth. The display itself is distinctively different from Android versions, and allows for Nokia’s trademark flair, with vibrant colours and daringly illustrated icons. In general the weight feels pleasant, and the shape is nicely ergonomic.

Nokia pimped the Lumia 800 with its own handy services, including navigation aids for every lost soul. These include Nokia Drive and Nokia Maps, the latter featuring 2D and 3D maps. As well as lost souls, Nokia’s also reaching out to the musical phone-lover with Nokia Music. This includes an MP3 store and a series of ‘radio’ stations. Possibly most inventive of all is the inclusion of Nokia Pulse. This little service has been described as a ‘dynamic Twitter’ (not for the tweeters everywhere who balk at the idea of Twitter not being dynamic). Nokia Pulse also enables users to combine social networking with maps to see where their friends and family are, and what they are doing.  It’s a bit like a mix between Facebook and FourSquare. Stalkery? Yes, but a lot of fun.

The only real drawback to the Lumia 800 is the apps issue. Yes, there had to be one drawback. With most developers opting for Google and Apple platforms, the Nokia Lumia 800 might struggle. However, apps – including third-party services – that are pinned to your start screen impressively update in real time, showing information that you’ve previously picked and chosen according to your interests (for example, The Guardian app can be set up to just preview sports news).

On the whole, the Nokia Lumia 800 is a strong contender, but with the BlackBerry Torch and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the mobile phone contract market remains incredibly competitive whatever way you look at it. It gets my vote though, for build quality and nostalgia if nothing else.

After several months of waiting the world was greeted by the first collaboration between Microsoft and Nokia at the end of 2011. The Lumia 800 exceeded most peoples’ expectations. It is a stylish phone that shows off the best that Windows Phone and Nokia have to offer to the current phone market. While utilizing the finest features of Windows Phone Nokia also threw in some of their own features like Nokia Drive and Nokia Mix Radio.

Nokia had promised many more Windows Phones in 2012, and just a few days into the year it appears that they are sticking to their word. Although news about the Lumia 710 has been around for as long as the Lumia 800, the phone is due to become available shortly. Nokia is probably not going to spend as much money marketing this phone as it falls into a more affordable price bracket (Nokia spend more money marketing the Lumia 800 than it has done for any other phone in its existence).

The Lumia 710 looks more like a traditional Nokia phone than the Lumia 800 did. It has a vague resemblance to the N97, and many diehard Nokia fans may find this appearance to be comforting. On the whole, the Lumia 710 offers the same excellent software features that the 800 did – including Windows Phone Mango and all its social networking prowess, along with Nokia features like Drive and Mix Radio.

What is different is the hardware in use. Although it has the same 1.4GHz processor and GPU, the 710 comes with less internal storage (and once again no memory expansion) at just 8GB and a less impressive 5mp camera. Still, this camera is good enough for everyday use. It is tied in with all of the software features such as Twitter and Facebook, and also comes with 720p video recording. Like the 800, the Lumia 710 does not have a front camera.

The screen is the same size as the Lumia 800′s, with the same WVGA resolution, ClearBlack display and Gorilla Glass. It is just a standard TFT screen though, rather than AMOLED like the 800, so it is a little bit less vibrant but probably better suited for outdoor use.

With much of the hardware, aside from the camera, being fairly similar to the Lumia 800 this phone could be a good bargain. It will be on offer through more affordable cheap mobile phone contracts and the only major difference is the physical appearance and build quality. The phone is due to be released in the coming weeks.

In a cunning move to pull customers away from the iPhone, Microsoft has launched an Xbox LIVE app onto the Apple App Store. Xbox LIVE is currently one of the best features of Windows Phone, and a feature that allows Windows Phone owners to connect their smartphones up to their favourite games console.

But Microsoft is not sacrificing one of their best features just for the sake of some App Store sales – the Xbox for iPhone app is available for free. The app is instead intended to show the many Xbox owning iPhone users what they are missing by not owning a Windows Phone.

The app, known as My Xbox LIVE, allows users to connect with their Xbox and edit their profile and avatar. They can also add new friends and compare achievements with other Xbox players. The app stops short of providing the sort of functionality available on Windows Phone. iPhone users cannot interact with the content on their console, play games or purchase content from the Xbox store.

In fact, the My Xbox LIVE app is fairly useless and impotent, but for many iPhone owners who are also keen Xbox gamers, it may give them something to think about when their iPhone contract is about to expire. Buy another iPhone, and be stuck with the likes of Cut the Rope and Angry Birds, or buy a Windows Phone and be blessed with all the goodness of their Xbox?

Sneakily, the My Xbox LIVE app also resembles Windows Phone, with its Live Tiles interface. This is also to get people more familiar with Microsoft’s mobile OS – as lack of exposure is perhaps one of the main reasons that Windows Phone has not performed as well as Microsoft would have liked. That could be about to change with the launch of the new Nokia Lumia, as the Finnish phone company has promised to spend an unprecedented amount of money on marketing this phone.

One of the best features about Windows Phone is the Xbox LIVE support that comes as standard. The iPhone may have its Game Center, and Android has some N64 and PlayStation emulators, but aside from the rather slapdash Sony Ericsson Xperia Play there has not really been any smartphones that fully utilized gaming from the world of consoles.

Now news has emerged that Microsoft is putting one of its best smartphone features onto the iOS App Store for iPhone owners to use. However, the new My Xbox LIVE app does not offer the same sort of functionality as Xbox on Windows Phone, as it only allows users to redesign their profile, edit their friends list and compare achievements.

The app does not allow iPhone owners to play games or interact with content on their Xbox console. The primary motivation behind Microsoft’s decision to release this app for iOS appears to be to tempt iOS users over to Windows Phone. This can be seen by the fact that Microsoft has designed the app to resemble Windows Phone in its look and feel, thus making people more familiar with the overlooked mobile OS.

Microsoft recently launched an online simulation of Windows Phone that people can use on Android and iPhone, so they can see roughly how the system works on a touchscreen device. This simulation and the new Xbox LIVE app appear to demonstrate that Microsoft is really quite keen on upping its presence in the smartphone market.

Since it was launched in 2010 Windows Phone has not managed to get much more than around 5% share of the smartphone market. Compared to iPhone, which is roughly 30%, and Android which is usually floating around the 50% mark, Windows Phone has been largely ignored due to criticisms of a lack of features and apps. Windows Phone is a much younger OS though, and its app store is growing at a rapid rate. Features like Xbox LIVE offer something to phone users that Android and iPhone cannot compete with, and Microsoft hope that this will help to win over many Xbox owning iPhone users over the next year when there will be plenty of new Windows running Nokia phone deals on offer.

Nokia had put a lot of its hopes and dreams into the new Lumia 800. The company, once undisputed kings of the mobile phone industry, have been having a hard time for the last few years. Since the launch of the first iPhone back in 2007, the industry has changed dramatically and consumer demand has shifted with it, and Nokia has not managed to adapt as well as some other companies like Samsung and HTC.

The decision made earlier in the year to partner with Microsoft and exclusively produce Windows Phones was a big gamble, and its first Windows Phone, the Lumia 800, was bound to set the tone for all future Nokia Windows Phones. As Nokia and Microsoft have signed their deal for the next few years, it is important that it gets off to a good start, and Nokia decided to push the boat out and spend more money marketing the Lumia than it has done for any phone it has previously produced.

While Nokia claim that the first week of sales for the Lumia have been the best for any new phone they have released, there are also reports that Nokia have cut their expected sales figures for the new phone by more than half. Nokia had expected to sell 2 million by the end of the year, but now expects to sell less than a million – making this a slower phone launch than the Nokia N8 Symbian phone.

Part of the problem may be that, while the Lumia has entered into the public consciousness through a large dose of television advertising, the phone has been experiencing severe battery issues much like the new iPhone 4S. But while Apple were at least quick to appear to try and solve the problem, Nokia have stated they will not be launching a software patch to fix the issue until well into 2012.

Not only is this highly annoying for people who have already purchased the Lumia and are having to charge their new phone several times a day, but it is also going to be quite off-putting for people had been considering the Lumia as their next phone. If Nokia really have so much riding on this phone it would be in their best interests to get these battery issues sorted out as quickly as possible – certainly before the mad shopping rush that will take place in the week leading up to Christmas, when many people will consider a smartphone contract with free gift as an ideal way to get two Christmas presents in one.

The battery problems have blighted an otherwise excellent product from Nokia, which is certainly their best smartphone to be released in recent years. It adopts the same design as the earlier N9, which was a hugely popular phone, although it comes with a much more intuitive and feature rich operating system in the form of Windows Phone – the most socially oriented phone OS on offer, that comes with great entertainment features through Zune and Xbox LIVE.

Here is hoping that Nokia get this issue sorted soon, as the Lumia is perhaps the biggest reason for people to consider purchasing Windows Phone deals right now, with HTC and Samsung not having produced Windows Phone handsets for quite some time.

HTC has had a number of forays into the Windows market and the latest is the HTC Radar which uses the new and also highly acclaimed Windows Phone 7 Mango operating system. This new OS update is meant to offer a complete multitasking experience to users and is seen as bringing Windows Phone 7 contracts a big step into the mobile phone market.

Lucky for Windows the HTC Radar is quite a nice looking phone and it feels strong due to its aluminum casing and other features such as its large screen look attractive and premium. The phone is a 3.8 inch mid range device that HTC will be expecting to sell as well as anything they have released before in the Windows arena. The device comes in both black and white and has three buttons on the bottom, as is the Windows way – the only downside being it may be considered a little thick.

The device is powered by a Snapdragon 1GHz processor that we have seen in a number of other phones and is considered to be an excellent little chip that is deserved of it popularity. This will impress many and we found it to be excellent when dealing with the multitasking abilities of the Windows Mango operating system

HTC have included a 5mp camera with the phone which is capable of 720p recording. This will go well with the WVGA screen which is one of the best HTC have produced in recent times and is good in bright conditions – not a HTC strong point.

The device comes with a mixture of HTC apps and also a number of applications which are reserved for Windows phone such as a new and improved social media option and the excellent carousel feature which comes in very handy when multi tasking.

The device also comes with DLNA streaming and the Watch app from HTC. This app allows you to stream movies much in the way of Love Film or other providers to your phone for a set fee every month. You can then stream lossless via DLNA to your TV allowing you to watch full HD footage on your television.

The phone comes with 8GB of memory so streaming is a great option for such a phone, as well as being useful it also is a great way not to eat up memory.

Overall we like the HTC, it may be a little thick, though is an attractive and very capable phone – a Window’s phone at that.

Windows Phone 7 devices have been given a new lease of life with the new Windows Mango update. We compare two of the best, the colossal HTC Titan deals and the relatively demure Samsung Omnia W, which still manages to have a 3.7nch screen and somehow seems small relative to the HTC. Continue reading »