The Smartphone market is about to switch “again.” After my bad experience with cell phones manufactured by Nokia, I was pretty adamant on not buying, not even recommending anybody a cell phone from Nokia. After 3-4 years, now however, things are changing, it is a fact that with the rise Android, Smartphone manufacturers have flooded the market with cell phones loaded with Android.
More than anybody else, Nokia, which had gained a lot of recognition in the Smartphone world, was worst hit. Their Smartphones weren’t as flashy or app-rich as Android but now however, they are up for another start and it looks as if, this time Nokia is set to give Android a kick.
Android, at this point of time is vulnerable; consumers are confused with a variety of Smartphones running on Android available in the market. Most of them don’t come with customized software, some full QWERTY Android phones have major app problems and there are other bugs and that is one thing which Nokia has improved in their latest series of Smartphones running on Windows Phone 7 – Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710.
Nokia Lumia 800
Nokia announced this handset during its Nokia World 2011 event as company’s flagship phone that comes with a stable version of Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) OS. On the first look, it appears similar to Nokia’s successful Meego-powered N9.
Nokia Lumia 800 comes is sturdy, good looking plastic frame, it has a 3.7-inch bright AMOLED ClearBlack display which is somewhat comparable to the screen used by Samsung Galaxy S. Even though Galaxy S2 has a better display than Galaxy S but both displays look wonderful on the user-end.
Unlike several other touchscreen Smartphones, Nokia Lumia 800 has physical Back, Start and Search buttons at the bottom of the phone. It comes in three colors – black, cyan or magenta, all of them look pretty nice. On the rear, it has an awesome camera waiting for those who don’t want to carry additional camera for casual photography, Nokia Lumia 800 has an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera with Carl Zeiss optics which can also records HD videos at 30fps.
Let’s talk about its hardware.
It has a single core 1.4GHz processor which is pretty less as compared to iPhone 4S or Galaxy S2 but I feel Nokia would have optimized its user experience.
By the way, it is a myth that clock speed determines the performance of a device. HP TouchPad has a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor still Samsung Galaxy Tab sold a lot more than TouchPad.
Along with that, it has a graphics processor to give brilliant visuals. Other specs include 16GB of internal memory, cloud computing capability (25GB of free SkyDrive storage), quadband reception, up to HSDPA 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support.
It is expected to release in Europe this November at a price of £420 while US would get it next year.
Nokia Lumia 710
This Smartphone is very much similar to the one above, actually, they both belong to the same family, and this one is the cheaper of the two with a minor downgrade in design and hardware.
Like Lumia 800, it runs on Windows Phone 7.5 Mango OS which is brilliant. It is designed for the youth; it comes with multi-colored snap-on covers including black, white, cyan, fuchsia and yellow. In front, it has nice 3.7? display at 800 x 480 pixels resolution with a ClearBlack TFT which offers great visuals and proper readability, even in bright sunglight.
On the rear, it has a 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with an LED flash that is capable of doing HD videos at 30fps. Having a Smartphone with you that has a nice camera often comes handy.
It is a full social networking phone, comes with support for almost all the social networking sites, like Facebook dedicated Smartphones, you can update your status with your recently clicked photographs instantly. For a better web experience, it is loaded with Internet Explorer that offers Flash and HTML5 support (Microsoft is awesome!).
In terms of hardware, it is very much like its elder brother, it has the same 1.4GHz processor and graphics processor, 8GB of internal memory and 512MB RAM, quadband radio reception, 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Like Lumia 800, it is expected to release in Europe sometimes in November at a price of £270 followed by rest of the world early next year.
Undoubtedly, Marketing and Analysis team at Nokia would have spotted that Android is eating their market share quite early but the question is why they didn’t switch to a better phone rapidly. Their earlier phones were pathetic, bulky, loaded with features people don’t use these days and awkward names.
Now, however, they have made the right move. Microsoft has revolutionized its Mango OS with several useable features and it is possible that Nokia is going to rise again in the market, maybe, in top 3.
So… what do you think about these new Mango-powered Smartphones from Nokia? Interested in buying one of these?
