As such, I thought of no better day to post my review of their first Windows Phone, the Nokia Lumia 800. Since there are a gazillion Nokia Lumia 800 reviews and pictures out there, I’ll try to be brief and stick to what I thought was important.

But first a bit of history….

I’ve always been a Symbian user. The only non-Symbian phone I ever had, was the Nokia 3310. Since then I moved to a Nokia 7650, the first Symbian phone, and my obsession with smartphones and cameraphones, kicked off. From the Nokia 7650, I evolved through the original N-Gage, a Nokia 6630, Nokia N80, N95, N82, before briefly having a 5800 and later an N97, which left a scar on my relationship with the Symbian OS.

The N97 left a scar on my relationship with the Symbian OS.

Inspite of amazing hardware evolutions like the Nokia N8′s camera, or the E7′s screen and form-factor, and features like USB-On-the-go and HDMI-out, Symbian struggled to evolve to the touchscreen world, developers were shunning it, and as a result it was always a couple steps behind Android and iOS. Microsoft on the other hand, knew that their Windows Mobile OS was far outdated, and chose to rebuilt a mobile OS from the ground up, and called it Windows Phone. Ironically the only real rival Windows Mobile had through the old days, was Symbian. So when Nokia announced their decision one year ago, mobile enthusiasts all around the globe, Nokia fans and non-fans alike, were all talking about it.

Noone really, really, gave a look at Microsoft’s OS as a proper competitor before. Now here they were, with the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, and arguably the only company capable of pumping out a real alternative to the iPhone experience.

I wont talk about the Nokia N9 and MeeGo, since here in India we never even got a look at it ‘officially‘. As a result it’s not part of the equation, but as someone who tried out the N9 for just 5 days, I’d be lieing if I said I couldnt help thinking “What if?“

The Retail Packaging:-

The Nokia Lumia 800 ships in a very tiny little retail box, with the usual stereo headset, charging usb cable and charging adapter.

There’s also a neat little cover included. You can check out our Nokia Lumia 800 unboxing for a better idea.

The Design:-

The Nokia Lumia 800 is created from a single piece of black, magenta, cyan or white colored polycarbonate to give you one seamless design. The curved edges help the phone snugly fit your hand, and when you first look at it, you really have to wonder how Nokia managed to slip everything into that shell. There’s no design like it from any other manufacturer. The Finnish giant definitely gets brownie points on their design here.

The only thing we didnt like about the design though, is that the microUSB charging port is under a covered compartment at the top, that you have to keep opening up.

I’m not very confident in how long that cover is going to last, seeing how I’m always paranoid about that sort of thing breaking over time. There’s also the microSIM card port under a cover in the compartment next to it, and a 3.5mm audio jack on the other side.

There’s no design like it from any other manufacturer.

At the bottom, you’ll find the speaker which is averagely loud enough.

Ofcourse, because of the design, the battery is not replaceable, which seems to be becoming the industry trend nowadays. There’s no microSD card slot either, so you’re stuck with the 16GB of onboard memory, which should be good enough for most people.

At the back, the polycarbonate shell is broken in design by the Carl Zeiss 8 megapixel lens and dual LED flash.

On the right side of the phone, is the volume and power/screenlock key, and a dedicated 2-stage camera key.

Some folks have had issues with their camera key rattling. Our unit didnt have that problem, so it’s all good by me. Top notch build quality.

And at the front of the Lumia 800 is….

The Screen:-

The gorgeous 3.7 inch AMOLED screen. There’s no other word to describe it. Sure it’s PenTile, which might annoy some folks, but for a majority of people out there, it’s still going to be a gorgeous display.

Not only is it a curved design, but thanks to Nokia’s ClearBlack display technology, it’s easily the highlight of the Lumia 800. It’s by far the best I’ve seen on a Windows Phone so far, and the only thing close to being as stunning, is Samsung’s Galaxy S II display, in terms of vivid colors and deep blacks.

I’m quite a fan of the curved screen, so I was a little disappointed to see Nokia not use it on the Lumia 900. What really shines on the Lumia 800 though, is the fantastic viewing angles.

The gorgeous 3.7 inch AMOLED screen. There’s no other word to describe it.

Underneath the display, are the usual three basic Windows Phone keys: Back, Home/Start, and the Bing Search key. The keys are capacitive touch and while they’re not part of the screen, they are part of the glass.

The Internals:-

There’s no point having a gorgeous design if you dont have the internal hardware to compliment it. And Nokia’s problem has never been their design. Luckily the Lumia 800 has enough power for you to enjoy the entire Windows Phone experience.

There’s a 1.4 Ghz Qualcomm processor which, single Windows Phone is already a super quick OS, means that the phone is super fast with no slow downs or lag at all. Scrolling through your apps list, loading up IE9 (which uses hardware acceleration), the interactive live tiles, it’s all smooth and quick around the corner.

As I mentioned before, there’s 16GB of memory, and no microSD card slot. Unfortunately that last issue is a Windows Phone limitation for now, but 16GB should be good enough for most folks out there, unless you’re a really huge movie or music collector. There’s Nokia’s Mix Radio pre-installed (in most regions) which is a streaming solution for music, just incase.

Coming to connectivity, you have the usual Bluetooth (2.1 with A2DP), Wifi, HSDPA (14.4Mbps) and GPS all built-in. Sadly no TV-Out or HDMI port though, if you’re used to it on Nokia’s earlier devices, and no USB-On-the-Go either.

The Windows Phone Mango OS:-

Ah yes. Windows phone. Exactly one year ago, Nokia’s new CEO Stephen Elop, announced that the Finnish Giant would be choosing Microsoft’s new mobile OS as their primary smartphone operating system of choice for their smartphones.

In under a year, Nokia has been able to pump out two (technically three if you count the Lumia 900) Windows phones, Re-purposed phones that were meant to run MeeGo (eg: the Nokia N9) to run the Microsoft OS instead (Eg: the Lumia 800). The transition had it’s bit of controversy, and I was one of the concerned bloggers out there, questioning the decision and hoping that Nokia really knew what they were up to.

In under a year, Nokia has been able to pump out three Windows Phones

One year later, here we are. We’ve already given you our opinion on the change, thanks to Alvin’s well written editorial on the Nokia-Microsoft Partnership one year later, so I wont go into an opinionated piece here, again. Since the announcement last year, Windows Phone has vastly improved, with 500 new features over the original release, being faster, with Twitter and LinkedIn integration, groups in the people hub, better browsing, and much much more. There’s still things that annoy me, like the multitasking is just not up to what I’m used to on rival platforms. Most apps are not Mango-ready and are re-launched when you go to them, instead of being frozen and continuing from where you left off. It’s pretty much the same situation iOS was, when the Apple OS first got multi-tasking support. With the rate Microsoft is evolving Windows Phone, we can hope these points wont be a problem much longer. Currently the OS is very iOS-like in how things are locked down. You cant even transfer an image or file over Bluetooth, something that Nokia users have been doing for years now.

I’ve already covered it in our Windows Phone Mango Review, so I wont go into detail about it all again. What I will talk about though, is what’s new in the Nokia aspect of Windows Phone.

The App scene and the exclusive Nokia Apps:-

Unlike Android, manufacturers who choose to use Windows Phone (thankfully) cannot change the interface design, more than maybe a custom live tile color. They are allowed to add their own apps or settings to enhance the experience though, and as such the Nokia Lumia 800 comes with some of Nokia’s best and most popular apps, like Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive, Nokia Music (aka Nokia Mix Radio, subject to region), and a Contact transfer app along with another ‘App Highlights’ app, all built-in.

The App highlights app, as you can tell from the name, gives you a highlight of the best apps on the Microsoft Marketplace. A good way to see what’s new or what’s the most popular currently.

The Contact transfer app, as you can imagine, lets you transfer contacts over from an old Nokia phone, over Bluetooth. Simple enough to use, and it does what it’s supposed to do.

Nokia Drive, is a free turn-by-turn voice navigation app that lets you download and install full country maps, right on the phone itself.

I’ve always been a fan of Nokia’s Maps applications so I was happy to see them available right at launch.

There’s a nice 3D view, and planning your route is a breeze. I’ve always been a fan of Nokia’s Maps applications so I was happy to see them available right at launch.

There’s 69 million places and you’ll never be lacking for suggestions for places to check out, or find, be it an address, shop number, or mall. It depends on your region ofcourse, but it works fantastic here in New Delhi, and back when I was in London.

The app is oriented towards car navigation, for which it’s more suited, so there is a nice clear UI, with easy to understand instructions and voice guidance.

Nokia Music or Nokia Mix Radio, is limited by region unfortunately. The app is not available on Indian Lumia devices for example, so I wasnt able to get a proper feel for the App. If you’re in a supported country though, it’s basically an alternative to Microsoft’s Zune Music offering, letting you stream music free over Mixradio, and download songs. Basically, it’s sort of an evolution of Nokia’s Comes with Music, or Ovi Music Unlimited offering. Mix Radio should keep most folks happy, seeing how there’s a gazillion channels to listen to, each having 50 songs which are refreshed, or you can save for offline listening. For offline listening, you’re limited to four stations and up to 14 hours of music at one time, which is about 200 or so AAC+ tracks. Useful to get some music before a long flight, for example.

The Mix Radio app scans your music collection to get a feel for the kind of music you’d be interested in, and makes suggestions based on it. Very very cool. There’s also Nokia Gig-finder built in, which lets you find local music performances, etc. I was super impressed with it back at Nokia World in London. Pity it’s all region-based but I suspect there are legal aspects to it.

Side-stepping to talk about Audio quality for a second, the loudspeaker is averagely loud for listennig to music. It wont fill up a medium sized room, but it’s okay for those random moments where you need to listen to something on the loudspeaker. Audio in headphones was not that great either though, being quieter than we’re used to on Nokia phones, with Bass lacking quite a bit. Nokia has said that they’ll be issuing an update to improve the audio experience though.

There’s also Nokia Maps, which is a Bing Maps alternative. I never really opened Bing Maps because I’m a huge fan of the ol’ Nokia Maps. The windows phone client is still somewhat limited though. It doesnt share the same maps cache as Nokia Drive, due to a Windows Phone limitation, and you cannot sync with Nokia Maps online to pull down your old favorites or routes that you create with Maps online. Still, super fully featured and by far the best Maps app on Windows Phone.

These three apps are all Nokia Lumia exclusive for now, but there’s no word on whether Nokia will allow other Windows Phones to download or use their apps. HTC for example, offers a Flashlight, Unit convertor, and Notes app on their Windows Phones that are not available on non-HTC devices.

Microsoft and Nokia are both pushing their huge developer base to create apps for the WP platform, and the scene is slowly improving day-by-day. There’s no BBC iPlayer app, Spotify, or Angry Birds Seasons, or many of the popular apps you might have heard about on iOS or Android, but all the core necessary apps are right there. The Apps scene on Windows Phone is already at par, if not better, than the Symbian App scene, and that is saying a lot. I suspect by the end of this year, this wont be a problem.

One tiny thing that did annoy me though, was that there is no internet sharing app on the Lumia 800, not the function that I thought was built-in to Mango. I’m not sure if this is a battery related issue, or Nokia just hasnt been able to tweak their software yet, but mobile hotspot support is supposed to come along in an update soon.

The Internet Browser:-

I wish Microsoft would remove the “Internet Explorer” branding from the browser on Windows Phone. There I said it. Noone likes IE anymore, so that brand is only damaging to the mobile OS, in my opinion.

But take the name away, and you actually have a very nice, quick, minimally designed mobile browser. There’s no flash support though, but I was never a fan of flash so I wasnt sad to see it missing. Things to note though, are that there are no ‘bookmarks’ as such on IE9 for Windows Phone. You can however pin websites as a home screen tile.

There are quirks like that, which take a little getting used to. The Windows Phone browser also could handle HTML5 better. But there’s nothing to really complain about here.

The Media:-

If you want to watch videos on your Lumia 800, you have to load them into your phone using Zune on a PC, or the Windows Phone 7 connector on a Mac. If that isnt annoying enough, the only supported video formats are .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .m4v, mbr, and .wmv, which is not really a brilliant selection. There’s no XviD or DivX support yet but hopefully, like on iOS, an app will come along to fix that sometime in the future. Currently, watching videos is a problem because you’ll need to convert it all to the right format to get it to play on your Lumia 800.

The Music experience is quite solid though. Again, you have to transfer them using your computer app, but everything’s nicely organized and pretty, with album arts being shown in the background, and on the lockscreen, yada yada. Very classy. The Music app uses your zune account to do things like pull in album art, so since I had an Indian account, my Music Player did not have lot of the aforementioned fancy UI tweaks. There were no album arts being pulled in as the background, or anything apart from a nice warm red color on the lockscreen during music playback. I’m not sure if it’s a Zune region problem or something to do with the fact that I synced things over from a Mac. Still I didnt mind that much, and the entire Music Player UI is gorgeous with it’s clever use of Typography everywhere.

Coming to Images, things are handed quite nicely in the gallery, as you’d expect, with sharing options to Twitter, Facebook (with tag support!), etc. And the Gallery app uses your pictures are a background both for the app, and as a mini-slideshow on the homescreen tile. No complaints at all.

That brings us to…

The Camera:-

Nokia’s smartphones have always had great cameras. Well, not counting the EDoF ones atleast. Most of them were fairly good for a family picnic or night out with friends, etc. The camera on the Lumia 800 though, is not one of their best. In low light situations, there’s quite a bit of noise, and things end up blurry quite a lot. In Daytime it’s quite decent though.

There’s an 8 Megapixel Carl Zeiss f2.2 camera onboard, with a dual LED flash. In theory that should be pretty capable, but as evident by how the N9 and Lumia 800 have identical camera hardware yet the N9 takes better pictures, it seems Nokia has not been able to make full use of the Windows Phone camera algorithms yet. They have promised an update to fix things though, but it’s definitely not my favourite camera on a phone so far.

The camera on the Lumia 800 though, is not one of their best.

There’s a dedicated camera key at the side, which is two stage so that you can focus by half-pressing, and then snap to take a picture. I’m not a fan of the Dual Flash (Xenon for the win!) but I wont go there again.

There’s also support to record 720p HD video at 30fps, and the video performance is quite good. you dont get to zoom though, but there’s autofocus which was just great for us.

The Camera UI itself is quite simplistic, sort of less featured than Android, but more so than iOS. There’s no burst mode or panorama mode, and it’s lacking many of the features that Nokia’s Symbian phone cameras had.

You can check out our Nokia Lumia 800 Camera samples post for more sample pictures and video.

The Battery on the Lumia 800 has not been a friend to me. Even on moderate usage, I’ve struggled to get more than 14 to 16 hours of battery life out of it. My unit is one of many with the battery bug unfortunately, but you can get considerably better battery life by disabling background tasks and using the battery saving mode. Not that you should have to though.

Nokia has already released a battery bug fix update though, which had not come to our unit at the time of writing this post.

There’s also another annoying bug where the Lumia 800 will not start up, even after charging it for hours. The solution to that, for some weird reason, is to charge it from your computer instead, after which it’ll start up in a matter of seconds. Strange, I know.

The official stats for the Nokia Lumia 800 though, is that you should get 9.5hrs talk time, 7hr playback time, 55hrs music playback time, and 335hrs standby time. You’ll definitely have to charge it overnight daily though.

The Video Overview:-

While I’ve tried to use as little images in this review post, here’s a nice 15 minute long video overview I made of the Nokia Lumia 800. Just to give you a better idea.

Remember, it’s a long video, so get comfy in your chair before pushing play, eh?

The Conclusion:-

It’s very evident that the Nokia Lumia 800, is a sign of a whole new Nokia.

That being said, the Nokia Lumia 800 is far from being perfect. There’s no front facing camera, no NFC, and that microUSB port cover worries me.

But those minor annoyances are just that, minor… annoyances. Once you get past all that, the Nokia Lumia 800 is a gorgeous smartphone. It makes using a phone fun, and it’s the first Nokia phone in a long time that I’ve been really keen on showing off. Moreover it’s the first Nokia phone in a long time that I’ve had people noticing, and ask me about in public.

It’s very evident that the Nokia Lumia 800, is a sign of a whole new Nokia.

All that is mostly down to that stunning screen, but it’s surprisingly also thanks to the Windows Phone UI, which shines on the Lumia 800. If anything, you’d want to get the Lumia just to be different from all the iPhone and Android users out there. Admittedly, it’s not a phone for power users, which is why I’d choose a Lumia 900 over the Lumia 800, but it’s still a lovely phone.

Noone has been more critical about Nokia and the Lumia 800 than I have. There are some things I absolutely hate about it, but there are some things I absolutely love.

All in all, I’m happy to say, if anything the Lumia 800 is a nice shiny sign, that Nokia, ladies and gentlemen, is back.

Nokia Lumia 800 Review is a post from: UnleashThePhones.com

Image credit: All About Symbian

It was February 11, 2011. The day when Nokia’s Capital Markets Day keynote was to take place, during which Nokia was expected to unveil its device strategy for the year ahead. Rumours were rife, there was an air of excitement, and all eyes were on Nokia on that day, especially since the company hadn’t fared too well in the high-end smartphone space across a few quarters and counting. A few days before, an now-infamous internal company memo had been leaked. Stephen Elop, Nokia’s newly-appointed CEO, took to the stage and by the end of the hour, he had single-handedly stunned the entire community of tech writers, developers, Symbian and MeeGo enthusiasts, Nokia fans and everyone with even the faintest amount of interest in Nokia. There was an overwhelming sense of dread. The anger was clear for all to see. People were shocked and unsure of what to make of the news. The #feb11 tweets flooded in, filled with dismay at what Nokia and Elop had just done. Nokia shelving Symbian, crushing MeeGo and placing their fate in the hands of Microsoft and Windows Phone was nothing but unthinkable then – virtually no one saw it coming. Nokia, the biggest mobile phone maker in the world, capitulating to Microsoft, the underdogs in mobile. To long-time Symbian geeks, Elop’s move was tantamount to betrayal. They had stuck with Nokia through S60v5 and the N97, waited and waited for Symbian^3 while watching the Symbian Foundation collapse in the process, sat through the ‘transition period’ that was 2009 and 2010, only to be told that Nokia was effectively giving up on both of their smartphone platforms. When the N8 was launched 4 months earlier, statements were made by Nokia executives that Symbian would be here to stay and that the company was fully committed to it. But the moment Elop shook hands with Steve Ballmer from Microsoft, all that talk ceased to have any meaning whatsoever.

The outrage lasted for weeks, and arguably still continues today. Although there were exceptions like Rita El-Khoury, no one outside of the US seemed to have anything positive to say about Nokia’s new ‘strategic partnership’ with Microsoft. After the February 11 announcement, Nokia attempted to clarify the announcement, stating that the single MeeGo Harmattan device would still be released and supported and that Symbian would continue to receive updates even as the business was wound down. Although there was now an assurance that Symbian wouldn’t be going away immediately, it was very clear where Nokia’s focus would be going forward. After the failure of the Symbian Foundation, Symbian was folded back into Nokia (where it had come from in the first place) and made closed-source once again. Eventually, Symbian development work was outsourced to Accenture alongside the transfer of a few thousand Nokia employees.

It’s been an entire year since that fateful day, and in some ways the smartphone space has evolved since a year ago. The decline of Symbian has been quicker than Nokia expected due to the popularity of cheap Android handsets. Even though large volumes of Symbian devices are still being sold, it’s clear that Symbian’s mindshare is as miniscule as Windows Phone’s marketshare. Even phone shops have all but ceased to push and promote Symbian smartphones, and I would be hard-pressed to find a single person among my classmates, friends and family who still perceives a Symbian device as being desirable. Amid rumours that Nokia has shelved all plans for new upcoming Symbian hardware save for one device, it’s hard even for the diehard Symbian fan to argue there’s much of a future left for Symbian. I ran a little poll on Twitter a few days ago asking you whether you still feel as upset today about Elop’s decision to move Nokia away from Symbian as you were a year ago, and out of the many reponses I received (thanks everyone!) there was actually a sizeable group of people who either feel that Elop did make the right decision in adopting Windows Phone or are much less upset that Symbian was shelved. But there were just as many who said they were just as upset, if not even more so, that Symbian was given the boot even after the first two Lumia Windows Phone devices have shipped and one year has passed since the decision was made public. And herein lies the core of my argument in this editorial: Symbian’s death was unavoidable, and that platform would have brought down the whole of Nokia with it if the Windows Phone strategy hadn’t come into existence. That’s the cold, hard truth.

Even though Symbian Anna and Nokia (Symbian) Belle, both major upgrades to the base Symbian^3 platform have been announced and released since February 11 last year, Symbian still lags behind its competitors in several substantial ways and will continue being in such a state as the existing userbase shrinks. But it’s exactly the diehard Nokia/Symbian fan who still continues clinging on to the hope that Symbian will somehow survive and be revived. It’s exactly the diehard Nokia/Symbian fan who still thinks Elop screwed Nokia up with the Windows Phone decision. It’s exactly the diehard Nokia/Symbian fan who still believes with absolute faith that Nokia could have survived if they stood by Symbian against everything else. Who’d have thought that there would ever be a relationship between an analyst we all know, Symbian and Kubler-Ross’s Five Stages Of Grief?

What happened to Symbian wasn’t Elop’s fault.

Elop just did what he had to do to turn the company around; Nokia did not switch to Windows Phone just to ensure Symbian’s death. In case you’ve forgotten, Symbian was in such a bad state on February 11, 2011 that on hindsight Nokia could not rely on the platform any longer. All Symbian devices before the N8, with the exception of the X6, had resistive screens which were soft, plasticky and provided an absolute rubbish touch experience. The N8 was launched in April 2010 but only shipped in October that year as the first Symbian^3 device. When the decision to switch to Windows Phone was made, Symbian^3 was seriously lacking compared to its rivals. The original pre-Anna build of Symbian^3 had a web browser that wasn’t too far removed from the broken abomination of a browser that existed on S60v5, had a UI that didn’t seem any different to the much-criticised S60v5 user interface, lacked even basic features like a portrait QWERTY keyboard. Every single touchscreen Symbian device continues to be stuck with a 640 by 360 pixel display that seemed mindblowing at the end of 2008 at the launch of the 5800 XpressMusic but sorely lacking by the time the likes of the N8 and E7 came about. Symbian as a platform was already very uncompetitive in 2010 and already compared poorly to iOS and Android. Just to provide some perspective, Android 2.1 and the Google/HTC Nexus One was unveiled and released in January 2010, 10 months before Symbian^3 actually existed on shipping hardware. It seems mindblowing today, doesn’t it?

Soon after the N8′s release Nokia promised a PR2.0 update for the N8 that was delayed and delayed again, gaining a new iconset and a feminine name before trickling out slowly along with the last-of-its-kind E6 and the mediocre X7 in April 2011, another 6 months after the N8′s launch and even longer for US devices. And even though the Belle upgrade has finally been released for existing Symbian^3 devices, let us not forget that Belle was launched along with the 600, 700 and 701, all devices which aren’t astoundingly different from the original crop of Symbian^3 hardware, back in August 2011. That means that it’s taken another 5 months for Belle to be made available for 1st-gen Symbian^3 devices, and a total of 2 years since the release of the Nexus One for Symbian to get anywhere close to matching Android 2.x in terms of user interface. That is exactly how far behind Symbian is, and has always been since S60v5.

It’s arguable whether Symbian^3 even had a future to begin with – it had a difficult birth, it was born in a period when Symbian was already long past its peak and on the decline, and regardless of whether it was a ‘complete rewrite’ under the hood, it was seen as a fixed version of a smartphone platform that had done nothing but drag Symbian’s name and reputation into the dust. Given how long it’s taken to get Anna and Belle on existing devices, was sticking with Symbian even an option for Nokia, a company that was already making huge losses a year ago? Could you possibly say with a straight face that Nokia could have been able to achieve success even in the mid-range smartphone market with Symbian Anna? Even in 2011, the number of compelling reasons why you’d get yourself a Symbian^3 device over everything else on the market was dwindling in proportion to the rise of Android. So do you think Nokia would be better off today if Elop hadn’t put Nokia on a new direction? I don’t think so. To some extent, media and user perception of Symbian ensured that Symbian would likely never rise again. It doesn’t matter that Symbian is functionally superior to other smartphone platforms if it’s got a horrid reputation and is seen as old and obsolete in addition to all of its real downsides and lackings.

In my opinion, competitive pricing and Nokia hardware has driven (and continues to drive) Symbian device sales for the past few years, not the platform itself. In other words, one of the main reasons why Nokia has continued to move millions upon millions of Symbian devices in 2011 is merely down to value-for-money and quality hardware especially in developed markets where iOS and Android have established a strong hold. Remember how almost every Symbian device in 2006 were truly high-end devices? 5 years later, the most expensive current Symbian smartphone, the 701, is a midrange device that’s not even available in every market. Symbian ceased competing in the high-end smartphone space a long time ago. And guess what? The high-end matters just as much as the mid-range devices that are priced to sell because they create mindshare and increase the desirability of the rest of the product line.

In any discussion about why Symbian is in the position it is in now, it is hard to ignore the failure of Ovi as being a major contributing factor. Who still remembers Nokia asserting that they wanted to transition to being a software and services company? In all honesty, Ovi was a great idea – having a set of online services baked right into the Symbian platform would emulate one of the key advantages of Android on Nokia smartphones, and the concept of Ovi as an end-to-end mobile-focused Web 2.0 service layer was generally sound. But the implementation of that vision was completely screwed up. Every Ovi service apart from Ovi Maps sucked one way or another, and that’s already an understatement. Ovi Contacts and Calendar were clumsy and limited and synchronization was error-prone. Ovi Share and Ovi Chat never took off because there wasn’t a single compelling reason why you’d use any of those solutions over Flickr or Picasa and any cross-platform IM network respectively. Ovi Mail was complete rubbish any way you looked at it and no one really understood or used Ovi Files. But the Ovi Store was easily the worst failure of the lot. Between a slow, clunky, laggy, poorly-organized Store client that couldn’t seem to remember your account credentials or install apps reliably, a broken search engine, a poor app selection, screenshots that are square and a lousy web interface, it’s hard to pin down what the biggest flaw of the Ovi Store was. Today, the Ovi brand is dead and gone and the only surviving components are what used to be Ovi Maps and Ovi Store, with Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat having been taken over by Yahoo.

Symbian should not have survived. If it did, it would eventually make them completely irrelevant in the smartphone space at best. Of course, MeeGo was meant to be Nokia’s solution to becoming relevant at the high-end of the market once again before the February 11 decision, but it’s just as questionable whether the N9 and MeeGo Harmattan could have competed alongside the iPhone and the multitude of high-end Android devices. Whether MeeGo Harmattan is technically superior to Android and iOS doesn’t matter a single bit if the apps and games for the platform worth an ounce of attention are few and far between, supporting services are absent and the fledgling smartphone platform has to go up against far more established rivals that boast their own unique selling points in a smartphone space where even a big, concentrated effort like Windows Phone struggles to gain traction. A beautiful and intuitive user interface and smooth user experience aren’t the only factors that sell smartphones. Otherwise, Palm’s webOS would have been a massive success. If the N9 and MeeGo Harmattan was supposed to save Nokia, I’d have laughed at the effort because that is exactly what it wouldn’t do.

Obviously, Symbian continues to enjoy a huge but silent userbase so the platform will definitely remain in mass adoption for several more years. The release of the Belle upgrade should go a long way towards keeping Symbian users happy for the near future. It’s an excellent upgrade that brings an Android-level user experience to the Symbian platform, but that’s really only because it’s meant to extend the lifespan of the platform for a couple more years. If Nokia were still pursuing a smartphone strategy reliant on Symbian, Belle would be an unmitigated disaster. It’s 2012 and Nokia has only managed to get itself on par with an outdated version of Android? And the portrait QWERTY keyboard is still rubbish? And email notifications don’t work? What the hell?!

For better or for worse, Nokia is a different company today.

Editorial: The Nokia-Microsoft partnership – 1 Year Later is a post from: UnleashThePhones.com

The commercial uses the new Nokia DubStep remix from their contest, and shows the new Lumia Windows Phones in conjunction with the Luna headset. But what is most interesting, is that there seems to be a Red and Green Lumia 800 towards the end of the video:

I’ve seen a lot of folks asking for a red Lumia 800, so if this turns out to be true, it’ll make some folks pretty happy.

The ad seems quite well made to be a fan-made video, but is by a user ‘AdContentMedia‘ so the possibility that is not an official video is also present. Still, the Nokia N8 was available in tons of colors, so there’s no reason the Finnish giant wouldnt want to release the Lumia 800, their new Windows Phone, in various colors as well, eh? There’s already the White, Black, Cyan and Magenta Lumia 800s, with a rumored Yellow variant coming as well. Throw in Red and Green into that mix as well.

Nokia Luna Headset Commercial shows Red and Green Lumia 800s coming is a post from: UnleashThePhones.com

There is literally no accessory that I’ve wanted to check out more, than the Nokia Essence. With 99.8 percent Active Noise Cancellation and Bass/Treble Boost, this is one amazing piece of wireless technology right here.

I’ve yet to devote time to properly give it listen, but here’s an unboxing in the meanwhile.

Behold the unboxing:

(Note: If you’re reading this on our RSS feed and for some reason cant see the video, the YouTube version can be found here)

What’s in the retail box:

• Nokia Essence Bluetooth Stereo Headset
• Neck strap
• Earbuds in 6 sizes for perfect fit & audio
• Carrying case
• User guide and standard Nokia charger

The Essence comes with six different types of earbuds in different sizes and shapes, so chances are these in-ear type headphones will be able to perfectly fit your ear.

As I mentioned in my Nokia Play 360 Unboxing, I love NFC and I’m happy to see it on the Nokia Essence. The retail box is small but has quite a load of things in there, with the carry case and the aforementioned earbuds.

Interestingly the Essence charges with a standard Nokia charger instead of a microUSB charger. Possibly just to keep the size small, or elegant?

So yes, that’s the Nokia Essence for ya. I gave it a quick listen for a little while, and I didnt want to stop the music. You know those ads where the person puts the noise cancelling headphones on, and the whole world disappears around then? That’s the Nokia Essence for ya.

Consider me impressed already. A review should be up next week, but if you have any questions in the meanwhile, do let me know in the comments below, and we’ll include the answer in our review!

Nokia Essence Product Page

Unboxing the Nokia Essence Bluetooth Stereo Headphones is a post from: UnleashThePhones.com

I just got this today so I cant ‘review’ it in good faith until I’ve had a good listen, but here’s an unboxing in the meanwhile.

Behold the unboxing:

(Note: If you’re reading this on our RSS feed and for some reason cant see the video, the YouTube version can be found here)

What’s in the retail box:

• Nokia Play 360°
• Nokia Battery BL-5C
• Nokia Charger AC-10
• 3.5 mm audio cable
• User guide

I quite like Nokia’s new accessories so I’m really excited to get to ‘play‘ with the Play 360. I love that there’s NFC built-in, since I’m a big fan of the technology. I just wish more devices had it.

In terms of volume the Play 360 was able to fill my medium-sized living room with sound very well, but again until I have a proper listen I cant give a proper opinion on them. You can get another Play 360 and pair it with one, for stereo sound, which is even louder. There’s even a 3.5mm audio wire in the retail package incase you want to use the Play 360 without Bluetooth or NFC. No Microphone built-in though, so you cant use it for voice during audio calls.

I’m a big fan of all things wireless, so as you can tell, I’m already liking the Nokia Play 360. Should have a review up in a couple days, but if y’all have any questions, do let us know, eh?

Nokia Play 360 Product Page

Unboxing the Nokia Play 360 External Bluetooth NFC Speaker is a post from: UnleashThePhones.com

Too early for a properly review because I havent had a proper long listen to them yet, but here’s an unboxing in the meanwhile.

Behold the unboxing:

(Note: If you’re reading this on our RSS feed and for some reason cant see the video, the YouTube version can be found here)

What’s in the retail box:

• Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster
• Carrying case
• Cable with ControlTalk for Windows phones
• Cable with microphone for other Nokia phones (Nokia AV, 3.5 mm jack)
• Instruction booklet

The bright magenta might not be everyone’s cup of tea but I cant wait to be seen in public with these, haha. The Purity HD is also available in Black and White for the more formal folks out there, with a Cyan-Blue option as well.

I love how ‘expensive feeling‘ the retail box was. That’s not something I get to say very often.

You really feel like you’re buying something premium, and the build quality of the Purity HD was pretty solid as well. Audio seemed okay but again, I havent had a proper listen on them yet. It’s going to take me a few days to properly device what I think about them.

Also loved the fact that it’s portable so you can just fold it up and carry it around in it’s case, in your backpack or purse or whatever your mode of carrying things is.

It’s also very cool for Nokia to still provide a 2.5mm adaptor for older Nokia phones that still use that port.

It’s the little things, eh?

In the meanwhile if you guys have any questions about the Nokia Monster Purity HD headphones, do let me know in the comments below and I’ll try to answer them as best I can!

Nokia Monster Purity HD Product Page

Unboxing the Nokia Monster Purity HD Headphones is a post from: UnleashThePhones.com

Kodak has not been doing very well in the last few years, inspite of various software partnerships with cellphone makers like Nokia and Sony Ericsson in the early days of mobile. After filing for bankruptcy last month, they went after Apple and HTC for patent infringement, so it’s not very surprising to see the company change their focus. Still, Kodak was an iconic brand in the photography realm back in the day, so it’s still a bit sad for me to hear this bit of news. Unfortunately for camera companies, they are taking a beating from camera phones, with more and more people choosing to dump their point and shoot for their phone camera. With cameras on mobile phones becoming more and more capable like with the Nokia N8 and iPhone 4S, I dont think it’s a trend that will stop anytime soon.

Kodak will instead be focusing on retail-based photo printing, inkjet printers, camera accessories and batteries. The Cameraphones have claimed a victim y’all. RIP, Kodak cameras.

Cue the Kodak Moment jokes.

Press Release (click to show)

Cameraphones claim a victim: Kodak to stop making cameras is a post from: UnleashThePhones.com

There’s no public release or guide on how he managed to dual boot to Google’s platform on the MeeGo smartphone, but it makes the already-desirably Nokia N9 even more tempting. As you might already know, the N9 was launched to great reviews last year, but Nokia had already changed their focus to using Windows Phone as their primary smartphone OS of choice by then. After that move, Intel choose to move MeeGo over to Tizen, after a partnership with Samsung, while Nokia stated they’ll continue to work on MeeGo in their R&D to support the N9 for a little while.

As a result, MeeGo doesnt have the number of Apps that iOS, Android or even Windows Phone has, so this little hack for the 3.9 inch polycarbonate smartphone would allow N9 owners to get more out of their phone, while still being able to switch back to good ol’ MeeGo when needed. Currently, pressing the volume up button during boot up, loads Android instead of MeeGo, and the developer is still trying to get all of the N9?s hardware to work with the Android kernel. He’s run into a bit of issues with getting OpenGL to work, which makes the entire thing a bit unusable at the moment.

I fixed double-buffering in default gralloc last night. Still no OpenGL, thus unusable. #nitdroid #n9 #ics

— Alexey Roslyakov (@drunkdebugger) February 8, 2012

But if he manages to pull it off, if be hilarious if the N9 ends up out-selling the Lumia 800, eh? More info over at the Maemo.org thread at the source below.

Maemo.org

The Nokia N9 manages to run Ice Cream Sandwich thanks to unofficial Android port [Kinda] is a post from: UnleashThePhones.com

Specs-wise it might run Symbian Belle with a 4 Inch AMOLED display, an HDMI port, microSIM card slot, NFC, and (the best part, and reason I’m posting this) the ‘largest camera sensor ever on a mobile phone.’

Yes Please?

No picture of this ‘leak’ unfortch, but maybe it’ll look like that rumored 801. All I can say is, please let this have a xenon flash, please please please.

BGR

Nokia 803 – might be last Symbian smartphone [4 Inch AMOLED, Belle, and the 'largest camera sensor on mobile'] is a post from: UnleashThePhones.com

The phone was accidentally shown off on Nokia’s Facebook page today. There’s the front facing camera, and exposed microUSB port, so it’s definitely not the Lumia 800 in the picture above. Remember when I said I wanted a white Lumia 800? Yeah scratch that, I want a White Lumia 900!

Mobile World Congress is just a few weeks away, so I guess we should hear soon whether there’s an international version of the Lumia 900 after all, or maybe a different model.

Nokia Facebook

Nokia shows off a White International Lumia 900 is a post from: UnleashThePhones.com