Hasta La Gadget!

The Nokia Lumia 920 in its AT&T iteration has landed on the SlashGear test bench complete with PureView imaging and Carl Zeiss wide-angle optics this week – so of course it’s immediately time to test it against the Samsung Galaxy S III. We’ll be testing its camera against the iPhone 5 as well rather soon – and whatever other devices you request as well – but first it’s time to battle one of the biggest competitors Nokia has in the field. The Samsung Galaxy S III wasn’t originally pushed specifically on its photo-taking abilities nearly so much as the Lumia 920 has been, so pay close attention to how they compare in some real-world tests.

What we’re testing here is color value, if it’s true-to-life nice, and how several different lighting conditions work with the gear we’ve got in both devices. This isn’t about to get too technical, of course, because these devices are meant to be used by everyone, not just photo aficionados. That said, if you’ve got any insight to add on what you’re seeing here, please feel free to contribute.

Each set is set up like this: The Nokia Lumia 920 is first, and the Samsung Galaxy S III is second. You can click any image to get the original version in a new window if you want to do up-close comparisons, too.

Leaves

Nokia Lumia 920

Samsung Galaxy S III

Bright Light

Nokia Lumia 920

Samsung Galaxy S III

Target

Nokia Lumia 920

Samsung Galaxy S III

Candy

Nokia Lumia 920

Samsung Galaxy S III

Running Dog

Nokia Lumia 920

Samsung Galaxy S III

Product Shot (rubber ducky)

Nokia Lumia 920

Samsung Galaxy S III

Basement Dark Shot A

Nokia Lumia 920

Samsung Galaxy S III

Basement Dark Shot B

Nokia Lumia 920

Samsung Galaxy S III

This post will continue to be updated throughout the day with photos near and far depending on the suggestions we get from you, the reader! Let us know what kinds of situations you’d like us to photograph and we’ll do our best to replicate your request with both devices. Have a peek at our first hands-on with the Nokia Lumia 920 from AT&T as well as our full review of the Galaxy S III as well!

Note that this is only the beginning – we’ll be continuing to test the low-light and no-blur abilities of the Nokia Lumia 920 in the near future, and will certainly be expanding in the full review as well. Stay tuned to the Microsoft portal we’ve got set up for you Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 addicts now too – jump on in!

Nokia Lumia 920 PureView camera hands-on vs Samsung Galaxy S III is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Carphone Warehouse is now taking pre-orders for the Nokia Lumia 820 handset, and there’s good news for the cash bereft — it’s free on contract, and the reseller will toss in a £45 wireless charging plate to boot. You can commit £29 per month to O2, Vodafone or Orange to avoid paying up front, or grab an unencumbered handset at £380 for the 4.3-inch Windows Phone 8 device in black, red or white. For that, you’ll get a 4G-capable smartphone with an 800 x 480 OLED screen, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM and 8-megapixel camera. The free extra offer will expire when shipping starts, so if the WP8 launch has you all charged up, hit the source.

Continue reading Nokia Lumia 820 up for UK pre-order: free on contract or £380 sim-less, wireless charger thrown in

Filed under: Cellphones, Nokia

Nokia Lumia 820 up for UK pre-order: free on contract or £380 sim-less, wireless charger thrown in originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Oct 2012 08:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to Tuesday evening everyone. We had so many big posts today that it’s hard to know where to start. Kicking things off, we’re live at Microsoft Build 2012, bringing you the latest on Windows 8, Surface, and Windows Phone 8. We also went hands-on with the Samsung Nexus 10 and the LG Nexus 4 today, so be sure to check those out if you’re thinking about picking up either (or both!) when they launch next month. Today we found out that Disney is buying out LucasFilm and that Star Wars Episode VII is in the works – both of those were major announcements for the millions of Star Wars fans out there.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer told us that 4 million Windows users have upgraded to Windows 8 since it launched last week, and today the company release the Windows Phone 8 SDK for eager developers. Twitter outed its Windows 8 app a few months ahead of launch, while Microsoft confirmed that apps like PayPal and Dropbox will be hitting the new operating system shortly. Microsoft also responded to complaints about Office 2013 on Surface, so if you’ve got one of the company’s new slates, you might want to hold off on using Office until these problems are fixed.

The fourth generation iPad has been benchmarked, showing a 1.4GHz A6X processor and 1GB of RAM, and one analyst was spotted predicting massive sales for the iPad line up. Apple delayed the roll out of its new iTunes overhaul today, while Google said it will be pushing developers to make extraordinary app experiences for Android tablets. Hurricane Sandy knocked out a number of big sites like Gawker and The Huffington Post over the weekend, and Modern Warfare 4 was outed by one excited voice actor.

Shortly after announcing that Disney had purchased LucasFilm, George Lucas talked about the deal and the future of Star Wars in a new interview, and today the Pentagon clarified that it will still be using BlackBerry phones in addition to iPhone and Android handsets. Grand Theft Auto V has been confirmed for a Spring 2013 release, and we received quarterly reports from both MetroPCS and ASUS today, the latter of which did particularly well in its third quarter.

Before we go, we want to remind you that our reviews for the iPad Mini and the fourth generation iPad went live not too long ago, so check those out if you’re interesting in buying one! That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy the rest of your night folks!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: October 30, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

You may have noticed Microsoft is being especially bullish about its prospects in the smartphone market right now — following yesterday’s Windows Phone 8 OS launch. It’s even trying to talk up its current marginal position – spinning that it’s on comfortable, familiar ground here, and even directly comparing the launch of WP8 to the launch of an underdog Xbox in a market dominated by PlayStation and Nintendo.

Speaking at a press briefing in the UK today, UK Microsoft marketing exec Brett Siddons said the Sisyphean challenge facing Redmond — to transform Windows Phone from an also-ran into a serious, top-three smartphone contender — is actually not so unsurmountable after all, because Microsoft has been here before, and thus knows how to walk this path.

Formerly group marketing manager at the Xbox group, Siddons has just moved over to Windows Phone — as the consumer marketing lead in the UK. ”With Xbox when we came into market there were two big well-established competitors: in PlayStation and Nintendo,” said Siddons. “A lot of people said to us when we launched Xbox, you’re coming into this market too late. But of course it gave us an opportunity to look at what was well established and to do something different with Xbox. And obviously now we’re sitting as market lead.”

With Windows Phone 8, Microsoft is again leveraging the luxury of being last, said Siddons, and this time the twin peaks it’s hoping to summit are Android and iOS.  ”I really wanted to get into Windows Phone… I really feel now is an opportunity for us to deliver something brand new to the market.”

Siddons bypassed the fact that WP8 is not actually a fresh launch: having launched Windows Phone 7 back in 2010, and failing to roll that rock up hill, Microsoft is once again retracing its steps to make a second pass at the mountain range (with its reboot of its reboot).

Ignoring all this recent history, Siddons instead went on to flesh out the advantages Redmond reckons it has this time around, claiming: ”Over the last five years the smartphone really hasn’t changed. If anything, with more and more apps coming on board, it’s actually got more complicated for the average consumer to be able to manage that device. We’re actually asking the consumer to work harder to get that information out of multiple sources and that’s where we think we have the big, big opportunity with Windows Phone — where we actually make the phone work harder for the individual. To be able to give them that information that’s personal and relevant for them.”

Again, though, being different to Android and iOS is not a new thing with Windows Phone 8. So if being different didn’t help ferry the WP7 boulder up the hill the first time around, why should it propel WP8 upwards today?

What is different this time around is the tandem launch of the WP-inspired Windows 8 — which not only looks and feels like Windows Phone, but the two OSes are unified, built on a shared kernel, and interoperable. This is a key difference that will help Microsoft familiarise consumers with the Windows Phone UI through its Windows PCs, apps and services — and effectively do the selling for them.

As Ovum analyst Nick Dillon put it to me yesterday at the WP8 launch, Microsoft now has one story to sell — a story the mobile carriers can buy into and get behind, in a way it never did with WP7. So the coming together of Microsoft’s desktop and mobile narratives looks likely to make WP8 much less of an uphill sales slog. Ovum is forecasting Windows Phone will grow its marketshare from 4.5 percent in 2012, to 13 percent in 2017 — putting it in third place behind Android and iOS. 

Microsoft’s UK marketing director also made this point today: ”Windows 8 has launched, and for the first time the interface, the start screen that you had on a Windows Phone is now going to be across millions of devices — so it will become much more familiar to people in a very short space of time. That will be a huge catalyst for us.”

Millions of Windows users tapping away on a Windows Phone style interface — that’s exactly the sort of advantage that could move Microsoft up smartphone mountains.

No wonder Ballmer is feeling bullish.

[Image: Dreaming in the deep south]

How amped is Microsoft to get developers into the Windows Phone 8 Store? The company announced today at Build that it’s lowering developer registration to $8 — that’s down from $99. Got to get in there quick, however — that price is only good for the next eight days. Seems to be some kind of theme here, no?

Update: Looks like the discount situation is a little more involved than just that. According to Microsoft, “You’ll be charged $99 USD or equivalent in your local currency, and we’ll refund the difference in the next 30 to 45 days.” Ninety-two percent discounts don’t just happen overnight, after all.

Filed under: Mobile, Microsoft

Microsoft drops Windows Phone Store developer registration to $8 for eight days originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 13:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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