Hasta La Gadget!

It’s no secret that Microsoft and Nokia are aiming to make Windows Phone the OS of choice when it comes to mobile photography, whether through optical image stabilization or the Lens app lineup. The latest camera augmentation code to come down the pike is Blink, an app built by Microsoft Research that brings a special burst mode to WP8 devices. Blink works by snapping a series of 16 shots each time you take a photo, and lets you choose which picture’s worth keeping. It’s an an excellent tool for those looking to take action photos, but there’s a catch — the pictures taken by Blink are of less-than-impressive quality, with a max resolution of 800 x 488. That said, if such an imaging safety net sounds good to you, there’s a video showing it off in action after the break, and you can grab the app at the source below.

Update: It seems that the images Blink produced on our Samsung ATIV Odyssey are not representative of the app’s true capabilities. One of the app’s creators reached out to tell us that Blink is set to output images that are 1280 x 720, and the glitch we unwittingly discovered is being investigated.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Microsoft

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Via: All About Windows Phone

Source: Windows Phone Store

Amazon’s been doing a pretty decent job at blanketing those Android and iOS Kindle applications with the latest and greatest, but the same couldn’t exactly be said about its Windows Phone counterpart. Today there’s great news for users of Redmond’s mobile OS, however, as the Fire maker has announced an update that brings some much-needed support for Windows Phone 8 to the app, which should pair well with the company’s Whispersync tech and the extensive e-book repertoire it has to offer. There might be one caveat, though: early adopters of the refreshed Kindle app have said it’s facing some crashing issues and, in some cases, even having trouble launching — a few folks, meanwhile, have mentioned that it’s best to do a clean install rather than update the previous version in order to avoid any woes. The link to grab the application is down below, and do use the comments section to let us know how the process turned out for you.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Amazon

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Via: WMPoweruser

Source: Windows Phone

An Asus exec has revealed to the Wall Street Journal that his company is “in talks” with Microsoft to license Windows Phone 8. Talk is cheap, of course, but at this point WP8 is much in need of friends and it’s interesting to contemplate what Asus might do with the OS, given that manufacturer’s penchant for quirky form factors. Speaking of which, the same executive — VP Benson Lin — brought up the notion of a Padfone-style modular device based on Windows:

“With our Padfone concept, the phone plus tablet, I think it makes sense for Windows 8”

What doesn’t make sense is how such a thing could work. The Android-based Padfone employs the exact same OS regardless of whether it’s in phone or tablet mode, but no version of Windows (whether WP8, RT or the regular “8“) currently allows that sort of flexibility with screensize. Lin may know something about the future of Windows that we don’t, or he may just be throwing out abstract ideas about some sort of dual-OS device — after all, he admitted that there is “no target timeline” for any of this.

In the shorter term, Lin also said that Asus is talking to US carriers in the hope of bringing its wares to the States by 2014, which could mean that a Padfone 3 — if there ever is one — may be more than just a remote curiosity or an Expansys special.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile, ASUS

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Source: Wall Street Journal (paywall)

If you were following Huawei’s presser from earlier today, you may have thought the company’s CES 2013 story was “All About Android.” Turns out, it’s not. On the showfloor here at Pepcom, the company was able to give us a first look at the Ascend W1: it’s first entry for the Windows Phone 8 space. Admittedly, the W1 doesn’t share any of the lust-worthy, high-end specs that adorn the Ascend Mate and D2, but that’s not its angle. As one Huawei rep put it, this is a value proposition, outfitted with a 4-inch display (we couldn’t verify resolution) and 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 paried with 512MB RAM. Software-wise, this is about as stock WP8 as it gets, so don’t expect to see any applications come pre-loaded onto the hardware.

Dimension-wise, the W1 is a girthy phone, cutting a silhouette that’s just about 10mm — so, it stands far outside the “world’s thinnest” category that we’ve heard so much about at this CES. It also bears a bit of heft which we can’t ascribe to its battery size. At 1,950mAh, the W1 should pack enough juice to last seven to nine days on standby and given the reduced power requirements of WP8, it’s sure to get moderate users through a full day. There’s a paltry 4GB of storage onboard, but thankfully, users can augment that via a microSD slot, allowing for up to 32GB.

UI navigation on the W1 lives up to the elegant, sweeping transitions that have become trademarks of Windows Phone 8. It’s appreciably quick and responsive. And somewhat surprisingly, viewing angles on the display held up remarkably when we tilted it about in various degrees. As for that standard micro-USB port, it seems Huawei’s done something different by allocating it to the bottom right of the handset.

Wondering when and where you’ll see the W1? Well, join the club. Huawei’s remaning tight-lipped about pricing and release details, but we did manage to get a confirmation that the W1 would be US-bound this year. For now, feast your eyes on the gallery below and check out our video after the break.

Sarah Silbert contributed to this report.

Continue reading Huawei Ascend W1 hands-on: the company’s first Windows Phone 8 device (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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Surprising a few of us, Nokia yesterday revealed a brand new Windows Phone 8 device, the 3.8-inch Lumia 620, in an explosion of colors. As its naming convention goes, and at just $249 contract-free, this is the cheapest device running Microsoft’s newly christened mobile OS so far. But with a WVGA screen, and only a 5-megapixel camera, is there enough bang for your buck, however? We’d argue yes — and we’re looking forward to see how the final model fares early next year. Our first impressions, a hands-on video and a tour of all seven color options are right after the break.

Continue reading Nokia Lumia 620 hands-on: $249 for Windows Phone 8 (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia

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