Nokia and Samsung today announced to launch their respective flagship devices in white hue. Nokia will start selling the Lumia 800 in white from later this month whereas the first Android 4.0 phone – Galaxy Nexus will be available from February 13 in UK.

Going by both the devices, I think Lumia 800 takes the cake with his one as its completely painted in white as opposed to Galaxy Nexus’ back paint job.

Keeping the OS and hardware features aside, which one would you pick?

If you ever wondered Nokia’s contribution in bringing mobile phones to the masses, you have to take a look at the latest milestone. Nokia Series 40 phones aka featurephones sales have surpassed a whopping 1.5 billion units.

The first Series 40 phone was Nokia’s 7110 in 1999 and the 1.5 billionth device to be sold after 13 years is Asha 303 which was bought by Mayara Rodrigues in Brazil.

Nokia says unlike the previous generation Series 40 devices, the new range boast many smartphone-like features like Nokia Maps, Nokia Browser, web apps and more.

Press Release

Nokia has been showing off the Lumia 800 here in India but kept the lower-end Lumia 710 off our hands. Luckily for us, Nokia showcased the Lumia 710 as well as its newly announced Lumia 900 at CES where we managed to check out both these devices.

Nokia wanted to give the rich Windows Phone experience at an affordable price with Lumia 710 and it literally shows. If the fingerprint-prone display, plastic keys are not an issue, Lumia 710 won’t disappoint you. Apart from the choice of colors, Lumia 710 runs Windows 7.5 Mango OS, 1.4GHz CPU, 3.7-inch WVGA LCD display, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5MP camera and Nokia exclusive apps like Nokia Drive and Music.

Nokia Lumia 900 on the other hand, is a different story. It’s bigger than Lumia 800, fast and gorgeous. It will first arrive in United States on AT&T and supports 4G LTE network that gives speed of up to 50Mbps. As for other features, it has a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack WVGA display, 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor, 8MP Carl Zeiss camera with dual LED flash and 720p HD video recording, 1MP front-facing camera and Nokia exclusive apps.

Take a gander in the gallery below.

The successor to the Lumia 800, Nokia at CES 2012 announced the Lumia 900 for the AT&T’s 4G LTE network . The Lumia 900 will come in cyan and matte black colour featuring a large 4.3in AMOLED ClearBlack display. The phone has a massive power unit of 1830mAh that will give you good usage time on the 4G network.

Nokia Lumia 900 offers Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive through the Windows Phone Marketplace. Nokia Drive offers free, turn-by-turn, voice-guided navigation everywhere.

On the back, there’s an 8-megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and a dual LED flash. This model has a larger, f2.2/28mm aperture, allowing more light into the camera for faster performance, lower chance of motion blur and better low-light shots. It also supports hi-res video capture for 720p/30fps action footage. In addition, there’s a second, front-facing camera to give support for video calls (1-megapixel with an f2.4 lens and 30fps capture).

The Lumia 900 comes pre-installed with the Univision App for the users in the U.S. and Puerto Rico for 18 months, delivering unique and exclusive Spanish-language content experiences, including Univision entertainment, sports and soccer coverage, plus news, cooking and local content for different U.S. markets – all in one App. A partnership with EA will also bring over 20 of the world’s most popular games to the Windows Phone marketplace, coming first to Nokia Lumia devices.

Technical Specifications
- Networks: GSM/EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900/2100, LTE Band 4 (1700/2100) & 17 (700)
- Storage: 16GB internal memory (14.5GB user memory) + SkyDrive cloud storage
- OS: Windows Phone Release 7.5 – Mango Commercial Release 2 (Mango + LTE)
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR
- GPS: A-GPS
- Screen size: 4.3in AMOLED
- Battery: 1830mAh

It seems Nokia is following Samsung’s footsteps of trying to make their dumbphones smarter. Nokia has quitely bought a featurephone OS maker called Smarterphone. Although there’s no word from Nokia related to this, Ferd Capital claims that the acquisition took place in November.

As part of Nokia’s “Next Billion Strategy,” the Smarterphone OS will try to give a smartphone-like experiece to Nokia featurephones.

Nokia has Windows Phone OS to target the high and mid-range market and with Android OS targeting the lower-end market as well, integrating smartphone features in Nokia featurephone is definitely a smart move.

[Via Slashgear]

There’s no doubt that e-commerce in India is on the rise, which is why Nokia India has announced their dedicated Nokia store for Indian consumers. Nokia says consumers will be able to buy genuine Nokia phones and accessories directly on the store.

Although a good initiative by Finnish giant, biggest caveat we found was the price difference. Online retailers like Flipkart are selling same Nokia devices at a discounted price than what Nokia is currently offering. Maybe Nokia can offer some exclusive discount to entice customers.

Nokia Shop

Nokia has clung to the Symbian name for almost a decade but it seems all will change with the upcoming Symbian Belle update. Finnish giant will release the Nokia Belle update for its existing phones running Symbian Anna OS.

New “enhanced” versions of Nokia N8, C7 and C6-01 are already pre-installed with Nokia Belle but devices already floating in the market like Nokia N8, E7, E6, X7, C6-01, C7 and Nokia Oro will get the Belle update starting in February 2012.

Belle for starters, comes with six home screens, improved status bar, improved lock screen and more.

[Via Nokia Conversations]

Nokia has something interesting to show for the US market and it seems Consumer Electronics Show will be the platform for the unveiling. Nokia has started sending out invites for a press event scheduled on January 9 at 3PM PST.

The press conference will be about the latest Windows Phone for the US market, which is said to be the rumoured Lumia 900 with LTE.

Going by the rumored specs, Lumia 900 LTE will have a 1.4GHz processor, 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display and 8MP camera.

[Via Winrumors]

Nokia hasbeen and is always known for its deep Finnish roots so its kind of weird that a new rumor has surfaced claiming about shifting of headquarters from its birthplace. Anyways, Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop was quick to squash the rumor suggesting there will be no change in the headquarters for the world’s largest mobile maker.

“As long as I am the CEO the headquarters is in Espoo,” Elop told national broadcaster YLE. “That’s our home, our sense of belonging.”

The rumor claimed that Nokia will shift its base to United States since the company has cut thousands of jobs in Finland.

[Via Yahoo]

Nokia has announced that its second Windows Phone-powered phone, Lumia 710 is now shipping. The phone is now retailing in Taiwan and is expected in Singapore, India, Hong Kong and Russia by next week for an estimated price of 270 euros before tax and subsidies.

Nokia Lumia 710 is a mid-range device with 1.4GHz processor, Windows Phone 7.5 OS, 3.7-inch WVGA ClearBlack touchscreen display, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5MP camera with 720p HD video recording, and Nokia exclusive Drive and Music apps.

Press Release