About the Nokia Lumia launch this week
by Volker Weber
You probably read a lot about the new Lumia devices Nokia announced in New York this week. I'd like to talk about two separate topics: the launch event and the new phones. I need to talk about the event so that you get a grip on how little everybody knows about the phones, all while pretending they know everything. Let's start with the event:
- The event was held on September 5 in the 548 Center on 22nd St in New York. It was well organized and executed. Period.
- There were a few hundred press, analyst and bloggers at the event. The venue had three floors. On the third floor there was the general keynote, on the second there was work room and several breakout rooms for interviews. The fourth floor had large area with demos.
- For the demo floor there were strict rules enforced: the Lumia phones had to be held by the promoters, not by the visitors. The promoters would show you certain things, but would not let you do anything yourself. With the periperals however, you could pretty much do with them what you liked.
- Windows Phone 8 has not been released to manufacturing. Microsoft wants to launch Windows Phone 8 separately, most likely on October 25. We weren't allowed to inspect all elements of Windows Phone 8, and therefore not allowed to handle the phones. Microsoft was wagging Nokia.
- Rules are often broken. I won't say no more.
What was missing from the event? Mostly pricing and availability.
On to the phones themselves.
- There are two models. The 920 is similar in size to the 900 and similar in design to the 800. Which means, it has a curved back and curved glass. It feels way better than the 900. (See? We did get to touch the phones. A lot actually.) The 820 is the cheaper model. I am not interested. :-) You may, because you can personalize the phone by replacing the back cover. That is also how you upgrade to wireless charging.
- WP8 phones are very different from WP7 phones. Everything is better, starting with CPU and graphics, all the way to the software stack. While you can run WP7 software, development now goes way beyond the Silverlight roots of WP7. That's good. It becomes much easier to port stuff from other platforms.
- The new displays are awesome. We could not take one outside, but even inside you could see how much better they performed under a bright light. Nokia is adjusting the Gamma curves to decrease contrast. Darker areas become brighter so you can still see them in direct sunlight. It's a bit like audio compression: music becomes louder by raising the lower volumes, not the higher volumes.
- Wireless charging takes longer than wired, but you will do it more often since you just have to put the phone down on a charger. We had this already with Palm Pre. But now it's a standard working across multiple vendors. I expect everybody to follow. Everybody but Apple of course. Wireless charging can be integrated into furniture. IKEA?
- Nokia faked footage to demo capabilities of the new camera with OIS (optical image stabilization). That's a shame. I am sure nobody else does that. Anyway, we broke some rules, and I can tell you, the camera is really good. You will just be confused with the PureView branding. The technology in the 808 PureView is completely different from the Lumia 920. PureView on the 808 means pixel binning and lossless zoom. PureView on the 920 means f/2.0 lens and OIS. Nokia isn't going to make a WP8 41 MP phone anytime soon. It's just too big.
Do I want one? Yes. In matte black or glossy white. No dull grey, no bright red or yellow, please. Do I want to keep it? I will reserve judgement until I used it for a week. There are pitfalls I don't know about yet. Does it integrate with a Mac? Or with Google services? We will see in a couple of weeks.
Comments
(Psst. There isn't a 22nd _avenue_ in Manhattan. ;-)
Danke, Volker. Bleibt nur zu hoffen, dass Microsoft WP8 möglichst bald freigibt. Cyberport z.B. spricht von einer Verfügbarkeit am 18.10.. Wie das ohne OS gehen soll, weiss ich aber auch nicht ;)
So my Nokia stocks will rise to wich level ?
