Nokia could unveil Asha 501 feature phone today

---

In just a few hours, Nokia will unveil a new phone in Delhi. Word is that the Finnish phone maker will be adding to its Asha range of feature phones. The company had already launched the Nokia Asha 201 last month and the event today is expected to be for a more high-end device.

A picture leaked on Twitter by EvLeaks suggests that Nokia will be launching Asha 501. The image shows the phone in several colours - black, white, red, blue, green and yellow - and the design reminds us of any number of Nokia Lumia phones over the years.

Not much else can be surmised from these pictures, but it looks like the new Asha phone will be a full touch number and the screen size from the image looks to be around the 4-inch mark or even smaller. The phone has one physical button, with the power key and volume rocker placed on the right edge. The phone could very well come with replaceable back panels.

Earlier speculation says that Nokia is about to launch Asha phones with a redesigned UI, seemingly inspired by Windows Phone 8’s UI. From previous leaked images, it looks like there will be a redesigned lock screen, among other new additions. The new UI will be released alongside updated hardware possibly including a new and improved camera module. While sales of the Lumia range of devices might not be scorching, Nokia’s Asha devices have put the company in a strong position in the budget phone market.

Report by : tech2 News Staff

Nokia to launch new phone with physical keyboard on April 24

---

Nokia has teased an image of what possibly could be a new mobile phone, on its blog, Nokia Conversations and through its Twitter account.

The Finnish handset maker has also informed that it will be announcing something new, followed by a Q&A session with Neil Broadley from its Mobile Phones team along with an unnamed special guest on Wednesday, April 24 at 7am GMT (12:30pm IST).

The teaser displays part of a phone's screen and a small part of its hardware keyboard. The device is a yellow coloured phone with a polycarbonate shell similar to the designs we've seen in the company's Lumia range of Windows Phone smartphones.

It's difficult to say if the launch could be feature Nokia's first hardware keyboard equipped Windows Phone device or the company is launching a refreshed line-up of handsets in its Asha feature phone range. While we haven't heard much about the Windows Phone QWERTY handsets, we've seen some evidence of the latter.

Earlier this month, a purported pictures featuring Nokia's refreshed range of Asha mobile handsets had been posted online by the Twitter user @evleaks. The images had featured three different handsets in bold colours such as green, red and yellow. The images had made us think that Nokia was trying to apply a similar design philosophy to its Asha devices that it had adopted for its Lumia smartphones.

The launch event could see the rumour materialising into a real product. Nokia is facing increased competition in the sub Rs. 5,000 category from the local handset makers offering affordably priced Android smartphones. Recently, Samsung too launched its REX series to take on Nokia. At this stage, it has become imperative for Nokia to raise the bar for its Asha devices. If the company is able to launch new Asha handsets with more features at a competitive price, it might be able to revive its fortune in the feature phone segment in India.

Report by : Anupam Saxena

Nokia Lumia 620 now up for pre order online for Rs.15,199

---

Nokia announced the Windows Phone 8 powered Lumia 920, Lumia 820 and Lumia 620 in India in January and while the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 were put up for retail sale soon after, Nokia said that the more affordable Lumia 620 will be up for sale in the month of February. Clearly, that wasn’t the case and there was some delay in the launch of Lumia 620, but now it seems that the phone is all set to go on sale.

Popular online retailer, Flipkart has put the Nokia Lumia 620 up for pre-order on it’s website for a price of Rs.15,199 and is promising a release date around 2nd week of March. The Nokia Lumia 620 is available in four color variants- Cyan, Magenta, Green and Black and Flipakrt is also offering a 16GB micro-SD card for free, if the customers pre-book the smartphone.

The Nokia Lumia 620 sports a 3.8-inch TFT WVGA ClearBlack display which is quite good to look at and honestly, any display on windows phone device looks good irrespective of the pixel density. The device is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor coupled with 512MB of RAM and during our initial test, we found the usage to be lag free and all the apps loaded up quickly, without much delay.

The Nokia Lumia 620 comes with 8GB of internal storage along with a micro-SD card slot for storage expansion by up to 64GB, which is a major plus point for the device as it is amongst the only few smartphones, which offer storage expansion till 64GB. Considering it’s expected price point, we aren’t really impressed with the 5 megapixel rear camera on the Lumia 620, but one area where the Lumia 620 scores over it’s closes rival, the HTC 8S is that while the 8S lacks a front-facing camera, the Lumia 620 sports a VGA camera which enables video-calling on the device and makes use of the tight Skype integration on Windows Phone 8, unlike the HTC 8S.

But a major area for concern is the Lumia 620′s petit 1,300mAh battery which may not be enough to easily last thorough a full day’s usage. If you’ve been waiting for the Lumia 620 since long, maybe you could just head over to Flipkart and book one for yourself right now!

Report by : Abhinav Bhargava

Nokia Lumia 720 and Lumia 520 UK price revealed

---

Nokia showcased its brand new Windows 8 contenders - Lumia 720 and Lumia 520 - at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2013. UK retailer Clove has now shared availability and pricing details for these smartphones.

Nokia Lumia 720 is expected to be available starting April 1, 2013. At the time of launch, it will be available only in black colour option. The price for Nokia Lumia 720 has been listed at 299.99 Pounds (including all taxes and VAT) sans any contract.

As you may be aware, Nokia Lumia 720 sports a 4.3-inch display. The screen of Lumia 720 is protected by Gorilla Glass 2. Internally, the smartphone packs in Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset with a 1GHz dual-core processor. It comes with 512MB of RAM and 2,000mAh battery.

The device claims to deliver a high-end camera performance. It features a large f/1.9 aperture with Carl Zeiss optics that are designed to deliver bright, clear pictures day and night, and a HD-quality, wide-angle front-facing camera. Nokia Lumia 720 is also the first unibody smartphone to offer microSD support.

On the other hand, SIM-free Nokia Lumia 520 has been listed on Clove for 170 Pounds (including VAT and taxes). This smartphone too will be available starting April 1 in UK. At the time of launch, the colour options available for Lumia 520 are black and white.

It's noteworthy that Nokia Lumia 520 is being touted as the most affordable Windows Phone 8 device. This smartphone comes with 4-inch super sensitive touchscreen which the company believes will make it competitive with other budget smartphones. The display resolution of the smartphone is 480x800 pixels. Lumia 520 also comes with dual-core 1GHz Snapdragon processor with 512 MB of RAM. The internal storage available on the device is 8GB and can be expanded by another 64GB via microSD card.

There is a 1,430mAh battery on board Lumia 520, which as per company claims gives 9.60 hours of talk time and standby time of 15 days. It has a 5-megapixel autofocus rear camera. Camera features include Smart Shoot, CinemaGraph and more.

Report by : Surbhi Chawla

Goodbye Symbian, it's time to let you go for good

Finally! The news that Nokia has decided cut the apron strings from their beloved Symbian OS just was a long time coming. It seemed like Nokia was simply

---

Finally! The news that Nokia has decided to cut the apron strings from its beloved Symbian OS just was a long time coming. It seemed like Nokia was simply flogging a dead horse, expecting it to go faster. It had its run, it survived this long and that’s something in itself. The time to let go was, well, a long time ago.

It is great news to hear that Nokia is finally putting the Symbian OS to rest. This was simply some baggage that needed to be shrugged off in a hurry. For any Nokia fan it’s great to see it picking itself up, dusting itself off and donning a new avatar with Windows Phone, all in a bid to re-establish itself as a major player in the market. What I find truly heartening is that it's taking the best of the old ideas, updating them and incorporating them into its new products. This is what it should have done a long time ago, but as the cliché goes, better late than never. Anyway, no one was really looking forward to the next Nokia Symbian handset, but I know, I’m looking forward to the next Nokia Windows Phone.

Symbian was just not the OS it used to be. Belle or Anna might have brought some measure of innovation to the ailing operating system, but it was never enough to tear the crowds away from the Android and iOS. With dwindling market share, it was dying a slow and dreary death.

Nokia’s focus should now be a little more streamlined in terms of what it wants to achieve from the mobile OS market. If it's going to stick to Windows Phone as a primary OS, then it should push the developer community to start taking more interest. That being said, Nokia's efforts have been valiant and it’s time now to see a whole new Nokia.

The time has come to say goodbye

Symbian served us well. It was my first love with the mobile phone, the jazzy colours, cool icons, smart functions—it was what ushered in the age of smartphones. Nokia has always had plenty to offer, but for some reason, there seemed to have been some hiatus in Nokia’s think tank and as a consequence, Symbian’s evolution remained relatively stagnant with only a few minor tweaks incorporated over the last couple of years. The mobile OS got smarter and Nokia, for some reason, chose to stay in the past.

While it got our attention by adding a few relevant technologies to the great hardware and trying desperately to push the OS as far as it would go, the hook was never the OS. Devices like the E7 Communicator or the Nokia N8 and PureView 808 were great innovations, but only in distinct and specific features like design, hardware and, of course, their cameras. However, the complete package was just not good enough. We’ll never forget the handsets and will probably still compare them to some of the new devices whenever they try and up the specs, but all we’ll really be talking about is the camera and design again. But any such comparison or discussion gets derailed the moment we start talking of the operating system.

So, we finally bid adieu to the OS that got the ball rolling. Symbian, you showed others the way and will always be rembered as the pioneer, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s time we let go and move on. We salute you as we say goodbye.

Report by : Shayne Rana

Nokia generates $270 million profit but sales drop

---

Struggling Nokia Corp. turned a net profit of euro 202 million ($270 million) in the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of $1 billion a year earlier, but revenue fell 20 percent as it failed to make gains in the fiercely competitive smartphone market.

The Finnish company said Thursday that revenue dropped to euro 8 billion ($10.6 billion) from euro 10 billion as smartphone sales plunged 55 percent from a year earlier.

Nokia gave a grim outlook saying it expects operating margins in the first quarter of this year to be "approximately negative 2 percent, plus or minus four percentage points." It cited increased competition and lower-than-expected demand for its flagship Lumia phones and cheaper Asha models.

Nokia sold 15.9 million smartphones in the quarter, down from 19.6 million a year earlier, including 4.4 million Lumia phones. In all, it sold 45 million mobile phones in the period, 15 percent less than in 2011.

CEO Stephen Elop said he was encouraged that the company's strategy had reached "underlying profitability" and strengthened its financial position but cautioned that more cutbacks could be expected.

"We remain focused on moving through our transition, which includes continuing to improve our product competitiveness, accelerate the way we operate and manage our costs effectively," Elop said.

Elop said Nokia Siemens Networks "drove record profitability" during the quarter. The networks unit - a joint-venture with Germany's Siemens AG - saw its operating profit surge to euro 251 million from euro 67 million the previous year, while revenue was up 5 percent at euro 4 billion.

The unit has been loss-making for years but restructuring measures including substantial job cuts have improved its performance.

The company's stock dropped more 3 percent to euro 3.30 in early afternoon trading in Helsinki.

Report by : Associated Press

---

Ever since the launch of the first Nokia PureView device, there have been speculations that Nokia may launch a similar camera smartphone based on the Windows Phone OS. And if reports by The Verge are to be believed then this smartphone could already be in the works.

The tech blog claims that Nokia is currently working on a smartphone that is codenamed "EOS" and it sports a camera sensor, which is similar to the one that is on Nokia's 808 PureView. Furthermore, it claims that unlike the recent devices in the Lumia series, the EOS smartphone might sport an aluminium exterior instead of polycarbonate.

The Verge also states that the EOS is expected to be a new flagship device from the company that will launch later in the year. For now, there are no more details available regarding specifications of the device.

Nokia had first showcased its 808 PureView at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012. This smartphone garnered a lot of attention, thanks to the massive 41-megapixel camera sensor that it has on-board. Other features of the smartphone include a 4-inch 360x640pixel AMOLED display, 16GB of internal storage, 1.3GHz processor and Nokia Symbian Belle OS.

Nokia 808 PureView debuted in India in June 2012. Its current price is mentioned as Rs. 26,499 but it is currently listed as out of stock on Nokia India official store.

Earlier in the month there were also reports doing the rounds that Nokia is working on a successor to its current flagship smartphone the Lumia 920, which is codenamed "Catwalk". The reports also claimed that this device will come with an aluminium body and will be lighter and thinner than the Lumia 920.

Report by : Surbhi Chawla

ET Review: Nokia’s Lumia 920

---

NEW DELHI: Nokia's Lumia 920 has a lot of industry firsts. It's the first with optical image stabilisation, wireless charging, a touchscreen that can be used with any gloves and a display with the highest refresh rate on any phone today.

The 920 comes in various eye-catching colours & carries over the unibody polycarbonate design from the Lumia 800/900. At 185 grams though, it is quite heavy; the Galaxy Note II with 5.5-inch screen weighs 183 grams. Thankfully, the curved design makes it comfortable to hold.

The curved 4.5-inch display (1280 x 768 pixels) offers excellent viewing angles & vibrant colours. It uses Nokia's ClearBlack, which has deep blacks on par with the super amoled displays you see on high-end devices.

The highlight is the 8MP PureView camera with Carl Zeiss optics & floating lens technology. Stills are simply stunning even in low light. Thanks to optical image stabilisation, the videos recorded with the phone have minimal blur and shake. It's safe to say that the Lumia 920 has the best camera in its segment.

Windows Phone 8 runs butter smooth — no slowdowns, no hanging and seamless multitasking. Nokia's preloaded apps (Nokia Maps, Drive and Music) provide a rich experience on the device. The only issue is that Windows Phone 8 has nowhere near the number of apps offered by Android and iOS.

The phone lasts about a day on a full charge. We think the price is a bit on the high side. For the same price, you can also get devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note II which offers a larger display, better battery life and a better app ecosystem. Having said that, the Lumia 920 impresses in almost every department: it can at least be crowned the best Windows Phone device today.

Reprot by : KARAN BAJAJ