It was a somewhat similar story for Nokia’s Lumia 920 back in late 2012. It had a stellar build quality, an excellent and fast 60 fps IPS display and ground breaking new camera optics. But the engineering choices at the time led to a somewhat bulky design which always feel a little bit heavy in your hand. But it was so close to being perfect that a number of people (including myself) were willing to overlook the weight issues and the fact that it was running a platform which was clearly a distant third in an ever saturated smartphone market. But the majority simply ignored its existence went about their iPhones and Galaxies as if the device had never been introduced.

As they say, hindsight is always 20/20 and it seems Nokia was also aware of the shortcomings if their flagship device because just six months after the release of the Lumia 920, Nokia introduced the Lumia 925 – it packed the exact same internals but swapped the bulky polycarbonate body with a sleek aluminum frame. Nokia also tweaked the display and switched the IPS LCD panel with an AMOLED screen and made wireless charging an optional add-on.

But six months is a long time in the technology world. By then, Samsung, HTC and Sony had all released their latest flagship models all featuring quad-core processors and 1080p displays and even Nokia itself was long rumored to be releasing a true successor to the 808 PureView with a full 41 megapixel camera. So does the Lumia 925 even stand a chance in the market when even Nokia seemed all set to upstage it? You’d be pretty surprised about the answer.

Hardware

In order to give the Lumia 925 a fresh look, Nokia decided to forego its established design language which it had used for all its previous flagship devices stating from the old N8 and N9. Instead it started with a clean slate – an aluminum frame houses the screen and the soft polycarbonate back. But that doesn’t mean that Nokia gave up on the curves. Quite the opposite actually. Every part of the frame is curved and blends in to the screen and the back quite nicely. The frame also doubles as the antenna for the device à la iPhone 4 sans the death grip.

In terms of pure numbers, the Lumia 925 is about 2.2mm thinner and almost 50g lighter than the Lumia 920. What this essentially means is that the phone is light years ahead of its predecessor in terms of usability. During my weeks long experience with the device, I found myself reaching for the 925 a lot more than my primary 920 simply because it was a delight to hold.

Nokia retains the exact same button configuration as it does on all its Lumia devices but the ports are switched up a bit. You’d find both the Micro USB port and the 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the device, while the bottom edge is clean. The speakers are also moved to the lower back where there are also three golden notches for the wireless charging shell.

The AMOLED screen might seem a step down from an IPS LCD at first, but keep in mind that the entire Windows Phone UI is optimized for AMOLED display so you’d end with a huge win for battery life. Also, the AMOLED technology enables a nifty new software feature called Glance which Nokia brought back from the Symbian days. The Gorilla Glass 2 screen is optically bonded to the AMOLED panel to reduce glare and Nokia also added its ClearBlack tech for good measure, making the Lumia 925 as good as the Lumia 920 which it comes to sunlight legibility.

The phone’s 768×1280 resolution might seem a bit odd but the 15:9 aspect ratio means that all apps designed for Windows Phone 7 scale perfectly on the larger resolution. For those interested in the PPI, it comes to about 332dpi for the phone’s 4.5 inch screen, keeping it above the iPhone’s 326dpi resolution, though it is still a long shot from all the 1080p devices coming out recently.

Just like the Lumia 920 before it, the phone is powered by a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus running at 1.5GHz and an Adreno 225 GPU. The phone also has a 1GB of RAM but only 16GB of Storage – a step down from the 32GB available on the Lumia 920. A 2000mAh battery supplies the juice to run all the hardware.

Camera

Nokia literally brands the camera on the Lumia 925 as PureView alongside the Carl Zeiss moniker but it is pretty much the same camera found on the Lumia 920 – and that is a good thing. It has the same 8.7 megapixel sensor and optical image stabilization giving it the ability to take stellar shots in low light.

In terms of actual hardware changes, the Lumia 925 adds a sixth glass element to the lens which supposedly improves sharpness in the images but you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference.

Most of Nokia’s camera improvements come in the firmware however and Nokia has tweaked the image processing algorithms a bit to keep images from appearing washed out. The new firmware also enables a host of other exciting camera apps which includes the new Nokia Camera which combines the previously available Nokia Pro Cam and Nokia Smart Cam apps.

The app now lets you have fine-grained control over camera features such as shutter speed, ISO, and point of focus. The sliding manual control make it easy to create the perfect conditions for every shot you want to frame, though you will need a few seconds to set them up before you can actually fire a shot. These software features have also found their way into the Lumia 920 as well so the difference is really moot at this point.

In terms of video recording, Nokia decided to change things up a little bit by using the third HAAC microphone for background noise cancellation instead of stereo input, leaving the audio in the video at a mono channel. The phone can record video in 1080p at 30 frames per second but is set to 720p by default. You can also zoom in while recording the video and the advanced image stabilization featured on the Lumia 920 is also featured prominently here.

During my actual usage, the camera seemed to be just as good as the Lumia 920 and it was really difficult to tell the images apart without opening the full resolution versions on a computer. Low light performance was also excellent, as expected from the PureView Lumia line.

Software and Ecosystem

The Lumia 925 ships with Windows Phone 8 Update 2 and runs the Nokia Amber firmware. Compared to the original Windows Phone 8 release running on the Lumia 920, the new version adds support for FM Radios and more MMS options as well as the ability to set the default camera application among other things and general bug fixes. This still isn’t a major new release that everyone is waiting for but a welcome new addition nevertheless.

Another relatively big addition to Update 2 is Data Sense, which is now available to everyone regardless of their cellular carrier or contract. Data Sense helps you keep tabs on your monthly cellular data usage and gives a nice breakdown of data consumption of each app across both Wi-Fi and Cellular.

Nokia’s Amber firmware also adds a couple of new tricks which include the Nokia Camera app, FM Radio, Call+SMS Filter, Display+Touch enhancements and the aforementioned Glance screen. Call+SMS filter lets you block annoying numbers so any messages or calls from them would automatically be ignored (you can still view them in the call+sms filter app) and will not show up in your Messages app or Call log.

Glance is the real star here. What it essentially does is that shows the current time along with battery charging notifications when the screen is off. That is, when the screen is supposed to be blank. While this might sound like a battery drain, remember that AMOLED screens only power the pixels that need to light up, making the whole solution pretty energy efficient. You can also customize how long the screen displays the current time and can be set to a 15 minute timeout or remain on forever.

You can also control it with a nifty gesture. Just wave your hand close to the device to show the glance screen. It’s not Kinect cool, but still a pretty cool trick in general. And Glance isn’t the only old era feature Nokia brought back. The new Display+Touch enhancements also let you wake up the device by double tapping on the screen, like you could on the N9. This will consume extra battery however as the accelerometer and touch screen are always listening. Another enhancement in the app allows you to tweak the color profile of your device to fine tune the display output of the screen to your personal liking.

Unfortunately, running Windows Phone might also be considered the bane for this particular device as Microsoft is still slow to react to the market changes and new hardware trends. Most Android manufacturers have long shipped devices with 1080p screens and Apple has become the first one to ship a phone with a 64-bit chip. Meanwhile on the software front, both Google and Apple now seem to agree with Microsoft’s modern approach towards UI design – they still are light years ahead in terms of ecosystem development. Things are improving now that Vine has released their official app and so has Instagram – though it is still a beta, but dedicated third party developers can only carry the platform forward for so long.

Battery Life and Performance

The Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 might be last year’s hardware, but it is still the state of the art in the Windows Phone world. Thankfully, Microsoft has done such a good job optimizing the operating system on Qualcomm hardware that every aspect of the phone runs buttery smooth on even low end hardware if it has to.

Being a 1GB memory device, the Lumia 925 can handle all the advanced apps which devices like the Lumia 520 and 620 can’t – which include intense 3D games like Modern Combat 4 and N.O.V.A. 3. Halo: Spartan Assault also chugged along smoothly without any hiccups as did Asphalt 8: Airborne.

The phone did run into trouble with cellular data a couple of times a dropped calls occasionally. It wasn’t anything frequent but it was hard to discern if it was a problem at the network operator or the review unit itself. I’ll update this section once I’m able to determine the exact cause. Thankfully, when the phone was able to make calls, the voice quality was crystal clear at both ends. The three HAAC microphones seem to be doing their job well with the background noise cancellation.

Battery life on the Lumia 920 and Windows Phone in general has been great thanks to the tight control Microsoft has over the hardware and the software environment. Lumia 925 is more of the same – in fact, minor tweaks like the AMOLED screen actually improve the battery life compared to the Lumia 920 by a margin. Under moderate usage which including a couple of phone calls and cellular data usage along with some Wi-Fi connected web surfing with screen brightness set to auto, I was able to get nearly 3 days of battery life out of the Lumia 925. This didn’t involve any gaming or watching videos however.

Under heavy day to day use, which also includes three push email accounts, a connected Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn account, an occasional race in Asphalt 8, a match in FIFA 13 a couple of online videos, lots of apps like Twitter, Facebook, Vine, 6tag, and NextGEN Reader the phone managed to get nearly 2 days of battery life. That is still pretty remarkable considering my Lumia 920 only manages to get a day and half under same circumstances with the exact same 2000mAh battery.

Conclusion

The Nokia Lumia 925 is every bit the phone which the Lumia 920 should have been at launch. Given the choice, I’d have gladly picked the 925 over the 920 any day. But Nokia since Nokia was able to address all the issues with the Lumia 920, then everything is good right? Well not quite. Only a month after launching the Lumia 925, Nokia complicated things by releasing the Lumia 1020 which shared a bulky polycarbonate design similar to the Lumia 920 but also contained a massive 41 megapixel camera and 2GB of memory. It is also available in an array of colors which this device is not.

This would have put the Lumia 925 in an awkward position. Thankfully, the Lumia 925 retails for around $449 (PKR 50,000 in Pakistan) compared to a much higher $649 for the Lumia 1020 making it an easy replacement for the Lumia 920 for those how want a high end Windows Phone experience but don’t have the budget (or the upper body strength) to afford the top of the line Lumia.

Nokia’s brilliant design language and build quality along with their efforts on the software front somewhat make up for Microsoft’s own slow pace in terms of building out the platform. Even a full year after the last major Windows Phone release, Microsoft has shared no plans about the future beyond a small Windows Phone 8 Update 3 which adds a rotation lock and the ability to kill apps from the multitask screen.

For anyone who isn’t already tied down into an ecosystem or doesn’t care for the latest and greatest spec sheet, the Nokia Lumia 925 is a great high end device to experience the Windows Phone ecosystem on. The phone improves on nearly every flaw the Lumia 920 had and adds great new design and battery life as icing on the cake.

As of right now, the update is being delivered to the Lumia 920 and 820 devices, while the new bits for the Lumia 720, 620 and 520 are still undergoing testing. These devices should be getting the update in a couple of days since Nokia plans to complete the rollout by the end of September.

If you have a Lumia 920 or an 820, then you should already have been notified about the update. If not, it is really simple to start the update process yourself. You should know that it takes anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes for the entire process to complete. Here’s what you have to do:

On your Windows Phone 8 device, go to Settings > phone update.

If you have automatic updates enabled (I highly recommend that you do), your phone should already have downloaded the update. If you don’t have automatic updates enabled or your phone hasn’t downloaded the update yet, hit the check for updates button. You phone will detect and notify you about the updates available.

Downloading the update can take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes depending on your connection speed so I recommend that you connect to a good Wi-Fi network. You should also connect your phone to a charger since the overall update process can drain your battery faster than usual. Right after completing the download, your phone will make the necessary preparations to install the update.

Once the updates are ready to be installed, the phone will notify you about the update and ask you if you want to install it right away or postpone it for later. Keep in mind that after hitting install, you won’t be able to use your phone for at least 30 minutes while the update process completes.

During the actual installation process, the phone’s screen will display a pair of rotating cogs on the screen. An actual progress bar here would have been helpful, but I guess this animation also gets the job done.

After the update is installed, the phone will reboot and begin migrating your settings and data – a process which is similar to migrating user profiles during a Windows Update.

It takes about 15 more minutes to complete this final step and at the end of it, you’d get a nice message letting you know that Your update is all done!. You can now finally hit done and begin enjoying your latest update…

Or not. Turns out there is yet another forced phone restart required at the end and you don’t even get a choice this time. Once your phone reboots, its finally over.

If everything went smoothly, you should now be rocking Windows Phone OS 8.0.10328.78 which you can verify by going to Settings > about. The extras+info app will also be showing Lumia Amber (in an aptly fitting amber color) in case you still had any doubts.

I will be detailing the new features your device has gained in a follow up post. Feel free to explore your updated OS until then.

When Nokia announced its second generation Lumia lineup based on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 operating system, I was among the few people who were genuinely excited about the devices announced. The power of a new hardware generation coupled with the new enhancements in Windows Phone 8 OS and groundbreaking new innovations with technologies like PureView were enough woo any technology enthusiast – let alone a Windows Phone fan. But unfortunately, I also knew that while rest of the world would soon get their hands on the new devices, I’d have to keep my enthusiasm in check for a couple of months at least. After all, it took Nokia almost a full year before they brought their first generation Lumia line up to Pakistan – a market which even Microsoft themselves didn’t support during the first two years of Windows Phone.

My patience was finally rewarded last week, when I received an invite to attend Nokia Pakistan’s #SwitchToLumia event in Karachi, Pakistan. Following the theme Nokia used worldwide, the event served as the official launch of the newest devices in the Nokia Lumia range, which includes the Nokia Lumia 920 as the flagship product, the Nokia Lumia 820 as a more affordable higher end device, and the budget friendly lower mid-range Nokia Lumia 620. Nokia also announced a number of accessories to accompany the newest devices ranging for portable speakers to in-ear headsets and even wireless charging pads. Nokia also announced a partnership with Mobilink to launch the devices, and each Nokia Lumia 920 bought through Mobilink would also come with a free wireless charger.

Alessandro Lamanna – Nokia’s VP of Marketing for IMEA region – gave brief introduction of each device on the stage highlighting Nokia’s strategy to compete with the onslaught of Android devices in the local market. He stressed that Nokia indents to keep its marketshare lead in the region by offering the best experience on each price point. Dunia Othman – Nokia’s Marketing Manager for Near East – took the stage next. She highlighted the innovations Nokia was bringing to the Windows Phone 8 platform including Nokia’s exclusive Camera Lenses, its PureMotion display technology and its PureView camera. Salman Siddiqui from Microsoft also briefly took the stage to reaffirm Microsoft’s commitment to promote the Windows Phone 8 platform in Pakistan – though a little more enthusiasm on his part would have been nice.

Nokia Lumia 920

Lumia 920 is Nokia’s current flagship device for the Windows Phone 8 platform (until it announces something new at Mobile World Congress this year). The device is based on the latest Windows Phone chassis specification and has a 4.5 inch PureMotion display with a resolution of 768×1280 at 332 PPI. That’s more pixels than what is usually classified as a retina display. And to top that off, the display also runs at a smooth 60 fps resulting in a super smooth and fluid motion, a first for any smartphone on the market.

The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus chipset running a 1.5 GHz dual core Qualcomm Krait processor and Adreno 225 graphics. The phone has 1GB of LPDDR2 RAM and 32GB of internal flash storage, though there isn’t any option to expand that with a MicroSD card. But the Lumia 920’s most innovative feature is probably its 8.7 mega pixel PureView camera which comes with true Optical Image Stabilization – another first for any smartphone on the market. Thanks to built in OIS, the phone can take breathtaking shots in really low light, an area where all smartphones and even most point-and-shoot cameras struggle. On top of that, the phone can also record video without the usual “shaking” associated with smartphone camera. And videos don’t only look great, they sound great as well thanks to a unique three microphone design to capture multichannel audio and remove background noise.

All this hardware is powered by a 2000 mAh battery which is enough to last you through an entire day. They battery isn’t user replaceable, but it does come with built in wireless charging. While it’s a cool novelty feature to have, its real world usage will depend upon how readily do you leave your phone laying on the desk (on a wireless charger in this case).

A couple of other plus points like support for Wi-Fi Direct, NFC to share files and easily pair with devices and a super sensitive touchscreen which can be used even with gloves on make the Lumia 920 a really competitive package. Its suggested retail price of PKR 62,000 (about $600) might be a little steep, but it definitely seems competitive with anything Samsung, HTC or Apple has to offer right now.

Nokia Lumia 820

While the Lumia 920 inherits the premium polycarbonate unibody design from the previous generation, the Lumia 820 tries to impress with much a much simpler rounded look. While the lack of a unibody design might seem like a little let down, the hard shell covers are interchangeable so you can style your Lumia 820 in any color you want.

The 4.3 inch phone is also much lighter when compared to its older brother, but packs a less dense 480×800 display. Nokia also uses a ClearBlack AMOLED display on the 820 instead of an IPS panel like on the 920. The phone also has a sensitive screen which can be use through gloves but lacks the 60 fps framerate as featured in the PureMotion display.

As far as the innards go, you’d be hard pressed to tell the Lumia 820 apart from the Lumia 920. Like the higher end device, it also packs the same Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus chipset with 1.5 Ghz Dual-core Krait processor and an Adreno 225 GPU. It also packs 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage though it’s expandable via a MicroSD slot to up to 64GB, so there will be lots of room to store music and videos. Unfortunately, Windows Phone 8 doesn’t allow apps to be installed on an SD card so you are limited in that department.

The phone also has an 8 mega pixel Carl-Zeiss camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front. The rear camera is capable of capturing 1080p video at 30fps – a standard on Windows Phone 8. As for the battery, 1650 mAh should theoretically be enough to get through a day but we’ll know more once we put the phone through its paces. Wireless charging isn’t supported out of the box, but there is an exchangeable cover available for the Lumia 820 to allow it.

Nokia Lumia 620

Both the Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820 seem to be capable and attractive handsets. Yet they couldn’t be Nokia’s weapon of choice to attack the Pakistani smartphone market. Finding balance between features and an attractive price point is a tough proposition for Nokia and the Lumia 620 seems to address that. At a suggested retail price of PKR 24,800 – the phone seems to be targeted at the budget conscious.

It has a 3.8 inch ClearBlack LCD display, the kind which was featured on the Nokia Lumia 710. It clearly takes some design cues from the Lumia 820 and even has exchangeable shells which feature a unique Dual Shot color blending technique. But being budget friendly doesn’t mean the phone can’t handle the Windows Phone 8 OS. In fact, Nokia packed the Lumia 620 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Play chipset featuring a 1 GHz Dual-core Krait CPU and an Adreno 305 GPU.

The amount of RAM however is slightly reduced at 512 MB meaning the device can’t take advantage of certain features like fast resume support for multiple apps and the ability to capture video at anything greater than 720p at 30 frames per seconds. The 5 mega pixel camera on the back might not be Carl Zeiss endorsed, but it does seem capable of handling common camera phone tasks.

The phone does have a MicroSD card slot, so it’s 8GB internal storage can be augmented by another 64 GB of storage from the card, and 7 GB of free storage from SkyDrive if you sign up. The phone drives power from a 1300 mAh battery. While it seems small at first, keep in mind that this phone is running on a much more power efficient chipset compared to its older brothers, and might even actually outlast them in day to day activities.

It’s not clear if Nokia has a winner in the Lumia 620 for the local market. But with features like NFC, Dual Band Wi-Fi Direct, and Dolby sound enhancement – it should have enough juice to go toe to toe with similar offerings from HTC or Samsung.

Services

Nokia makes great looking hardware, but what makes it king of the (Windows Phone) market is its exclusive services it offers its consumers. While all Windows Phone OEMs have options to differentiate on the platform by offering exclusive apps and features, nobody besides Nokia has shown real commitment in doing so.

Smart Shoot

Smart Shoot is a Nokia exclusive camera lens based on the technology it acquired from Scalado. The lens app allows you to pick multiple poses from a photo by capturing a series of images while you compose and then allowing you to pick the best looking face from each one. You can also use the lens to remove moving objects from a scene based on motion detection. It is really a nice little feature to have when you’re out for quick shots.

Cinemagraph

Cinemagraph is my personal favorite lens app on the Windows Phone platform. A Cinamagraph is basically an animated GIF image but with a very subtle motion giving a feeling of nostalgia. A well composed cinemagraph can have a lot more powerful impact compared to a simple photo with filters applied. This built in camera lens makes the process of creating cinemagraphs painless. All you have to do is capture a video and then pick up to three points of motion which you want to retain. The app does the rest.

Nokia Maps and Drive

While Nokia’s mapping innovations do give it an edge in most parts of the world, they are pretty much useless here in Pakistan. Apart from showing some very basic roads, the maps don’t provide much information so turn by turn navigation is out of the question. I did ask the Nokia team about what they were doing to bring the mapping platform to Pakistan, and they reassured me that they are working with the government and coming up with a legal way of bringing those features to Pakistan. Google has been able to avoid government scrutiny thus far by relying on crowd sourcing, so we’ll just have to wait and see how Nokia plays its game here.

Conclusion

While Pakistan might not be a tier one market for Nokia to launch its newest smartphone series, it still remains a very important market and more importantly, one of the very few markets where Nokia is still a dominant player. But that is changing quickly as more people are moving away from Symbian towards Samsung’s Galaxy lineup while doing their best to steer clear from Windows Phone.

After playing a couple of minutes with all the new Lumia devices, it is clearly obvious that Nokia still knows how to make great hardware. But just a quick look at the current market conditions point out clearly that hardware alone does not cut it – in fact it is the full combination of software and services as well which makes up the ecosystem and Nokia, along with Microsoft has a long uphill battle in a market which until recently hasn’t warmed up to Windows Phone thus far. And I for one would love to see Nokia back in the game and challenge the perception about Windows Phone.

While not known for its heavy smartphone consumption, the Pakistan is still one of the key markets Nokia still has a foothold in and it makes sense that they are fighting hard to keep it that way. Low cost phones really do flourish in a market like this which is evident from the success of the Samsung Galaxy Y, Huawei Ideos line and the HTC Explorer. Compared to that experience, the Nokia Lumia 710 would feel like a premium offering to these users because of the higher end hardware specs it offers. But these luxuries do have a price – the Lumia 710 costs nearly twice as much as the rest of these low end Android devices. What I’m going to analyze today is that whether Nokia has managed to strike the perfect balance between features and price to make a strong value proposition for mid to low end market range.

Hardware and Internals

You don’t need to look for a distinctive Nokia logo on the 710 to tell that this phone is designed by Nokia. The physical design of the Lumia 710 embodies the distinctly Nokia industrial design from recent memory. In fact, it really isn’t difficult to trace the genealogy of the 710 back to the likes of the Nokia 5800 or more recently, the Nokia C7 line.

Windows Phone hardware specifications dictate the buttons and their placement on the device and the Lumia 710 stays true to that. The standard Windows Phone buttons for Back, Start and Search are present and accounted for, but Nokia opted to go with physical buttons instead of capacitive one common these days.

While this solves the problem of accidentally hitting back or the search button when using the device, it does require some extra force when you actually do need to press these buttons. Apart from the plastic strip containing the buttons, the entire front surface of the phone is covered in glass. While there isn’t a front camera on the phone, the top side does have notches for the ambient light sensor and the proximity sensor.

Speaking of the top side, the Micro USB port and the 3.5mm headphone jack are also located on the top along with the wake/sleep/power button. The right side of the device houses the volume rocker and the mandatory two stage camera button. The volume rocker buttons are notched up a bit and are relatively easy to get a feel of, but the power button and the camera button sit flush with the device which makes them harder to press with confidence. This issue is specifically pronounced with the camera button since the Windows Phone hardware requirements mandate a two-step button, with a half pressed state to trigger the autofocus.

The camera itself is prominent on the back side of the device and an LED flash sits right next to it. Nokia is using a 5 MP sensor here and it doesn’t feature Carl Zeiss optics, which is in line with other mid-range Nokia offerings. What’s interesting is that there isn’t any mention of Windows Phone or the Windows Phone logo on the back of the device which is usually standard with all other OEMs. The entire back cover of the device peels off to reveal the 1300 mAh battery and the micro SIM slot. Since this is a Windows Phone 7.5 device, there isn’t a Micro SD slot present.

Speaking of the back covers, the Lumia 710 does feature interchangeable covers which come in different colors. The phone itself is available in both black and white as well. Since the phone is made of plastic instead of the polycarbonate shell used in the higher end Lumia’s, it does come off as being a bit cheap. Also since the device is about 12.5mm thick, it also feels bulky in hand even though it is only about 125g in weight. That’s not to say that the phone has bad ergonomics – in fact it is quite the opposite. The curved back fits really comfortable in your hands and yields a good firm grip.

As for the internals, the phone follows the standard Windows Phone 7.5 hardware specifications. It features a Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 chipset with a 2nd generation Scorpion processor clocked at 1.4 GHz paired with the Adreno 205 GPU. Sure it might be 2010 technology but the Windows Phone OS does pretty well to make efficient use of the processing power here and not show its age. The S2 is complemented by 512 MB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage. While that may appear cramped by today’s standard, don’t forget that this is a mid-range device and Windows Phone OS has some nifty features that let you automatically upload and sync all your media to SkyDrive (or your computer) and keep the space free on the phone itself.

Compared to the first generation devices, the Lumia 710 is 40% to 60% faster than all the first generation Windows Phones. It scored an average of 2679 in AnTuTu, 368293 in OneBench and 91.74 in WP Bench. These scores are in line with devices like the Lumia 800 which share the same hardware internals. In fact, despite being a mid-range device, the 710 comes very close to the HTC Titan, the fastest Windows Phone device right now.

Display and Camera

Nokia isn’t using a high cost AMOLED display panel on the Lumia 710 like it is on the Lumia 800 and the 900. In fact, it uses a regular 3.7” TFT LCD here protected behind a Gorilla Glass screen. While the LCD isn’t IPS either, it does feature Nokia’s ClearBlack display technology which reduces glare in direct sunlight to improve the screen readability. Compared to my Samsung Omnia 7’s Super AMOLED display, the Lumia 710 works pretty well under direct sunlight even when the brightness is set to automatically adjust.

However, color reproduction is a major issue with the review unit I got. The white balance is much warmer with the 710 and shows a clear yellowish tint when the display is set to full brightness. The viewing angles also seem to be an issue on this device with colors washing out when viewing from angles roughly greater than 150⁰. Another bizarre issue with my unit is that the screen sometimes start to flicker when it is in standby. I haven’t been able to confirm the cause but the issue has almost completely disappeared after I did a hard reset of the device. Still, issues like these do affect the general consumer and have a negative impact on the user experience even if they occur rarely.

Nokia has a strong legacy of making some of the best camera phones in the market. Right down from the beasty N90 and the N95 to recent spectacles like the N8 and 808 PureView, Nokia’s strong relationship with the German optical giant Carl Zeiss usually results in some stellar camera optics. Unfortunately, being a mid-range model, the Lumia 710 doesn’t qualify for a premium camera assembly and is limited to just a standard 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash.

While the photo quality of the Lumia isn’t something that would stand out, the camcorder does manage to capture a fair amount of detail when shooting video in HD 720p mode at 30 frames per second. Like almost every other smartphone, the rolling shutter effect is clearly visible here. There isn’t any continuous autofocus in play here – in fact, you can’t really change focus at all while shooting the video. Fortunately, the camera does perform as good as any other smartphone in the price range so it shouldn’t be a deterrent if you’re looking for something close to the asking price of a Lumia 710.

Software

The Lumia 710 runs the latest version of Windows Phone 7.5 which happens to be Tango build 7.108779.2. Tango isn’t a major upgrade over the earlier Windows Phone 7.5 release called Mango, and only adds some MMS enhancements along with a lot of bug fixes and performance improvements on the OS.

Thanks to Microsoft strict policies, you’d get a fairly consistent Windows Phone experience no matter what device you’re using. The only difference you’d notice from other OEM devices are Nokia exclusive apps which you can find under the Nokia Collection section of the Windows Phone Store (formerly the Windows Phone Marketplace). Nokia has a fairly large collection of exclusive apps which range from first party apps like Nokia Maps and Drive to games, news and lifestyle apps.

Unfortunately for Nokia, the location based apps they have don’t really work very well in Pakistan. Nokia Map’s coverage is shoddy at best and Nokia Drive can’t really do anything unless it has some mapping data to work on. With all the technical prowess of Nokia’s NAVTEQ division, you’d think their own mapping solution would have done a better job. It’s a similar case with other apps under the Nokia Collection section of the market. Apps like Nokia Transit are of no use, and while Nokia City Lens does show points of interest in a beautiful augmented reality UI, their location is often a bit off and the coverage isn’t as detailed as you’d get from crowd sourced services like Google Places or Foursquare Places. A few other apps like Nokia Music and Groupon also don’t make much sense for the local user.

It’s not all dark and gloomy however. Nokia Collection does hold some rather interesting and useful apps in the mix as well. Camera Extras and Creative Studio are a must have for photo enthusiasts. The Camera Extras app enhances the capabilities of the built in camera app by adding a couple of distinctive shot modes. One of these is the Smart Group Shot which takes a series of pictures and automatically picks the best one by analyzing all the faces in the group. Another new mode is the Action Shot what takes multiple shots of any fast moving scene so that you don’t miss any of the action. Other add-ons include a smart Panorama mode and a Self-Timer.

Creative Studio, as the name suggests is a photo editing app with a slew of filters and effects that you can apply to an existing photo or one you can capture from the in app camera. There are a number of image editing options available like crop, rotate and color balance, sharpness etc. as well as a ton of effects which you can apply. Creative Studio also adds some unique live camera effects like face styles, which wrap the image and live styles, which are essentially live filters.

Counters – another useful utility which keep track of your calls, messaging and data usage. You can set limits on each of these items and the app would alert you when you’re about to go over. It’s really useful for those of us who aren’t on unlimited plans. Similarly Contact Transfer, which comes preinstalled on the device itself is a neat little tool which makes up for Windows Phone’s lack of Bluetooth contact transfer support by giving you the capability in app. You can import and export your contact with any device capable of contact push via Bluetooth. It is a useful utility for those upgrading from a feature phone since most of their contacts won’t be in the cloud.

Battery Life

The Windows Phone operating system is generally known for a very good battery life when compared to similarly spec’d devices on other platforms. That’s partly because Microsoft has optimized the software for its strict hardware platform and knows how to extract every single ounce of power efficiency. Generally speaking, all second generation devices managed a battery life of over 24 hours with some (like the HTC Radar) even going strong well into the third day. Lumia 710 doesn’t break that trend.

Under normal usage scenarios which included a ton of data usage over Wi-Fi with some moderate use of GPS and the camera, the 710 gave an average battery life of between 24 to 28 hours. This includes all the usual account syncing in real time which includes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Windows Live, a Microsoft Exchange account and a Google Account along with live tiles for a few contacts and services like Foursquare and WhatsApp on the home screen. Windows Phone does feature a battery saving option under the settings menu, which disables most background tasks and syncing. That option easily allowed over 40 hours battery to be squeezed out of the phone.

Wrap Up

It is never a good idea to launch a device in a new market so late in the end of its life cycle and is usually considered a move of desperation to support a fledging market share. Fortunately, Nokia do plan to keep supporting their Lumia line despite Microsoft discontinuing support for the Windows Phone 7.x line after Windows Phone 7.8 is released. Still Nokia had to get a number of things right if they wanted to have any real chance at the market.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, Lumia 710 isn’t really a low end device, nor Nokia’s most budget friendly Windows Phone offering (that honor goes to the Lumia 610 for now). So in order to compete with the low end offerings of Samsung, HTC and Huawei, Nokia needed to have features that justified the price for those hunting for a budget friendly device. Nokia does get things right in terms of hardware. The 710 is genuinely magnitudes above the competitor Android offerings in terms of hardware and battery life. And since the hardware is powerful, the operating system and apps also shine on the phone with buttery smooth performance.

Then again, the platform is severely limited for the local market right now and from the looks of it, this might never change for devices on the Windows Phone 7.x track. Features like Xbox Live and the Windows Phone Marketplace don’t work out of the box unless you choose some other country as your region. Even still Nokia exclusive services like Maps, Drive or Music really struggle to be of any relevance. Coupled with the asking price of Rs. 25,000 which an average Pakistani consumer would think twice before spending and fast approaching End of Life for the Windows Pone 7.x platform, the Nokia Lumia 710 would be a hard sell for besides a select few looking to jump in to the Microsoft ecosystem.

Launch events for the latest gadgets and toys are hardly any surprising news, but when I got invited to a Global Nokia launch event last week, my interest was piqued more than usual. This didn’t have anything to do with the fact that there we were going to be treated to some mystery new products or because Nokia was going to unveil some brand new services – it was mostly because, for the first time ever, Nokia was going to hold a Global Launch event from Pakistan instead of its usual choice markets like its European home ground or bigger key markets like China or India. Needless to say, expectations were high and excitement was through the roof when all the media and the blogosphere from across the globe gathered at the Karachi Marriot to witness the launch.

The event planners and organizers had paid great attention to detail matching everything from the overall theme, the décor and lighting to music and even the drinks served to the design and color themes of the launch devices. The small socializing session, which ensued while we waited outside the event hall, was filled with speculations from being a new Lumia device all the way down to a PureView or an Asha phone – though everybody failed to call it right this time.

Nokia kicked off the launch keynote by reiterating their Next Billion strategy which they have been preaching for quite a few months now. Saulo Passos, Global Director for Mobile Phone Communications at Nokia made the case that why the lowest end of the market matters for Nokia and shared some interesting stats about the economics of budget constraint economies. Nokia’s game plan at this tier seems to be focused around ubiquitous and cheap access to the internet, an aspirational product portfolio, and partnering with local content providers in key markets leverage the local market economies. He also talked about how Nokia plans to execute on each of these strategic pillars this year and years to come. Unsurprisingly, this included bringing higher end features to the lower end by bringing cheap internet access to low cost (less than $40 devices) as well as cloud powered web browsing and apps.

A recurring theme during the presentation was that how Nokia has penetrated the localized markets and how much success does its unified Nokia Store has, which now boasts over 100,000+ items in its catalog. You should probably take that figure with a grain of salt though because it also includes items like wallpapers and ringtones and doesn’t always necessarily mean apps. Regardless, Nokia seems to understand the value of the localized markets and is willing to work with service providers to enable convenient features like operating billing for instance. Another point worth noting was that the share of Series 40 devices accessing the store went from 12% last year to 30% in 2012. Though I’m guessing that increase had a little help from the fact that at the higher end, Nokia has started pushing its Windows Phone based Lumia series which relies on the Windows Phone Marketplace instead of the Nokia Store.

Next up, Nokia’s VP for Near East, Imran Khalid Mahmood, took to the stage to share what does reaching out to the Next Billion mean for the local Pakistani market. He was quick to mention that a major chunk of internet users in Pakistan are having their first internet experience on a Nokia mobile device, instead of a traditional PC. Also worth mentioning was there have been 67 million downloads from the Nokia Store in Pakistan alone with over 1 million of them being Islamic apps and over 1.5 million for social networking. Locally developed apps like Cricket Companion also have over 10 million downloads worldwide. Imran Mahmood reaffirmed Nokia’s commitment to the local Pakistani market and reiterated that this global launch event was a sign of things to come.

After setting the context for the launch, the new devices were finally unveiled in series of dance numbers and musical performances with models carrying out each separate color of a device to a different beat and tune. This certainly was a rare occasion for a product launch and reminded me of Microsoft’s Cirque du Soleil performance for the Kinect for Xbox 360 launch event at E3 2010. Once the artificial fog, fireworks, confetti and music settled down, Nokia’s Calin Turcanu, Head of Mobile Phones Business Unit for the Middle East and Africa showed off some of the key features of the new devices.

Both the Nokia 110 and 112 are Dual Sim devices with Nokia’s Easy Swap technology which allows you to swap SIM cards without removing the battery or turning off the phone. Each phone can also remember up to five different SIM cards to store your personalization preferences. Other specs on the device, while not head turning, are still pretty amazing for a €35 (PKR 3800) device. The phones feature 1.8” screens with a resolution of 128×160 and also feature a VGA camera for photo taking with the Nokia 112 also capable of making Videos. The internal memory is on the low side – 16 MB in total, but these devices do support MicroSDHC for total storage capacity of 32 GB. Both phones will come bundled with 2 GB memory cards apparently.

While there aren’t any 3G radios in these devices, they are EDGE capable and contain a brand new Nokia Browser app which uses a proxy server to handle requests and can compress the response by up to 90%. This is a really nice way to drive down bandwidth costs while also avoiding any internet censorship issues that often plague the country. And just in case if you are wondering, yes this technology is exactly like Opera Mini or Opera Mobile with turbo mode, but just built natively into the browser. There are also direct home screen shortcuts to popular social networking apps like Facebook and Twitter, while eBuddy cross platform chat messenger app come preloaded in the device.

And since we are on the topic of preloading, Nokia is also bundling access to over 40 EA Mobile games to these devices for free. These games include popular titles such as Need for Speed: The Run, Tetris, Bejeweled, Monopoly and SimCity Deluxe among many others and comes close to a €75 value. It’s good to see that Nokia / EA partnership has finally started yield something other than press releases and statements by high level executives. There was some mention of these apps being accessible from the cloud though I’m not really clear on how that works. I guess I’ll have to wait till I get my review unit to get a better idea. Oh and I guess it should go without saying that the Nokia Store is fully accessible from both devices and you can easily download more apps for your phone if you need to.

Apart from these features, the phones come with the standard features of Bluetooth, FM Radio, a long battery life with over 10 hours of talk time and come in different colors to suit your style. The Nokia 110 will be available in June and cost €35 (PKR 3800), while the Nokia 112 would start shipping in Q3 with an estimated retail tag of €38 (PKR 4300). Both devices have a single SIM variant for European markets called Nokia 111 and Nokia 113 which would launch alongside their Dual SIM brothers at the same price points.

The event was wrapped up by a Q&A session where the Nokia officials were queried about their long term strategy and commitment to Pakistan. The long and short response was that Nokia is committed to the local market more than ever looking to battle at all the fronts from the low end (now being encroached by the nameless Chinese handset makers) to the high end, which is increasingly falling to an onslaught of Android devices by HTC, Samsung and Huawei. How successful this strategy turns out to be in the long run remains to be seen but Nokia has definitely set the stage right by showing that it does believe Pakistan to be a key market for its business. Now only if they launch their Windows Phone 8 based Lumia devices here first…

Gallery

The latest release brings the Mac OS X UI up to date with the Windows version – with all the tabs on top and new CSS3 goodness. Performance and startup time have also been improved significantly thanks to a rework on the XPCOM module. Scrolling and CSS3 animation performance would also see a boost thanks to a new Retained Layers system which can render and then cache the entire page in memory making it unnecessary to repaint everything on every refresh.

App Tabs now also make an appearance in the Firefox 4 Beta 2 build. You can right click on any open tab and “Make it into an App Tab” – which are like the Pined Tabs in Google Chrome. Javascript engine has also been optimized for further speed boosts, though I couldn’t test it yet on the SunSpider benchmark. There are over 650 changes from the previous beta build in total.

I couldn’t get the Acid3 score on Firefox 4 Beta 2, because AcidTests.org was down at the time of writing. I’ll update the post with benchmark performance stats and the Acid3 score as soon as I can test that.

For now you can download Firefox 4 Beta 2 for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux by following the link in the download box below.

Here are a couple of tweets from planetbeing’s twitter profile:

We’re gonna be able to give you an unlock with the jailbreak.

It will probably be the usual thing where you jailbreak and then install ultrasn0w from Cydia.

As for the Jailbreak itself, Comex already said that he isn’t waiting for iPhone 4.1 to be released before he would release his new Jailbreak for iPhone 4. So that means a new userspace / userland jailbreak for all devices running iOS 4.0 would probably be here in the next week or two. And when it does, ultrasn0w would be ready to unlock it right out of the gate.

Of course until that time we have no other choice but to wait up  - and save the SHSH blobs while at it. Comex said that either one of iOS 4.0 or iOS 4.0.1 would do. I’ll post about the jailbreak as soon as it comes out so make sure you stick around by following me on Twitter or on Facebook.

Oh and if you are on iPhone 3G/3GS or iPod Touch 2G/3G you can jailbreak on iOS 4 right now using sn0wbreeze or redsn0w and unlock via ultrasn0w.

Also included… subtle references to the Gizmodo debacle and Foxconn suicides. But enough wordplay, just watch the video with English subtitles up top.

The first beta released just over an year ago generated a lot of positive reviews from the critics and negative reaction from the competitors. I personally started using Security Essentials when the first beta came out and haven’t bothered with my Norton or Kaspersky subscription since then. Security Essentials is perfect for home and everyday use and you just can’t beat the price – FREE.

Version 2.0 enhances the app by adding new features including:

1. Windows Firewall integration: Microsoft Security Essentials setup allows you to turn on Windows Firewall.
2. Enhanced protection from web-based threats: Microsoft Security Essentials has enhanced integration with Internet Explorer which helps prevent malicious scripts from running and provides improved protection against web based attacks.
3. New and improved protection engine: The updated engine offers enhanced detection and cleanup capabilities and better performance.

Even though this is just a beta, Security Essentials 2010 is a fully featured product – which means is generally safe for everyday use but it MAY crash once a few weeks or so. You also need to be running a Genuine copy of Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or 3), Windows Vista (all versions) or Windows 7.

To download Microsoft Security Essentials 2010, just:

• Follow the download link given below, and log in with your Windows Live ID.
• From the download page, click on build compatible with your OS (32-bit or 64-bit). If you’re not sure what version you are running then open System Properties from the Control Panel. System Type should be mentioned there.
• On the download page, click the download link next to the file. Your download should now start.
• After the download completes, just run the installer. If you already had Security Essentials 2009 installed, the installer would upgrade it.

I’d recommend turning on Windows Firewall in conjunction with Security Essentials because it lacks a firewall of its own. Well actually it is designed to work with Windows Firewall, but you get the idea.

Kinect for Xbox 360 also got confirmed for $149 in the US and would be available on November 4 as previously announced. Kinect Adventures would be in the package for free pretty much like Wii Sprots did with the Wii – but who’s complaining.

What’s more exciting is that you can get a taste of the new Xbox 360 S and Kinect for only $299. The Bundle packs both the Xbox 360 S Arcade and the Kinect motion sensor along with Kinect Adventures in once nice package. Sadly, there was no confirmation of the rumored $399 bundle which would pack the Xbox 360 S Elite with Kinect. I personally was eying that package so I guess now I’ll just have to go with the $299 Xbox 360 S Elite and the $149 Kinect bringing the sum to $450.

That is unless Microsoft don’t announce the elite bundle down the road. Here’s the official press release which also lists a rather large number of Kinect launch titles like Dance Central. Oh and by the way, if you Pre-Order the Kinect or the Kinect console bundle now, you’d get exclusive Kinect Adventures DLC at launch with additional levels and challenges.

REDMOND, Wash. — July 20, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. today announced an all-in-one opportunity to jump into the controller-free fun of Kinect this holiday: the all-new Xbox 360 4GB console, the revolutionary Kinect sensor and “Kinect Adventures” packaged together for $299.99 (U.S. ERP). With “Kinect Adventures,” players will make their way through 20 adventures, navigating roaring rapids and ducking and dodging through mountaintop obstacle courses and other exotic locations — no controller, wand or balance board required. In addition, existing Xbox 360 console owners can purchase the Kinect sensor with “Kinect Adventures” for $149.99 (U.S. ERP). The sensor, which will work with each of the 40 million Xbox 360 consoles currently in households worldwide,(1) is uniquely able to track your full body movements, respond to your voice and deliver a multiplayer experience right out of the box.

In addition, the new Xbox 360 4GB console, which begins shipping on Aug. 3 in the U.S., will be available for $199.99 (U.S. ERP). With a sleek new design, the Xbox 360 4GB console looks great and includes built-in Wi-Fi N, 4GB of internal flash memory, touch-sensitive buttons and a black matte finish. (2)

“Kinect for Xbox 360 offers tremendous entertainment value for the whole family,” said Dennis Durkin, Xbox 360 chief operating officer. “With full body, voice and the ability to play games with your friends right out of the box, Kinect is the most unique, complete and affordable way for everyone to enjoy controller-free fun and entertainment.”

With more than 15 games available at launch, living rooms will become fitness rooms, dance clubs and sports stadiums. Kinect games, including “Kinectimals,” “Kinect Sports,” “Kinect Joy Ride” and MTV Games’ and Harmonix’s “Dance Central” will retail for $49.99 (U.S. ERP). In addition to games, Kinect changes the way you experience entertainment by putting your favorite movies, TV programs, music and live sports from ESPN all in one place. Begin a movie by simply saying, “Xbox, play,” or browse through a music list with the wave of a hand. Kinect also creates new ways for friends and family to have fun together. With Video Kinect,(3) share a smile with friends and family, as you open a window into living rooms around the world.

“I think Kinect is a major leap forward in the gaming experience that will appeal to both mainstream and casual gamers,” said Michael Gartenberg, partner, Altimeter Group, and author of the Engadget Entelligence column.

Starting today, select retailers are taking pre-orders for the Xbox 360 Kinect Console Bundle at $299.99 (U.S. ERP) and Kinect for Xbox 360 at $149.99 (U.S. ERP). Pre-order Kinect or the Xbox 360 Kinect Console Bundle today, and at launch receive a token to download three exclusive game levels for “Kinect Adventures,” the game included with Kinect.(4) Those wanting more information or to pre-order now should go to http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy.