Nokia Oro

   Nokia has announced two days ago a new Symbian Anna premium device. The price of this one will draw the attention as is made of 18-carat gold plating, a sapphire crystal and Scottish leather. Besides the expensive materials the phone has about the same hardware as other recently announced Nokia devices (like X7) as you can check below:

-- DISPLAY: 3.5 inches AMOLED capacitive touch 640 x 360 pixels screen, 16M colors, scratch resistant gorilla glass.

-- CPU:  ARM 11 680 MHz.

-- GPU:  Broadcomm BCM2727

-- MEMORY:  256 MB RAM, 512 ROM

-- STORAGE:  8GB for internal, microSD card slot up to 32GB.

-- CAMERA:  Primary - 8MP dual-led flash camera, video recording up to 720p.

-- CONNECTIVITY:  3G, HSDPA, HSUPA, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP, micro-USB port, 3.5 mm headphone jack, A-GPS.

-- SENSORS:  Accelerometer, Proximity, Digital Compass.

-- BATTERY:  Li-Po 1200 mAh

-- OS:  Symbian Anna

-- APPLICATIONS:  OVI apps, social networking, OVI Maps, Web TV widgets, Flash Lite 4, QuickOffice. 

   In terms of design the phone looks the same as C7. As Nokia mentions, this is clearly not made for common users but for someone who does not want to have a phone that looks like others. The price will be around 800 Euros - I was expecting to be higher given all the expensive materials. I am sure that will be bought by a lot of business people from Europe, Middle East, Russia, China in Q3 2011.

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Nokia C2-00

   Nokia has announced Yesterday two new dual-SIM devices: X1-01 and C2-00.The X1-01 has the same features as X1-00 which I mentioned here. The C series is known for low-cost devices and with only a 45 Euros price the C2 confirms again this trend. Most important capabilities are the Symbian Series 40 OS, VGA camera, web browsing and Nokia Messaging support. 

   An important detail is the dual-SIM slots. One SIM card is stored inside the phone while the second one can be changed quickly from the side. Nokia mentioned that they have designed it like this for people who are using more than two SIM cards or if the phone is used by members of the family. One last feature is the SD card slot which can take up to 32 GB of storage.

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Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Mango

   Today Microsoft have announced their new updates to the Windows Phone 7 and the new version was called Mango. As there were rumors a few days back, it appears that 500 new features have been implemented. Not all were made public at the press conference but we should see the rest in the next period. 

   First important updates are regarding the communications. The Mango has an organizer for social networking applications. User will be able to chat on Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and SMS in the same time or switch fast between these. Contacts can now be grouped into personalized live tiles; have Twitter, Linkedin feeds integrated. Also Facebook comes with check-in service and face detection software. There are good news for email too because you can link multiple accounts in a single Inbox now. Final communication update brings voice-to-text and text-to-voice capability for a hands free SMS or chat.

   Next is the Applications approach with Windows Hub. Applications are grouped in one place and can be opened where and when are needed. To most expected feature is the multitasking witch has finally arrived on Mango. Now users can open several applications and can leave a few to run in background to save battery life and performance.

   The internet navigation has been improved with Internet Explorer 9. And is the mobile version based on the PC version, but has full hardware acceleration and HTML 5 support. With the Local Scout option you can now receive search results based on current location with shopping and social activities recommendations. Bing is the default search engine for web and with Quick Cards you can have a relevant information summary of a product, place, movie or event.

   At the end Microsoft have announced new hardware partners which will release new Windows phones. These are Acer, Fujitsu, ZTE and are added to the ones that are already have windows phones: Samsung, LG Mobile and HTC. Of course the new strategic partnership with Nokia was mentioned. I remember that HTC promoted Android and Android promoted HTC in the world about 2-3 years ago and this continues Today. I believe the same thing may happen with Nokia and Microsoft - it`s something like help me help you situation.

   In the end, it appears to me that Windows Phone has now caught Android from behind and can have a fair battle now in the mobile OS market.

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