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Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM Review: Missed Opportunity

Nokia’s devices and services division, now officially part of Microsoft, unveiled the Lumia 630 Windows Phone at their developer conference at San Francisco. This low end Windows Phone, which will cater to the budget customer, has a number of firsts and even a last, in terms of features. It is the first Windows Phone 8.1 device to be launched into the market, it is the first Dual SIM Windows Phone, it is the first Windows Phone with a quad core Snapdragon 400 chip and also the first one to support on-screen navigation buttons. But, having launched before April 25th, this, along with the Lumia 930, will be the last Windows Phones with a “Nokia” brand on them. Sporting a price tag of Rs. 11,500, the successor to the yesteryear Lumia 620 sports a bigger screen, with roughly the same resolution, undercuts it by a couple of thousands, but loses the LED flash and goes for a cheaper bill of materials (referred to as BoM from here on) generally. With the RAM staying at 512 MB, does the Lumia 630 Dual SIM Windows Phone strike a good balance between price and specifications in this crucial segment? Lets find out in our full review.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixmnsH_1sQI

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Nokia Lumia 630 Camera Samples

The Lumia 630 Dual SIM from Nokia is one of the first devices to be launched with Windows Phone 8.1 out of the box, and of course, with a Dual SIM setup. It is a direct successor to the Lumia 620, but takes a different route in terms of the pricing strategy, moving closer to the Lumia 520 rather than the 620. Priced at Rs. 11,500, the device comes with a 5 megapixel camera, but without a LED flash or a secondary microphone to support it. Nokia have clearly gone for price conscious sourcing here, but will the performance beat our expectations? Here is our camera review that will answer this question, but skip past the video to find the full resolution samples.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxweFjx_b3w

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Prestigio, BLU and other OEMs announce Windows Phone 8.1 devices

BLU WindowsPhone

At the Computex 2014 keynote, Microsoft showed off new smartphones running Windows Phone 8.1, manufactured by their new partners. This includes, Prestigio, BLU, YEZZ, InFocus. All these devices are based on Qualcomm reference design. Microsoft announced new OEMs at the MWC 2014 back in February and added couple more OEMs to the list at the Build 2014 in April. Recently the company announced BLU and Amagatarai K-Touch as their partners. New Windows Phone devices from new manufacturers is expected to increase the market share of Windows Phone. Continue reading “Prestigio, BLU and other OEMs announce Windows Phone 8.1 devices”

Windows Phone 8.1’s official file manager finds its way to the store

Back when Joe Belfiore took part in an AMA on Reddit, for Windows Phone 8.1, he revealed that Microsoft had an official File Manager app ready and it will be coming soon. That day has arrived, as the “Files” app has made its way on to the store. With the new WinRT APIs for 8.1, Microsoft had enabled the file picker and file access for third party apps, and it was only about time that they made a first party app too. This should have been released along with the operating system, but hey, at least we get full file management on Windows Phone now. Grab it from the link below, from the Windows Phone Store –

“Files” for Windows Phone

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Microsoft to debut Skype Translator app with Real-Time Speech Translation by the end of 2014

In a bid to connect people from different continents with different language, Microsoft is bringing real-time speech translation functionality to Skype by the end of this year. The feature was demonstrated by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at Re/code’s Code Conference in the US.

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Microsoft announces Windows 8.1 With Bing for lower cost devices

Microsoft have announced via a blogpost that they are launching a new version of Windows called Windows 8.1 with Bing specially for lower cost and low power devices. Microsoft has been drastically changing its policies over the past few months by offering Windows for free for devices smaller than 9inches.

windows-phone-oem-blu-k-touch Continue reading “Microsoft announces Windows 8.1 With Bing for lower cost devices”

Microsoft’s Surface mini was killed off at the last minute, says report

Microsoft’s plans for introducing a smaller version of the Surface were killed off at the last minute, according to a report from Bloomberg. Initial reports claimed that Microsoft was all set to introduce a 8 inch Surface tablet, tailored for note taking. It was definitely in a bid to compete against all the other small tablets, but Satya Nadella, the Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft, and Stephen Elop, heading the Devices and Services group, had apparently decided to kill the “almost-ready” tablet since it purportedly didn’t prove to be different enough to be a hit, in their eyes. That’s obviously a bold position, considering the product was reportedly in the works already.

What Microsoft really announced – Surface Pro 3 with a 12″ screen

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Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM Unboxing and First Impressions

The Nokia Lumia 630 is the first Windows Phone 8.1 device to launch in the market, including in India, where it has been launched in the Dual SIM flavour, another first. Priced at Rs. 11,500 for the MRP, the device seeks to occupy the place between the 525 and its predecessor, Lumia 620, but sports much improved specs on the inside, keeping things a bit similar on the outside. This new device is set to be the first of hopefully many dual SIM Windows Phone devices from Microsoft, which might make things interesting in the Windows Phone market. Anyway, we have got the Indian retail version of the Lumia 630 and here is the unboxing video of it, with a detailed overview of the device hardware –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u7QUp8VSRI

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Microsoft Surface Pro 3 announced: 12″ screen, 9.1mm, Inking and starts at 799$

The Surface Pro 3 has officially been unveiled at Microsoft’s event today, in New York. The latest addition to the family of Windows 8 powered devices from the company has decidedly gone larger with a 12 inch screen, gotten a lot thinner at 9.1mm and relatively lighter at 800g, for its size. This will officially succeed the Surface Pro 2, which was just a rehash of the original, with improvements mainly under the hood, and of course, the kick stand. The Surface Pro 3 on the other hand, is almost a whole new device, with a shift in ideas and it is indeed pushing the message of a “laptop” replacement a lot harder this time. How? Here is a promo video to get you upto speed, and do go past the break for all the new additions, detailed in text –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t7rSZT_77E

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Watch Microsoft unveil new Surface devices live

Microsoft is all set to unveil its new Surface devices at an event in New York today. Looking from some of the pictures being tweeted from the event, a lot of decorations at the site are related to inking, which is rumoured to get a huge push in the company’s latest push in the tablet market. This means that the Redmond company will unveil the 8 inch variant of the Surface with special inking capabilities, like a Wacom digitizer with stylus on the Surface Pro. Microsoft Research is said to have orchestrated a push for digital inking across microsoft’s services and devices, and we might just start seeing this vision take form, at this live event. If you’re interested on having a look at all the new devices Microsoft is set to launch, here is the live stream – Continue reading “Watch Microsoft unveil new Surface devices live”

Now you can play Assassin Creed Pirates in your browser

Popular mobile game Assassin Creed can now be played as a free game in your browser. Microsoft has teamed up with Ubisoft to bring the game to the web that can be played using either touch input or a mouse and keyboard. The game was launched on Android, iPhone and iPad in December 2013.

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Nokia Lumia 630 with TV tuner launched in Brazil

Lumia 630 Brazil DTV

Nokia released Lumia 630 and Lumia 630 dual sim in India earlier this month. These devices are the first one to be shipped with latest Windows 8.1. The company has launched a special edition of the Lumia 630 smartphone in Brazil with an additional feature of built-in television receiver.

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Microsoft adds two more OEMs to the Windows Phone lineup – Blu and Amagatarai K-Touch

Microsoft had some strategic announcements during the Mobile World Congress, in which they announced the addition of new OEM partners that had signed up for making Windows Phone devices. Some of the new additions were Indian manufacturers like Lava, Xolo, Karbonn and later Micromax. In that lineup, we have two more OEMs added to the lineup today, and they are BLU and K-Touch. BLU is possibly the Micromax of the US while K-Touch is known for being an OEM as well as a ODM, which does contract manufacturing for other companies. The addition of these two new OEMs means a wider range of Windows Phone 8.1 devices that are all set to be released in the coming months. Will the third ecosystem finally pick up some steam?

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Windows Phone 8.1 Preview updated, bug fixes and battery life improvements inbound

Windows Phone 8.1 debuted as a developer preview just a month ago, and today, it has received its first update, in preparation for a wider consumer launch later in the coming weeks or months. The update, first publicized by Windows Phone champion Joe Belfiore, reportedly brings many bug fixes, some new features and the much needed battery life improvements some users had wanted. The update is immediately available for download from the “Phone update” section under the Windows Phone settings menu.

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Microsoft Office for iPad exceeds 27 million downloads

Microsoft launched Office apps – Word, Excel and Powerpoint for iPad in March. The software and tech giant has announced that the apps have done extremely well and surpassed 27 million downloads in mere 46 days since its launch.

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