Nokia Asha 501 Hands On

nokia-asha-501-homescreen

Nokia’s has added some more colour to its Asha family with the new Asha 501 Phone.The new Asha phone is slotted for a price of about Rs.5600 excluding taxes. Nokia has introduced a new design and form factor with the Asha 501 – A full touch screen with no buttons at the bottom except for one back button that sits pretty, right at the bottom. We got a chance speak to Peter Skillman, VP, Mobile Phones User Experience, Design, about the Asha 501 at the launch event. You can check out the video below and also read the full transcript of the interview here.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVKLL8P6Vfo

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Nokia Asha 501 full touch phone with swipe UI announced

nokia-asha-501-homescreen

Nokia Asha 501, a new full touch device with swipe UI, and part of a whole new Asha series of devices has been announced at a global press conference here, in New Delhi. In an effort to revitalize the ever important budget low end smartphone market, which is currently inundated with Android phones, Nokia has released a tiny device that, they hope, can help them gain more traction in the highly competitive market. The Asha platform with touch UI. It initially debuted with the Asha 311 and the other full touch Asha phones, now it has been rehauled with more UX elements from the N9’s Meego user interface, complete with the double tap to wake gesture and the minimalistic homescreen setup. The device sports a 3 inch QVGA screen with hardened glass and is powered by a 1 GHz processor.

Having repeatedly leaked on Twitter, one of them revealed its six colourful shells in a leak last night. The available colours, which are also replaceable shells, come in Bright Red, Lemon Yellow, Parrot Green, Ice Blue, White and Black. The device has 128 MB of internal memory and comes with a 4GB micro SD card out of the box, with options of expanding the memory upto 32 GB. It also comes in single SIM variant. Priced at $99  (~Rs. 5,347) without taxes and subsidies, it is expected to shipping in June 2013 from approximately 60 operators and distributors in more than 90 countries worldwide.

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Watch this – Livestream of the Nokia Asha event in New Delhi

Nokia Asha Teaser

The Nokia Asha event at the Taj Palace hotel, New Delhi is about to get in full swing in a few moments, after which they might announce the Nokia Asha 501, which leaked last night, or may be more(?). Apparently, Nokia doesn’t want you to miss out on the action, so they have arranged for a live webcast on http://conversations.nokia.com. You can check out the post directly, if you want to, here. The live stream is scheduled to start at 12:00 p.m IST, with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop reportedly presiding over the keynote.

Here is the live stream direct link, go watch!

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Nokia Asha 501 picture leaks out along with rumoured specs just before official announcement

nokia-asha-501-rainbow

While we were pondering on what Nokia has up its sleeve for tomorrow, Evleaks, the master of leaks has done it again and has leaked out the upcoming Asha device slated to be launched in New Delhi tomorrow. According to the leak, the device is known as the Nokia Asha 501, which marches into the 5-series territory currently occupied only by the Lumia in the form of 510 and 520. While the picture doesn’t say much about the device, we expect it to be in line with previous leaks from the same Evleaks. The Asha refresh is a long time coming and with an impending launch tomorrow at New Delhi, Nokia is all set to compete with the low end Android devices with a better experience squarely in aim.

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Nokia makes the Lumia 928 all but official with a video comparison teaser

nokia-lumia-928-teaser

The Nokia Lumia 928 was unofficially confirmed on the official site yesterday, and most details have been leaked out about this device which is expected to launch on the 15th of May. Nokia have gone ahead one more step and have released a video comparison teaser boasting of the OIS capable 8.7 MP PureView camera on the Lumia 928, which is known to sport a Xenon flash in addition to LED. The video comparison is between the Nokia Lumia 928, the Samsung Galaxy S III and the Apple iPhone 5 titled “New Nokia Lumia with PureView takes on “The Hurricane””. Here is the video footage comparison video –

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

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Finland negotiates with India for the Nokia Tax case

Nokia and the Indian government have been at odds for quite a while regarding a purported Tax evasion by the Finnish company. A lot of multi-national companies like Vodafone and Shell too have been facing the heat regarding similar tax evasion cases. Nokia in particular had its Chennai Sri Perumbudur plant raided by the Income tax department. Finally, the Indian government decided to slap a tax demand of around Rs. 2000 crore for tax evasion, and a case was filed in the Delhi high court regarding the same. As of now, the case has been stayed and Finland has now come in aid of Nokia, with them proposing a mutual agreement procedure with the Indian Government based on a Tax treaty between the two countries.

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What will Nokia launch at an International Press Event on May 9th in India ?

nokia-india-may9th

It has been while since Nokia has held any major press event in India especially an international press event which it is holding in New Delhi tomorrow May 9th. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is expected to unveil new products at the event. The invite says “Time to Shift Gears” and does not mention anything else. Considering this event is taking place in India ,  it would be safe to assume that we could either see a low-end Lumia device or new member of the Asha family being announced. In fact Elop has confirmed that Nokia would launch new Asha devices at the company’s annual general meeting held recently. So new Asha phones are surely coming. Continue reading “What will Nokia launch at an International Press Event on May 9th in India ?”

YouTube finally gets a huge update on Windows Phone 8, graduates to a fully functional app

youtube-windows-phone-8

Microsoft and Google have not always been best of friends by any means and that had meant no official blessing for any Google services on Windows Phone. It was a huge pain for people using Google services and they were huge in number. YouTube is also one of the most used Google services, probably next to Gmail, and its official app on Windows Phone, published by Microsoft was a link to the mobile web version of YouTube until today. Now, the official app, still made by Microsoft has gotten a huge update and is finally a real app. With support for every YouTube client feature you’d want, the app has been finally released onto the Windows Phone store.

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Foursquare for Windows Phone 8 gets a refresh, new UI and new features

foursquare-lumia-wp8

Foursquare, the leading location based social network has received a major refresh for the Windows Phone 8 platform, with a new UI, new features and more. The official app has been around in the Windows Phone marketplace for quite a while now and it was revealed that Nokia and Microsoft are working with Foursquare to bring a new experience to the Windows Phone platform and here it is. The app, boasting millions of users is primarily used for exploring nearby places and checking in to places so as to create a history of geotags with the added bonus of points and badges.

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Nokia Lumia 928 with PureView camera confirmed

Nokia Lumia 928 teaser

Nokia Lumia 928, the company’s upcoming smartphone for Verizon has confirmed on the official Nokia US website. The phone has also been advertised on Vanity Fair magazine and recently spotted on a bill board in the US.  Both these ads confirms the PureView camera, optical image stabilization (OIS) and th Carl Zeiss lens in the phone.New press render for the Lumia 928 surfaced last month. Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 928 with PureView camera confirmed”

Hike Messenger to come pre-loaded on select Nokia Lumia and Asha phones

Hike

Bharti Softbank (BSB), a joint-venture between Bharti Enterprises and SoftBank Corp have announced that they have partnered with Nokia to pre-load its Hike cross-platform messaging app app on its phones, according to a report. The Hike app is available for AndroidiPhoneWindows Phone and for Nokia S40 devices from the respective app stores. It launched talk-time rewards for customers earlier this year, and released a Beta version of the application for BlackBerry last month. Continue reading “Hike Messenger to come pre-loaded on select Nokia Lumia and Asha phones”

Pelican Imaging , Lytro-like camera technology coming to Smartphones in 2014

pelican-image-mobile-camera

If you follow the tech scene closely , you must have heard about these slightly expensive cameras sold in the name of Lytro. The main highlight of Lytro cameras is the ability to focus objects in the picture after you have clicked the picture. One company Pelican Imaging based in Mountain View, California ( yes the same town as Google) is working on array camera technology for mobile devices.And we might see one of the first devices with such technology debut in 2014 which is not that far away. Users always struggle to get the focus right on both cameras and mobile devices and a technology which promises Click now ,  focus later will be a a great solution and a feature to boast on your mobile phone. Continue reading “Pelican Imaging , Lytro-like camera technology coming to Smartphones in 2014”

Nokia unveils the Lumia range in Chennai with new EMI and wireless charging plate offers

lumia-range-chennai

Chennai, April 30, 2013: Nokia has unveiled their latest Lumia range of smartphone including the Lumia 920, Lumia 820, Lumia 720, Lumia 620 and the Lumia 520. All these phones run on the latest Windows Phone 8 OS and are available at different price points, starting from Rs. 10,499. Nokia has also unveiled new Easy EMI offers at 0% Interest, No down payment and no processing fee for these Lumia devices. Continue reading “Nokia unveils the Lumia range in Chennai with new EMI and wireless charging plate offers”

Nokia Lumia launch event scheduled for May 14 in London

Nokia Lumia 920 yellow 16

Nokia has sent out an invite to several media outlets for a launch event in London , UK happening on May 14.The invite says that the “Nokia Lumia Story Continues” on May 14th. The previous major Lumia launch happened at MWC in Barcelona where the company launched the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720 which are already available in India.

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Nokia Lumia 520 vs Lumia 620, which one should you buy?

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The Nokia Lumia 520 just launched a couple of weeks back, marking the entry of the cheapest Windows Phone 8 device in the Indian market. We reviewed it recently and found it to be quite nice for the price. Talking of the price, one could actually spend a couple more thousands and get the Lumia 620 instead, but is it the right thing to do and is it worth the extra spend? Which one should you buy then? To answer you quickly, we have taken a look at both these devices in a video comparison, head past the video for the text and more photos –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53_rKwtFIkA

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