LONDON—Nokia today announced its first two Windows Phones, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, which feature exclusive navigation, music, and sports applications.
"Lumia is the first real Windows Phone," Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said. "We are signaling our intent right now to be today's leaders in smartphone design and craftmanship, no question about it."
And while the 800 and 710 themselves may not make it to the U.S., "We will be introducing a portfolio of products into the United States in early 2012," Elop said.
Those U.S. phones may include "LTE and CDMA products" as well as "WCDMA and HSPA" phones, Elop said. That means every U.S. carrier is on the table, including Verizon and Sprint. Nokia hasn't made a phone compatible with either of those carriers' networks since 2005.
New Phones, Exclusive Software
The Lumia 800 (above) is the "hero" phone, built into the mutlicolored polycarbonate shell of the Nokia N9, according to Kevin Shields, senior vice presidnt of program and product management for Nokia's smart devices. It has a 3.9-inch screen and an f/2.2 camera with a Carl Zeiss lens. The less-expensive Lumia 710 (below) has a 3.7-inch display and comes in "stealthy black and crisp white," Shields said. The 710 will have removable colored covers which match the colors of Windows Phone's live tiles, he said.
"With the hero in the Nokia Lumia 800 and the affordable Nokia Lumia 710 we think we're in a great place to bring the Nokia Lumia experience to the world," Shields said.
The two phones feature several exclusive Nokia apps. Those include the Nokia Drive navigation app, Nokia Music, a public transport application supporting more than 400 cities worldwide, an augmented reality app, and a new sports application from ESPN, Shields said. The phones will also have future exclusive applications from Sesame Street, Elop said.
Nokia Drive is the first free, voice-guided navigation app for Windows Phone, Shields said. The app supports over 69 million places and works in landscape mode, currently a rarity for Windows Phone maps apps. Shields made it sound like it would only be free on the 800, not on the 710, though.
"The Lumia 800 will be the only Windows Phone that has full, voice-guided turn by turn navigation," he said.
Nokia Music is a custom radio app like Slacker or Pandora, not a track-by-track music purchase service. It will offer "pre-set-up, locally relevant mixes of great music … and you can create your own mix, you can seed it with a setup artist," Shields said. The mixes can be downloaded for offline listening and pinned to the phone's home screen, he said.
"I think we have finally solved the mobile music problem," he said. Finally, Shields demoed the new exclusive ESPN app. Only available on Nokia phones, the ESPN app will let Lumia owners browse sports leagues, teams and players and pin their favorite sports to their home screens. "All of these things come for free, and only on Nokia," Shields said. Nokia plans more exclusive software in the future, Elop said. "We believe maps and navigation are building blocks to connect the real world to the virtual world, Elop said. Nokia is collecting data about real-life objects and places and can relate them to "real human activity … with the mobile device acting as a platform for sensors," he said. "With contextual knowledge, we can build more relevant and more immediate services." Shields obviously had been waiting to release the phone for some time; his presentation was a literal barbaric yawp of Nokiatude. "It looks awesome!" Shields cried. Shields and Elop focused on Windows Phone Mango's central features, which we've covered in our review but also on the physical design of the new phone. "Its single-piece, injection-molded polycarbonate shell screams premium," Shields said. "And that construction, it delivers outstanding antenna performance. This is a smartphone that defies convention." Elop said the new phones would be released on 31 carriers in the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands in November, with an "unprecedented" level of marketing support. Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore, and Taiwan will follow before the end of the year, with "a number of additional markets being introduced in early 2012." Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan will see the Lumia 710 this year as well. The Lumia 800 will cost around 420 euros before subsidies and the Lumia 710 will cost around 270 euros, Elop said.Also today, Nokia announced a new line of Internet-enabled feature phones for developing countries, the Asha series, which plays to the company's strength in emerging markets. For more, see Nokia Preparing Custom Phones for U.S. Market.
Source from: http://www.pcmag.com
