Nokia Lumia 1520 And Lumia 1320 Are First Windows Phone Phablets

Nokia has announced two new six-inch Windows Phone 8-powered phablets, the Nokia Lumia 1520 and 1320, along with three new Asha feature phones at Nokia World in Abu Dhabi.

CEO Stephen Elop says the Lumia 1520’s 1080p HD screen is the “sharpest display experience Nokia has ever offered,” and says the extra space will allow users to be more productive, thanks to a third column of live tiles on the home screen and Microsoft Office applications.

“It’s just great for business applications,” he boasts, adding that the phone’s “massive battery” can last for a whole day’s work, and can be charged wirelessly thanks to support for the Qi standard. The screen works well, even in bright light, and can be used while wearing gloves.

Nokia Lumia 1520

The Lumia 1520 has a 20 megapixel camera with optical image stabilisation, enhanced sensor technology and oversampling, and comes with the Nokia Camera app and Storyteller, which organises photos based on location information. The hipster community is also likely to be pleased by the aarrival of Vine and Instagram on Windows Phone for the first time. The audio in video recordings is enhanced by the presence of four microphones.

National Geographic’s Stephen Alvarez has given the camera his seal of approval, which is unsurprising, since he was actually on stage at the Nokia press conference.

The phone is powered by a quad core 2.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB RAM and 32GB of storage, which can be doubled through a MicroSD card slot, and is supplemented by 7GB of SkyDrive cloud space. Support for Near Field Communication (NFC) and LTE networks are also included.

It will be available in white, yellow, red and black varieties later this quarter at a price of $749. The UK will be among the first set of countries to receive the handset, along with Hong Kong, Singapore, China, the US, Finland, France and Germany.

Nokia Lumia 1320

The Lumia 1320 is a cheaper, lower spec, six inch smartphone, but Nokia says it hasn’t compromised on quality to achieve the lower price. It has a dual core 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 5 megapixel camera, along with many of the camera and software innovations featured on the 1520.

Some of these will also be included in an update for all Windows Phone 8 Lumia handsets called Lumia Black, which will be rolled out alongside the latest version of Microsoft’s mobile operating system in early 2014.

The Lumia 1320 will be released in early 2014 in orange, yellow, black and white, and has a recommended price of $339.  China and Vietnam will receive the handset first, with availability eventually extending to other parts of Asia and Europe.

Nokia has also refreshed its Asha range of feature phones with the Nokia Asha 500, 502 and 503, which all feature a new two layer polycarbonate design and new software, which will also be made available to the Nokia Asha 501. All three handsets will be available with Dual-SIM technology and will be targeted at emerging markets.

The Finnish phone firm also unveiled its first tablet, the Windows RT-powered Nokia Lumia 2520, in Abu Dhabi, in what could be the last major event for the company before its devices and services businesses are acquired by Microsoft for £4.6 billion.

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