Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 Smartphone Unveiled

Nokia has unveiled its new flagship smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 920, its first device running the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system, at an event in New York.

The Finnish manufacturer says this is the “most innovative smartphone in the world”, touting the Lumia 920’s imaging and navigational features as well as the personal nature of the latest version of Windows Phone.

Nokia and Microsoft will hope their new flagship will make an impact on the smartphone market which is currently dominated by Apple’s iPhone and devices running the Android operating system.

Nokia Lumia 920

The Lumia 920 is powered by 1GB of RAM and a 1.5 GHZ dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, while it also boasts a curved 4.5 inch Pure Motion HD+ display that adapts to different levels of sunlight – a touchscreen which can even be used with gloves. Nokia claims that it is the brightest, fastest LCD display ever seen on a smartphone and that it is nigh on impossible to crack or break the device.

Among its marquee features is its 8.7 megapixel PureView camera, which although not the 41 megapixel seen in the 808 PureView, is being billed as the best smartphone camera on the market. It will apparently take high quality pictures in poor light and promises to “challenge the conventional limitations placed on smartphone cameras and set new standards.”

The camera will be used for City Lens, an augmented reality app that displays real time information when the lens is pointed at real-life locations. Nokia will also integrate its location based services such as mapping, transport and indoor maps to create one navigational suite.

Wireless Charging

Nokia confirmed reports that the device would support wireless charging and said that it would indeed support the Qi wireless charging standard, meaning it is compatible with third party wireless chargers in addition to its own “fat boy” charging pillow. No information was revealed about how long it would take for a full charge though.

The smartphone supports Near Field Communication (NFC) and LTE 4G networks and ships with 32GB of storage as well as 7GB of cloud storage on SkyDrive.

Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore showed off a number of new features of Windows Phone 8, including resizable tiles, and also showed the brand new screenshot function. He confirmed that Windows Phone 7 applications would work on the new version and it supports HTML5 standards.

The Lumia 920 will be available in yellow, red, black, white and grey but no details about release dates or pricing were revealed for either device however.

Nokia Lumia 820

Nokia’s second Windows 8 smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 820, is also powered by a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor. It has 1GB of RAM and will ship with 8GB of memory which can be expanded by up to 32GB through a MicroSD card slot.

It has a 4.3-inch display that boasts many of the features of that of the Lumia 920 and an eight megapixel camera. It also supports wireless charging, but unlike its stablemate, it has removable interchangeable back covers.

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