The Finnish company is
also going bigger with its smartphone line. It is releasing a new pair
of colorful, big-screen smartphones: the 6-inch Windows Phone 9 Lumia
1520 and the lower-end 1320.
The Lumia 2520 tablet
will cost $499 and run Windows RT 8.1, a limited variation of the
Windows 8 operating system that uses that system's tile-based
touchscreen feature.
The tablet gets 4G LTE,
has a 2.2 GHz Quad Core processor and includes a 6.7 megapixel
back-facing camera. The company says it has upped the screen's peak
brightness so it's extra visible outdoors in direct sunlight.
For its new smartphones,
Nokia has chosen to continue its focus on the camera as the killer
feature that can set its devices apart. Its Lumia 1020 smartphone's
primary selling point was its impressive 40 megapixel camera. The new
big-screen 1520 smartphone will have a smaller but still powerful 20
megapixel camera and cost $749 before any carrier subsides. The the
cheaper 1320 has a more ordinary 5 megapixel camera and cost $399. The
Nokia Camera app is getting an update across all Nokia devices.
Six inches is a hefty
size for smartphones, but Ifi Majid, Nokia's head of product marketing
for North America, said the size was key because it's the largest a
phone can go and still be held with one hand. While they haven't yet
taken off in the U.S., "phablet" devices are a bigger hit in developing
markets where the larger size is considered a status symbol.
This is Nokia's first big
product rollout since it was announced that Microsoft was going to
purchase part of the company. The $7.2 billion deal, which will include
Nokia's devices and services businesses, is still pending. It's unclear
what kind of different direction Nokia's products will take when
Microsoft is fully in charge, and where the new 2520 tablet will fit in
with Windows own similar Surface line.
Apple is the leading
tablet manufacturer in the world, followed by Samsung, but all the major
manufacturers are eager to get in on the growing market. Though
Microsoft has been pushing its own Surface tablets and touchscreen-ified
operating system, Windows 8, it still trails far behind iOS and Android
tablets.
Nokia was once the top
mobile phone manufacturer in the world. It still holds on to a sizable
chunk of the feature phone market, but is struggling to stay competitive
against smartphones from Apple, Samsung, and other companies.
Instead of making an
Android-based smartphone like most non-Apple companies, Nokia took a bet
on a third operating system, Windows Phone 8. Colorful and simple, but
with an anemic selection of apps, Windows Phone 8 has struggled but
slowly grown since making its debut a year ago. Getting big name apps
has been one of the operating systems biggest challenges. Nokia says
photo-sharing app Instagram will finally come to the platform in the
next few weeks.
There is still a market
for less advanced phones that can last more than a day on a single
battery charge. Nokia also announced three new Asha devices on Tuesday.
Asha is Nokia's super simple, very cheap phone line. The tiny handsets
cost between $60 and $99 and can make calls and text, run a few apps and
even connect to the internet. Aimed at developing markets, they can
also hold a charge for up to a month.
No comments:
Post a Comment