italy

Nokia looks good on keeping their promise for a quick release on the Lumia 925—estimated to arrive in some European markets by the second week of June. Indeed Nokia Italy on their official shop site have now listed the super slim aluminum device for preorder.

Nokia has launched its Music+ service in Italy, according to local reports. The optional upgrade enables those who enjoy using the app available for Lumia Windows Phones to benefit from expanded functionality and further enhance the experience. The company has kicked off the gradual roll out in a number of markets.

While Samsung was the first out the gate to publicly announce their Windows Phone 8 device, the ATIV S is definitely taking it's time to come to various markets. The Italian market was due to see the ATIV S in November which was eventually pushed back to sometime this month.

The HTC 8X, Nokia Lumias and Samsung ATIV S are to be pushed by the carrier TIM in Italy. The latter is priced at €599 and is subsidised by TIM on the 300 €20/month plan or €10/month with the All Inclusive 700/1500 plan. Both are 30 month contracts, which is a little over the two year deals we are generally used to in Europe.

The Lumia 920 has gradually become available for pre-order through retailers and the like, but we've not yet been able to confirm globally what carriers will be stocking Windows Phones, except for those who have made the information publicly available. As for the number of pre-orders that have taken place, well ... that's another piece of information that we don't possess. 

Fortunately, NokiaPowerUser has noticed some positive signs on both the French Phone House and Italian NStore websites. According to Phone House's top 50 mobile phones chart the Lumia 920 is the champion, and at NStore the Windows Phone is no longer available (sold out).

Nokia’s Italy contingent announced not too long ago that the Lumia 920 will be available for pre-order at the €599 price point and coming in November.

While we still don’t have a firm release date to add to that, we can now direct you to NStore.it, which we’re told is the official Nokia online store for that country. For a deposit of €99, you can reserve your own 920, but only in white or black (insert sad trombone).

We’re not sure if that’s a better deal than what you can get through your carrier (H3G, Telecom Italia, Vodafone or Wind) but if unlocked an non-hassle is your thing, then you may want to give it some consideration.

You can head over to NStore.it’s dedicated pre-order page to get the ball rolling. Thanks, Mirko S., for the tip

Nokia has taken the Lumia Challenge to Italy. The Windows Phone marketing campaign -- think Smoked by Windows Phone -- challenges participants to see if their competitor smartphone can beat a Lumia 900 at common tasks. Ranging anywhere from taking a photo and uploading to Facebook to locating a nearby restaurant, the challenges are generally won by Windows Phone thanks to the level of integration present.

Participants came wielding a variety of devices, including Samsung, HTC and the iPhone. Nokia has been extraordinarily successful in its Dare to Live campaign, which is touring the UK. We took a look at the results at the half-way marker and were able to reveal that Windows Phones were winning majority of challenges. 

Here's hoping that success is seen in these marketing stunts across the world. At the very least, this is a strong attempt to rebuild the Nokia brand as a Windows Phone OEM.

via: Plaffo (YouTube); thanks, Antonio, for the heads up!

It was a few weeks ago when Nokia and Microsoft announced that Bing Maps would be getting a bit of a backend overhaul. Specifically in two areas: new color codes for traffic and more detail on back roads.

Perhaps even more importantly, some countries which previously didn't have access to mapping data would be getting the feature in a timed rollout. All in all, 24 countries were being added to the list including Italy and the UK.

We can at least verify that those latter two now have traffic as an option on their devices. Users can simply launch Maps and tap the three-dots on the lower menu. There, the "enable traffic" option should now be available.

It's great to see such a feature comes to other regions as it's something many of us have taken for granted since Windows Phone 7 came out in 2010. If you've noticed traffic added to any of these other countries, sound off in comments: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland or UAE.

via: Plaffo; Thanks Andrew, James, for UK info

A non-working, magenta Lumia 900 for Italian Nokia stores

Although the rumored Magenta Lumia 900 never materialized on AT&T for Mother's day there is still plenty of evidence that the pink legend exists and someone will be getting it soon. Whether it's from Nokia's own Facebook page, a Finnish online retailer or Australia, the magenta 900 is certainly on the horizon.

Now, magenta "dummy" phones have begun appearing at Italian Nokia stores suggesting that Italy may be one of the first areas to get the device. No word on availability of anything else for that matter, just the above picture of one.

Our guess is Nokia still working to fulfill orders on the cyan, matte-black and glossy-white versions and ramping up production for magenta is taking some time. Hopefully though we'll see it soon enough here in the US and elsewhere.

Source: Nokia HD Blog; Thanks, simone, for the tip