Windows Phone 8

Lumia 920 reveals Windows Phone 8 features

Windows Phone Central forum member Blackwood504 noticed some interesting potential improvements / features in a Lumia 920 hands-on video that could well be in Windows Phone 8, so he decided to take screenshots and publish his interpretations of what's being shown in our forums. French website Test-Mobile.fr got their hands on a yellow Lumia 920 and decided to take it for a spin.

We're able to see functionality and features in their video that aren't present in the latest builds of Windows Phone 7.5. So what do we believe has been revealed in the hands-on action?

Nokia's Windows Phone 8 line-up

We've seen Nokia poke fun at Samsung in the past by welcoming the company back to Windows Phone, as well as attacking its Galaxy S3 vs iPhone 5 marketing campaign. Nokia has failed to show signs of ceasing, and now the Finnish manufacturer has taken to Twitter in Italy to slam competing manufacturers and boast the specifications of the Lumia 920. The flagship Windows Phone is the company's bottled hopes and dreams running Microsoft's next generation mobile operating system.

Swisscom, a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland, has announced via Twitter the carrier will be looking to launch the Lumia 920 late-November, which has been pushed back from earlier reported dates. According to WParea.de, the Nokia Windows Phone was originally slated for mid-November availability with December being the month when the smartphone hits the Swisscom stores.

Unfortunately the tweet that was published earlier today doesn't contain any further information on ordering or pricing.

Nokia has done direct marketing and sales in Europe but never in the US

From a new job posting that was sent in to Windows Phone Central, it appears that Nokia will be hiring folks from November 12th through December 31st to work in direct retail situations in mall kiosks and shops in the US.

The job requests are smartly being targeted at colleges where students could surely use the extra money and who would be more familiar with the nomenclature. We’re actually a bit excited to see this as it ties in nicely with Microsoft’s own Holiday stores and kiosks that are appearing in malls across the country.

The jobs are part-time or full-time, pay between $15-17 an hour with a completion bonus on hand. Candidates are to have past retail experience, a knowledge of technology and of course passion for the job.

When the Nokia Lumia 920 specifications hit last month, the rather large battery (2000mAh) was touted as one of the main features, resulting in supposed “all day use”. That’s especially important for consumers on such a powerhouse of a phone since it has all of those bells and whistles on board.

The AT&T version has recently been posted on Nokia’s site and it has some updated specifications from the global version, including some new battery times. The bad news is they have been slightly marked down for the massive 4G network, most likely due to some carrier requirements resulting in some firmware changes in addition to that super fast LTE network.

Should you be waiting for the Lumia 920 in Europe, popular retailer Phone House (trading as 'The Carphone Warehouse' in the UK) has reportedly confirmed availability of the Nokia Windows Phone for the end of this month. Not only that, but Phone House in France is also offering a free FatBoy with the first 200 purchases (limited to www.phonehouse.fr only / black Lumia 920).

The retailer states all eligible customers will be sent their Fatboy charging accessory by late October / early November. The Fatboy wireless charging pillow is just one of a few accessories that's offered by Nokia for its new Windows Phone devices. Making use of the Qi standard, the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 will be compatible with a number of charging products.

via: NokiaPowerUser; thanks, Sunny, for the tip!

The Nokia Lumia 920 - Coming Sunday, November 4th

Recently Windows Phone Central went on record that AT&T’s plans for the Lumia 920 (and presumably other Windows Phones) was to have an in-store sale date of Sunday, November 4th. We now have had another confirmation via a well placed source in AT&T that this is information is accurate.

We also previously mentioned that on October 21st AT&T is planning to finally announce the above release date and the pricing of the Lumia 920. That info is also still precise.

Presumably a pre-order date will follow on that Friday the 26th, giving just over one week time before the phone can be bought in stores. Much like the Lumia 900 release, we assume that if you pre-order, you will get the phone on Friday, November 2nd before residential deliveries stop for the weekend.

It's no secret that Windows Phone 8 devices such as the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8X will have NFC integration. We are now seeing that an NFC reader/writer app should be available for these Windows Phone 8 devices. The NFC Interactor was announced at the NFC Congress in Hagenberg last month and will feature not only tag analysis but also a flexible tag composer.

Not really sure what all is involved with a flexible tag composer but our guess is that you can create a NFC tag for... say... your contact information and share it with another NFC integrated phone/device. Much like we can do currently with a QR Tag or Microsoft Tag and our Bing Vision.

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

With yesterday’s announcement of the Nokia Lumia 820 and 920 coming to AT&T, the word that caught our eye and yours was “exclusive”. Even Rogers is now in on the "exclusive" action. The term was applied to both Lumia devices, although as pointed out in our forums, the 820’s exclusiveness to AT&T was dropped from Nokia’s site later in the day. 

The tech’o’sphere has responded quite negatively to the news if only because the Lumia 920 has built up such demand that many people are cheering for its success. That success though depends on how many people can actually buy it, which in turn translates into carrier availability. If the Lumia 920 is only available on 1 of 4 major US carriers, well that’s certainly less people than had it been on two or three carriers. A pretty obvious impact.