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Nokia Lumia 620 announced: 3.8-inch WVGA display, 5MP camera, $249
Nokia announced a surprise new Windows Phone 8 member at LeWeb 2012 in Paris today -- the Lumia 620. The entry-level handset has a 3.8-inch TFT screen at WVGA resolution (800 x 480), a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus processor, half a gig of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, expandable by microSD (up to 64GB cards supported). A 5-megapixel shooter with LED flash capable of recording 720p video occupies the back, while a VGA camera is up front for those self-portraits. Connectivity-wise, you'll get online via WiFi or WCDMA 3G, with NFC and Bluetooth 3.0 taking care of all your sharing and pairing. "Dual-shot color" interchangeable shells mean you'll be able to personalize your handset beyond switching up the Live Tile layout, and they also keep the 1,300mAh battery under wraps. Excluding taxes and subsidies, the new Lumia will cost $249 when it begins shipping in January next year, first in Asia, then expanding to Europe, the Middle East and other territories later. If you're looking for a Windows Phone 8 handset but don't need the best specs out there, perhaps this is your guy -- the wallet-friendly Lumia 610 generally impressed us, so we've got a feeling this might, too. %Gallery-172666%
Qualcomm reveals quad-core Snapdragon S4 Play processors, ramps up entry smartphone speeds
Don't think Qualcomm is limiting its quad-core processors to superstar phones. The Snapdragon S4 Play line is growing to include the MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q, parallels to the existing two Play chips that bring four cores to entry-level devices. Besides the speed improvements that you'd expect from all that extra parallelism, the Q variants support the extra bandwidth of low-power DDR2 (LPDDR2) memory and can handle both 720p displays and movie-making. Neither is quite an all-encompassing solution, although the two will cover the bases for much of the starter demographic: while local wireless such as Bluetooth, FM radio and WiFi have to remain separate from the main processor, the two newcomers manage to pack either single-mode UMTS 3G (in the 8225Q) or dual-mode CDMA and UMTS (in the 8625Q) for their cellular fix. Along with the already promised, China-focused S4 Plus MSM8930, test samples of the faster S4 Play editions will be ready before the end of the year, with shipping phones on the way in early 2013 -- just in time to go head-to-head with a similar push by MediaTek to make quad-core the norm for a much larger slice of the population.
The Engadget interview: Nokia's Kevin Shields talks Windows Phone 8 (video)
Today at the Windows Phone Developer Summit, we had the opportunity to sit down with Kevin Shields, SVP of Program and Product Management at Nokia, and chat about the day's announcements including Windows Phone 8. Our discussion started with the apps Nokia unveiled today -- PlayTo for DLNA support, Nokia Counter to monitor data usage, My Commute for personalized routing, an update of Nokia Music to 3.0 and the Camera Extras imaging suite -- which are rolling out next week for all Lumia handsets running Windows Phone 7.5. Kevin gave us a little more insight on Camera Extras, a set of four apps (Self Timer, Panorama Maker, Action Shot and Smart Group Shot) designed to enhance the camera experience using technology from Nokia's recent Scalado acquisition. We then moved on to discussing Windows Phone 8 and specifically NFC support, with a small tangent spent on Kevin showing us the recently launched Lumia 610 NFC. The next topic was about what we can expect from Nokia in terms of hardware for upcoming phones running the latest iteration of Microsoft's mobile OS. We know that the first batch of Windows Phone 8 devices will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Plus dual-core SoC, but on the topic of quad-core processors Kevin said "where additional hardware makes a difference, then sure, let's talk about it," adding "we're going to stay committed to the experience." Finally we discussed the future of Nokia's PureView technology and how it fits in with the next generation mobile OS. PureView "is a core technology that we are dedicated to and invested in" said Kevin. Sounds quite promising, right? We can't wait to see what the next wave of Lumia handsets brings to the table. Until then, go ahead and watch our video interview.
Qualcomm: all new Windows Phone 8 devices to be powered by Snapdragon S4 Plus for now
The puzzle pieces are already falling into place, one at a time. After announcing Qualcomm as the exclusive chipset provider for upcoming Windows Phone 8 handsets, we didn't get any word on which models would be used. Fortunately, Qualcomm reps have confirmed to us that all new devices will feature the MSM8960 dual-core Krait (Snapdragon S4 Plus) processor for now. As a sidenote, the company told us that other chipsets may be used at a later time, but Microsoft certainly appears eager to keep to its mantra of a universal experience amongst its phones.
