Focus 2

31/08/2012 13:25 par slaytane

Le marché US est un espace à conquérir pour Nokia, qui n'a jamais vraiment pu s'y installer. Le fabricant finlandais compte sur Windows Phone et son dernier modèle haut de gamme, le Nokia Lumia 900, pour séduire le public nord-américain.

Distribué par l'opérateur AT&T, le Lumia 900 est aussi un smartphone compatible avec le réseau 4G LTE de ce dernier, bénéficiant ainsi du très haut débit mobile. Mais cette présence précoce pourrait vite se voir contrée par l'arrivée d'un autre smartphone Windows Phone / LTE issue de la concurrence.


 Samsung vient en effet d'annoncer l'arrivée du Samsung Focus 2, également chez AT&T, et constituant son premier modèle Windows Phone compatible LTE. Il s'agit d'un smartphone doté d'un affichage 4" Super AMOLED et épais de 10,98 mm.

Il embarque au dos un APN 5 megapixels capable d'enregistrement vidéo 720p et un APN frontal pour la visioconférence, avec des fonctions de dictée vocale pour la prise de message sans manipuler l'appareil. Sous Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, on retrouve les services de la plate-forme de Microsoft, ainsi que l'espace de stockage distant SkyDrive.

Et si le Samsung Focus 2 se positionne plutôt en milieu de gamme par rapport au Lumia 900, son prix de vente est fixé à 50 dollars seulement avec la prise d'un abonnement mobile. Déjà dominateur sur Android, le fabricant coréen ne lâche rien sur les autres plates-formes et devrait avoir du répondant à la sortie de Windows Phone 8.

Après être devenu leader mondial des smartphones et premier sur Android, Samsung se verrait bien sûrement bien aussi premier sur Windows Phone, titre encore détenu par Nokia.

97 carbon

24/08/2012 13:36 par slaytane

Meets Louis Vuitton

24/08/2012 13:28 par slaytane

Well, it seems that Edgar Mkrtchyan is becoming a household name, when it comes to fresh Nokia concept phones. Today he shows us the luxury handset Nokia Louis Vuitton Edition, with Windows Phone 8 on board. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a luxury Nokia phone and something to emulate the elegance of the older L’amour series, so this could be it.

We’re dealing with a Windows Phone 8 device with some minor Louis Vuitton customization when it comes to software. The design of the Nokia concept involves a curved big screen, surrounded with pure gold and the rear area made of polycarbonate, printed in the famous Louis Vuitton pattern. The logo “Nokia Louis Vuitton” is printed in gold as well and protected by two large bumps that make it avoid the contact between gold and the table. Inside there’s a dual core 1.7 GHz processor and upfront we’ve got a 4.5 inch AMOLED ClearBlack display with a 1280 x 768 pixel resolution and Gorilla Glass protection.

At the back there’s a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, Xenon flash and 1080p video capture. Nokia Louis Vuitton also has a front 3.2MP shooter, a 2200 mAh battery, 64GB of storage, microUSB, NFC and Bluetooth. To me this like a Nokia Lumia 710 that has been dipped in gold, cut into a thinner form and given the gift of elegance + a bigger screen and CPU. What do you think?

Lumia 960

24/08/2012 13:25 par slaytane

How about a tablet with a sliding keyboard, that adopts the design of the Nokia E7? Edgar Mkrtchyan imagined such a device and called it the Nokia Lumia 960 tab, a tablet that runs Windows RT and comes with a body in polished aluminum and backlit keyboard. Will the E7 design work this time? Let’s see!

Nokia Lumia Tab features a dual or quad core 1.8 GHz processor (user’s choice), a 7 inch AMOLED touchscreen with ClearBlack technology, 1600 x 900 pixel resolution and anti reflection. The device weighs 390 grams and measures 12 mm in thickness. It also has a 4300 mAh battery and a 12 megapixel camera with 1080p video recording and LED plus Xenon flash. At the front we find a 2 megapixel camera and the slate also comes with 64 or 128 GB of storage, as well as microSD card slot.

On the connectivity side you get 2 micro USB ports, HDMI, DLNA, Nokia AV 3.5, Bluetooth 3.0 and NFC. Finally, Nokia Lumia 960 Tab integrates 2 high quality speakers and it would look like a pretty cool sliding tablet design. The E7 was a very appreciated device when it comes to looks and why not bring the Communicator spirit into tablets?

Lumia 720

24/08/2012 13:23 par slaytane

Designer Mkrtchyan Edgar, also responsible for the Lumia 1001 mockup created for Mynokiablog.com a new Nokia concept phone, the Lumia 720, that brings the Windows Phone experience to a new level. This device uses a magnesium case, much like the Surface Tablet and its design involves a curved screen and large rounded case that’s also pretty shiny.

Under the hood we’ve got a removable 2200 mAh battery, a micro SIM card slot and a microSD card slot. Nokia Lumia 720 supports wireless charging and doesn’t have HDMI, relying instead on DLNA, while the audio jack is replaced by NFC apparently. The camera button is gone, being replaced with the ability to simply touch the screen to autofocus and capture the pictures. Inside the handset we find a dual core 1.6 GHz processor and other specs of the phone involve a 4.3 inch 1280 x 768 pixel display.

The camera module involves a 16 megapixel Pureview sensor, with 1080p video capture, Xenon flash and accompanied by a 1.3 megapixel camera at the front. Storage versions are 16 GB and 32GB, plus the obvious microSD card slot. As you can see, the camera has been integrated as discretely as possible into this slim design. As shown in the pics, the Lumia 720 concept runs Windows Phone 8, with those smaller tiles present on the screen. At times this phone feels a bit too curved, but other than that it’s a pretty good design. What do you think?

8 mockup

24/08/2012 13:21 par slaytane

Tobias Pankraz imagine the future of Windows Phone 8 devices and created the Nokia 8 WP8 mockup, that you can see below. This is a sharp handset, with rectangular lines and a slab modern metals thrown into a tight shell. The phone has a very discrete camera and an elegant allure, so good job Tobias!

Nokia 8 runs Windows Phone 8, with those smaller tiles, medium tiles and wider, bigger tiles. There’s a 12 megapixel camera at the back and the device has at the bottom the audio jack, the microUSB port and a speaker grille, a design that may remind you of the iPhone 5. Up at the top there’s the earpiece and on/off button, while on the side we have the camera button and the volume buttons. The display is brilliantly integrated into the rectangular case of the Nokia WP8 concept.

If I were to speculate, I’d say this is a 7 mm thick smartphone, with a dual core processor, a 4.5 inch HD display, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. The bezel of the device is extremely thin, almost non existing, fitting with the idea of ClearBlack Display. So, do you fancy this design, or is it too thin?

Lumia 910

24/08/2012 13:16 par slaytane

Jonas Daehnert, the designer who created the beautiful Surface Phone is now back with a Nokia Lumia 910 teaser. This phone has remarkable finesse, a metallic case and an interesting choice of colours, that makes me think about autumn.

Also, the device is less rounded than previous Lumias and much thinner. Nokia Lumia 910 features a 4.3 inch screen without the black screen frame and it’s very, very thin at 6.8mm in waistline. The handset is very compact and its body is made of aluminum. Jonas didn’t detail other specs, since frankly they don’t matter. Windows Phone 8 Apollo runs on multicore CPUs and that’s all you need to know. Pureview is seen by the designer as a good technology, but one that makes the phone ugly.

As I said, the finesse of the phone is great and I like the bigger camera button, as opposed to the smaller camera key that we also saw on the Nokia Pureview 808 handset. I suppose the smartphone has a soft touch area at the bottom, with those Windows Phone keys, that are most likely touch only. So, do you dig this model?

Galaxy One

27/07/2012 20:03 par slaytane

Samsung has a projector phone or two in its portofolio, but what about tablets with projectors? That hasn’t been done by any company as far as I know, so the market is open. Laura Hong and Charles de Belizal envisioned a projector tablet and called it the Samsung Galaxy One, that you can see below.

This device measures 14mm in thickness, packs a projector, Windows 8, an aluminum body and brushed aluminum feet. The Galaxy One has two “feet”, that help prop it up in media viewing position if you want to watch movies and also prepare it to project data during a business meeting, for example. It has a great projection angle and the projector is incorporated right above the camera sensor, that also includes a flash. A stylus is also in the mix and the Metro UI seems to fit right in with this Samsung tablet concept.

The virtual QWERTY keyboard also looks comfortable and I guess it’s part of the design, since it doesn’t resemble the standard input method in Windows 8. From what I can see here, the projector can rotate depending on the position you want it to assume, while using the tablet to show stuff at a meeting. The stylus is small and discrete and also reminds me of the S Pen a bit. Since this is a Windows 8 machine I imagine it would cost quite a bit… how much would you spend for it?

Galaxy Note II

27/07/2012 20:01 par slaytane

Well, since the first Galaxy Note was actually a bigger Galaxy S II, why wouldn’t the Samsung Galaxy Note II be a larger Galaxy S III? The new design you see here comes from Bob Freking, who I asked to imagine the next Galaxy Note and this is what came out.

We’ve got a smartablet with rounded edges, front camera, potent camera at the back, stylus and elongated Home button. It’s also a pretty wide device, so the diagonal may even increase. Samsung Galaxy Note 2 features a quad core Exynos 1.8 GHz processor, but it may also be that new ARM Cortex A15 chip they’re developing right now. An increase to 5.5 inches is also expected by Bob Freking, as well as a jump to 1080p HD AMOLED screen or maybe even a higher resolution.

Galaxy S III comes with the nature-based UX, so I guess the same idea would come here, but with a twist associated to the S Pen, or maybe the S Pen II. You know what would be extremely cool? If the stylus was also a headset, like on the ASUS PadFone, or even cooler: a thicker stylus with AAA batteries, that serves as pico projector. How do you like that?

Galaxy Aurora

27/07/2012 19:59 par slaytane

If you’re looking into the future and searching for the Samsung Galaxy S IV handset, then Alexander Black may have an insight into that. He teased you all a couple of days ago and now it’s time to unveil… the Samsung Galaxy Aurora. The project is not done, since he plans to mix Android 5.0 in this piece of work and some modular stuff.

A follow-up project is also coming. As far as the Samsung Galaxy Aurora is concerned sees when you’re resting your eyes and goes into auto sleep mode. It also comes with a reliable assistant, the S Voice function that works beautifully. The handset will also “know” you’re at the movies and silence itself automatically. Its screen is heat resistant and the new Galaxy model packs a rotating 12 megapixel camera, available for all the angles of stunning photos you can imagine.

There’s also a holographic 3D function, that’s showcased in the last image below and it looks like a real battery drainer this one. Galaxy Aurora knows your touch by the heat you emanate and finally here are some more features to feast on: quad core 2 GHz processor, wireless router chip build in, 4G connectivity, 35 mAh rechargeable battery (does he mean 3500 mAh?) with 20-22 hours of talk time. To me this model looks like a combo between the Nokia N9 and a more rectangular Samsung Galaxy Nexus, if you want. What do you say?

[Thanks Alexander Black!]