Nokia Lumia 710, 800 to get internet sharing in WP 7.5 Tango

The Lumia series, the hallmark Windows Phone devices by Nokia, so far were left out in the cold as regards the Wireless Hotspot functionality. Every other WP smartphone has been enjoying that since the update to Mango, but not the Lumias.

Previously, we've caught wind of rumors that the about-to-be released Nokia Lumia 610 finally has that feature.

Now user reports suggest that the Lumia 710 and 800 will also have that featured enabled once the new Tango (WP7.5 refresh) update becomes public. So far, only pre-release firmwares have been out and about via the NaviFirm application. Navifirm acquires the firmware files directly from Nokia support servers so those are the real deal.

The words "Gedeeld Internet" in the screenshots above mean Internet sharing in Dutch.

Another thing is that a changelog for one of the firmwares on NaviFirm lists "Tethering or internet sharing ability" as coming with Windows Phone Tango.

Do you have wireless hotspot on your phones and do you use it often?

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Nokia Lumia 610 hits Asia in late April, the Philippines gets it first

Nokia Lumia 610 hits Asia in late April, the Philippines gets it first





Nokia just announced the Lumia 610 roll out schedule for Asia. The first country to get the company's most affordable WP smartphone will be the Philippines - sales there start during the last week of April.

After that, in May, the Lumia 610 is heading to China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam. The rest of the markets will get the Lumia 610 by the end of this quarter (June 30).

Nokia’s suggested retail price for the Lumia 610 before taxes and subsidies is €189, which seems quite attractive all well suited to the targeted young users.

Are you interested in getting one?

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Nokia Lumia 900 connectivity fix gets outed ahead of schedule

In a truly remarkable display of customer care, the folks at Nokia have managed to out the software fix toLumia 900's connectivity issues already. That's only two days after the Finnish company acknowledgedthe problem's existence, and an impressive three days earlier than promised.

The software update can be applied via Microsoft's Zune software. In case you don't feel like dealing with USB cables and such, you can also exchange your Nokia Lumia 900 at any AT&T store free of charge as well.

And by the way, Nokia and AT&T are still going to give you a $100 bill credit if you purchase a new device between now and April 21st as a goodwill gesture, thus making it free on a contract.

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Samsung says WP 8 devices are coming in the second half of 2012

For those of you who were worried about Samsung being too quiet on the Windows Phone field, we have some good news. The Korean giant's Taiwanese division has confirmed the that Windows Phone 8 Apollo running devices will hit the market in the second half of this year.

The devices will hit the market no earlier than October - after Microsoft launches the next iteration of its mobile OS. There are currently no details on their specs. They will surely follow once Microsoft reveals the hardware requirements for Windows Phone 8.

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Nokia acknowledges Lumia 900 issues, offers a fix

Nokia acknowledges Lumia 900 issues, offers a fix



Nokia Lumia 900 has become available just recently and exclusively (for now) for AT&T in the USA. Unfortunately, some users reported inability to establish or loss of data connection. Often those people were cut off from the LTE network completely.

Nokia’s response came rather quickly – the issue is said to be software-related and the fix is already in the works. The firmware update to resolve it will become available on Monday, April 16.

In case you own a troubled Lumia 900, but don’t want to wait for another week, you are welcome to switch your unit for a new and updated one at the AT&T’s stores immediately.

As an apology for the inconvenience Nokia is giving $100 credit to the AT&T’s bill to everyone, who bought or plans on buying the Lumia 900 until April 21.

Nokia Lumia 900 is available only (for a limited time) on AT&T and costs $100 with a 2-year contract. And if you get one until April 21 you’ll get that $100 back. Now seems like the right time to buy one, isn’t it?

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Free Xpress-on covers and discounts for the Nokia Lumia 710

Free Xpress-on covers and discounts for the Nokia Lumia 710



Nokia have been busy revitalizing their brand image in the US, originally the with the introduction of their Windows Phone-endowed Lumia 710 and more recently its bigger brother the LTE-capable Lumia 900. It looks as though people are forgetting about the phone that started it all however and as such Nokia have announced a pair deals for owners and prospective buyers of the 710.

For starters, those who can prove that they recently purchased a Nokia Lumia 710 will be able to register for a second Xpress-on colored back cover. The extra rear plates are available in cyan, fuchsia, yellow and white and are designed to suit either version of 710 (black or white bodied). In order to prove eligibility, users will have to register their IMEI number, phone number and list a purchase date in order for Nokia to send them an extra back cover, free of charge.

The second part of the Lumia 710's two-pronged attack is the price drop on a two-year contract to free, from $49.99. With the competent hardware of the Lumia 710, considering its mid-range credentials, that's not too shabby, but its not all smiles, as prospective customers will only be able to take advantage of this discount via means of a $50 mail-in rebate.

We expect that, for the meantime at least, this price drop is a temporary move on T-Mobile's part, but we suspect they won't leave it too long before permanently making the Lumia 710 gratis on contract. Lets see if our hunch is right in the coming months.

Have either of these offers caught your attention, or are Nokia still struggling to appear on your radar? Follow this link to register for a free back cover if you're eligible too.

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Certain Lumia 900 handsets facing loss of data connectivity

Certain Lumia 900 handsets facing loss of data connectivity

Being an early adopter is hard. You have to put up with all the problems that the first batch of the product may have while hoping they will be fixed eventually. This is true of the Lumia 900 buyers as well, who are facing a rather inconvenient situation of their data connectivity disappearing on their brand new LTE device.



Those affected with the problem are reporting that after a while the data connection on their phone was unavailable, although calls and text messaging seem to be working fine. Some of these people managed to get over this by restoring their devices to factory settings while others continue to have the problem despite trying out this solution.

Unfortunately, it seems the beta test is not over after all.

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Nokia Lumia 900 tops Amazon charts, Titan II nowhere in sight

Nokia Lumia 900 tops Amazon charts, Titan II nowhere in sight

Just two days after it went on sale, the Nokia Lumia 900 managed to climb to the top of the Amazon best seller charts.



The black version of the phone is the one leading the parade, while the cyan edition takes a respectable fifth place. The two Nokia Lumia 900 versions are also easily the two most popular AT&T devices currently available on Amazon.

The Lumia 900 also tops Amazon's Movers and Shakers list with the cyan variant boasting 394% growth.

And what about the HTC Titan II, which launched alongside the Nokia flagship you ask? Its $100 higher asking price obviously prevented it from coming even come close to the Lumia 900's blooming success and it didn't even make the top 20.

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AT&T launches WP-powered Lumia 900 and Titan II

AT&T launches WP-powered Lumia 900 and Titan II

Just as previously promised, AT&T has released the Nokia Lumia 900 and HTC Titan II to its customers.



The Nokia Lumia 900 is a Windows Phone smartphone with LTE connectivity, a 4.3" ClearBlack display of WVGA (480 x 800) resolution and an 8 MP camera with Carl-Zeiss optics. It will set you back $99.99 on a two-year deal or $449.99 without commitment.

The HTC Titan II pushes the megapixel boundaries by bringing 16 MP stills to the Windows Phone game and comes with a 4.7" Super LCD of WVGA resolution. It will cost a cool $199.99 on a two-year contract or $549.99 SIM-free.

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CDMA-packing Nokia Lumia 800C for China Telecom goes official

Nokia's boss and China Telecom's boss got together to announce the first CDMA Windows Phone for China - it's a version of the Nokia Lumia 800, named Lumia 800C, and it will be China Telecom's first Lumia phone.

The Lumia 800C packs all the cool features that the regular 800 has (except it swaps GSM for CDMA). That includes Nokia Maps, Drive and Music. Maps and Drive have free maps for China and other countries as usual, but tap into local content providers for better location-based services.

The 800C will come with magazine apps from Trends preinstalled (Cosmopolitan, FHM, Harper's Bazaar and Esquire) and the first 100,000 people to get the phone will be able to download Fruit Ninja and Plants vs. Zombies for free.

The Nokia Lumia 800C will be available in April through Tianyi FlyYoung shops, Nokia stores and many other retailers (both brick and mortar and online). Off contract, the Lumia 800C will go for 3600 Chinese yuan ($570).

A more affordable Nokia Lumia 610C is also in the works and it is expected to hit shelves in Q2.

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AT&T reveals Lumia 900 and Titan II off-contract pricing

Following yesterday's announcement of the special prices for the HTC Titan II and Nokia Lumia 900 including a two-year contract, now AT&T has spilled the beans on the off-contract price of the devices in case you are not into two-year commitments.

The HTC Titan II will sell for $549,99, while the Nokia Lumia 900 will set you back $449,99. It's not all that bad, when you compare them to HTC's subsidized price of $199,99 and Lumia's $99,99 on contract price tag.

As we told you yesterday, expect the Titan II and Lumia 900 to hit AT&T on April 8.

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HTC Titan II hits AT&T alongside the Lumia 900 on April 8

It seems the Nokia Lumia 900 won’t be the alone when it launches. AT&T will offer its customers another Windows Phone-running gadget – the HTC Titan II.

HTC Titan II hands-on photos

The Titan II is quite an impressive fella with its huge 4.7-inch WVGA screen, a 16MP camera sensor, LTE connectivity and an internal storage of 16GB.

The smartphone packs a 1.5GHz single-core processor and that’s probably the reason why there is no 1080p video capturing, but rather 720p mode only.

The Titan II is slated to hit the AT&T network on April 8 for $200 with a two-year contract.

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Windows Phone 7 Tango doesn’t actually allow up to 8 apps to run in the background

Remember when we told you that Tango, the latest update to Windows Phone 7, supports up to eight running applications in the background? Well, this turns out not to be true, as HTC HD2 developerHD2Owner over at XDA Developers proves.

It turns out that the official Tango update will support up to five apps for fast switching, and the magical eight were only supported in a custom ROM. This is the same custom Tango ROM we reported you about, designed for the HTC HD2.

The chief ROM developer had increased the number of applications running in the background just for the HTC HD2 Tango build. Here’s what the developer says about this misunderstanding:

More tasks in taskswitcher is not a Tango feature. It’s just another useful tweak I implemented into my ROM.

So that’s that. Maybe we’ll see this number of background apps to be part of the official with Windows Phone 8 or another future update by Microsoft. Or maybe we won’t.

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HTC HD2 gets Windows Phone 7 Tango ROM, proves it can run anything

The HTC HD2 is probably the most versatile smartphone out there. Why? Well, not only there’s anAndroid 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich port and a Windows Phone 7 ROM available, but the HD2 can even dual boot them. And if that wasn’t enough, you can add Ubuntu to the boot equation.

So the love of the developer community for the smartphone should come as a surprise to no one. And neither should the HTC HD2′s latest achievement – running Windows Phone 7 Tango.

XDA members report that the Tango ROM is stable and feels somewhat faster than the Mango ports. That’s probably because of Tango’s lower system requirements and various optimization for lower-end chipsets. Market is working, as is Zune syncing and recovery.

If you want to give it a whirl, the source link below is all yours. Just remember to read through the topic and follow the instructions carefully. Happy flashing!

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WP Tango aka Refresh to allow 8 apps running in background

We thought that the Windows Phone update, which will officially go by WP Refresh was all aboutoptimizations for low-end chipsets, but it turns out it also adds some new functionality.

The recently leaked Tango ROM revealed an increase in the maximum number of background apps. You can now multitask with up to 8 apps (rather than the current 5) working in background.

The Tango a.k.a. Refresh Windows Phone 7.5 update will hit the already released devices after the first low-end (Nokia) smartphones based on it hit the shelves in the near future.

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Microsoft to kill Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace on May 9

If there were any people left using Windows Mobile 6.x at all, they should know that Microsoft will shut down the Marketplace for its former OS on May 9. You won't be able to download or update apps after that.

Everything you installed from there will continue to work, but if you happen to reset your phone, you’ll lose your apps. Your only option then will be to side-load them afterwards.

We really can’t imagine anyone left using the platform and specifically its deserted application store anyway, so closing it should be the right decision.

Killing the application store of an OS means the end of the OS itself, so R.I.P. Windows Mobile.

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Nokia Lumia 900 to hit AT&T on April 8, promo videos today

An employee at an AT&T store in California revealed the Lumia 900 release date – April 8. There is still no official confirmation on this, but some previous rumors also suggested the second week of April as the release time frame.

The rumored price of the Lumia 900 is attractive at $99 (with a two-year contract, of course) and you might get a $25 gift card to use in the Marketplace as well.

Nokia and Microsoft are preparing a huge marketing (digital and TV) campaign for the Lumia 900, so it seems with the Lumia series failure is not an option for neither the companies.

Nokia has also uploaded a few new promo videos of the Lumia 900 too. Enojy!

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WP Tango official name is Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh

According Stefania Duico, the lead of Windows Phone Italy, the Windows Phone Tango update will be officially called 7.5 Refresh. As you probably know, currently WP Mango is called just 7.5.

Adding the Refresh moniker and not changing the OS version actually makes sense, because this update major role is to lower the Windows Phone specs so less-capable devices could run it (without multi-tasking, live tiles, etc.).

The update will become available for every WP-based smartphone out there later this year. The next major release is Apollo a.k.a. Windows Phone 8. It will probably launch in Q3 this year.

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Ideal smartphone screen size is 4 - 4.5 inches, study shows

A survey, performed by Strategy Analytics in the UK and US amongst current smartphone users, shows that more than 90% of consumers seek larger screens than those found on devices they currently own.



The explanation for this is that more and more people use their smartphones for web browsing, watching video and video conferencing, as well as mobile gaming. And as we all know, all of these are better on a bigger screen.

Unsurprisingly, females polled tended to wish for slightly smaller displays than males. Also, existing Android users were more likely to seek larger screens than their iPhone counterparts.

Strategy Analytics warned that any increase in screen size must not be accompanied by a similar increase in thickness or weight, because devices must remain compact enough to fit inside purses and pockets.

How about you? Share what's your ideal screen size with the rest of us in the comments section.

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Nokia Lumia 610 to get Wi-Fi hotspot functionality

Unwired View has uncovered an interesting feature in the upcoming Nokia Lumia 610 and that is the ability to use the phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot.



Now, on its own, the feature isn't particularly new and this functionality was in fact added in Windows Phone with the Mango update. But the reason it is interesting on the Lumia 610 is because it is the only Lumia phone as of now that can boast of this feature, with neither the Lumia 800 nor the 710 having it on- board, despite being more expensive.

It makes us wonder why Nokia would want to keep this feature on its cheaper device and away from those who paid more money for its more expensive handsets.

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