The unit available in Singapore will be the non-LTE version and instead it will be running on HSDPA+ which gives you up to 42Mbps download speed. I will not put high hopes on that in Singapore *.

3 colors will be available on launch date, white, black and cyan.

Nokia Lumia 900

Check out my Nokia Lumia 900 post when I was in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress 2012!

Official Site: Nokia Lumia 900

* In Singapore be glad that you can even get 10Mbps download speed. Mobile data speed in Singapore has been horrendous for the past few years and it just gets getting worse.

3 colors will be available on launch date, white, black and magenta. For the cyan, it will be available from Saturday, 12th May 2012 onwards.

Nokia Lumia 610

Check out my Nokia Lumia 610 post when I was in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress 2012!

Official Site: Nokia Lumia 610

• Pip Andersen free running Barcelona with the Nokia Lumia 900
• Jed Cullen skates Barcelona with the Nokia Lumia 900
• James Ivett BMX in Barcelona with the Nokia Lumia 900

Summary

• Blog Links
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Pre Event
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Day 01
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Day 02
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Day 03
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Day 04
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Nokia Asha 202/203/302
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Nokia Lumia 610
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Nokia Lumia 900
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Nokia 808 PureView
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Summary (This Post)
• Flickr Gallery Links
  • Mobile World Congress 2012 – Day 00
  • Mobile World Congress 2012 – Day 01
  • Mobile World Congress 2012 – Day 02
  • Mobile World Congress 2012 – Day 03
  • Mobile World Congress 2012 – Day 04
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Nokia Asha 202/203/302
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Nokia Lumia 610
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Nokia Lumia 900
  • Nokia At Mobile World Congress 2012 – Nokia 808 PureView
  • Photos Taken By Nokia 808 PureView
• Nokia Products Data Sheets
  • Nokia Asha 202
  • Nokia Asha 203
  • Nokia Asha 302
  • Nokia Lumia 610
  • Nokia Lumia 900
  • Nokia 808 PureView
  • Nokia BH-221 Headset
  • Nokia DC-16 Universal Portable USB Charger
• Nokia Products Pricing & Availability
  • Nokia Asha 202 – €60 (SGD$99) – 2nd Quarter 2012
  • Nokia Asha 203 – €60 (SGD$99) – 2nd Quarter 2012
  • Nokia Asha 302 – €95 (SGD$156.60) – Now
  • Nokia Lumia 610 – €189 (SGD$311.60) – 2nd Quarter 2012
  • Nokia Lumia 900 – €480 (SGD$791.30) – 2nd Quarter 2012
  • Nokia 808 PureView – €450 (SGD$742.30) – 2nd Quarter 2012
  • Nokia BH-221 Headset – €59 (SGD$97.30) – 2nd Quarter 2012
  • Nokia DC-16 Universal Portable USB Charger – €25 (SGD$41.20) – 2nd Quarter 2012

Nokia 808 PureView – Photo Taken (Click To Enlarge)

How about one more?

Nokia 808 PureView – Photo Taken (Click To Enlarge)

Here are more photos taken using Nokia 808 PureView:

The photos are not edited in any way, they are taken straight from the Nokia 808 PureView and uploaded to Flickr and of course the photos embedded in this post has been re-sized to 640px by Flickr.

Now, lets start.

The Nokia 808 PureView was Nokia’s flagship phone announced during Mobile World Congress 2012. It won the Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet at the Global Mobile Awards 2012.

Nokia 808 PureView – Front View

Nokia 808 PureView – Back View

Nokia 808 PureView – Right View

Nokia 808 PureView – Top View

The Nokia 808 PureView has a 41MP (yes 41 megapixels) camera. The sensor size itself is capable of taking pictures up to 7728×5368 (41MP) and it can take photos up to 7152×5368 (4:3 38MP) or 7728×4354 (16:9 34MP). For video recording, it is capable of capturing full HD video (1920×1080) at 30fps and of course HD (1280×720) at 30fps.

Specifications

• Operating: Symbian Belle (with Feature Pack 1)
• Processor: 1.3 GHz ARM11
• Networks: WCDMA 850/900/1700/-21001900/2100, GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
• 4″ ClearBlack Display AMOLED screen (640 x 360 pixels, 16.7 million colours) (Corning Gorilla Glass)
• 512MB RAM
• 16 GB internal user memory with support for up to 48 GB with an external microSD memory card
• Primary (Rear-facing): 41 megapixel camera sensor with Nokia PureView imaging technology and Carl Zeiss optics
• Photo Resolution: 7152×5368 (4:3 38MP) or 7728×4354 (16:9 34MP)
• Video Resolution: 1920×1080 @ 30fps or 1280×720 @ 30fps
• Secondary (Front-facing): 0.3 MP megapixel camera sensor (480p @ 30fps)
• Xenon flash with operating range up to 3.5m
• Bluetooth 3.0, HDMI, DLNA, Secure NFC, WLAN, A-GPS, FM transmitter
• BV-4D 1400 mAh high voltage Li-ion battery
• Volume: 95.5cc
• Weight: 169 g
• Dimensions: 123.9 x 60.2 x 13.9 mm

Availability: Q2 2012
Retail Price: €450
Nokia 808 Pure View Colors: White, Black, Red

Nokia 808 PureView – 3 Colors Available

Nokia 808 PureView – 41MP

Despite being a phone with 41MP camera, lots of people are wondering why Nokia is still using Symbian Belle (with Feature Pack 1) instead of Windows Phone 7.5. I did raise this question to the product manager. The official answer I get is that this phone has been in the works for 5 years and it is only recently that Nokia begin changing their strategy towards Windows Phone, so porting over to Windows Phone platform within such a short time frame is not possible (assuming that it has to be announced at MWC 2012).

I am also guessing that there is other factors such as source code access. Nokia does not have full source code access to Windows Phone so they have to rely on Microsoft to tweak their OS, whereas if Nokia were to go with Symbian Belle, they have full access to the source code and hence it is possible to make full use of the PureView technology in the shortest possible time.

I would say, think of it as you are buying/using a digital camera with a mobile phone capability rather than buying a mobile phone with a digital camera ability and the Symbian OS will not be a deal breaker.

PureView is not the name of the phone, but rather an imaging technology and we will definitely see it on Windows Phone when the time is ripe (if you are into rumors, there is a leaked shot of Windows Phone with PureView technology).

Nokia 808 PureView – Uses MicroSIM

Nokia 808 PureView – Full Resolution or PureView

How does Nokia PureView Zoom Works?
There is no concept of zoom in the Nokia 808 PureView. When you zoom, you are just selecting the relevant area of the sensor. So with no zoom, the full area of the sensor corresponding to the aspect ration is used. The limit of zoom is reached when the selected output resolution becomes the same as the input resolution. For example, with the default settings of 5MP (3072×1728), once the area of the sensor reaches that, you hit the zoom limit. This means the zoom is always true to the image you want.

One of the benefits that the zoom can give you is pixel oversampling. Pixel oversampling combines many pixels to create a single (super) pixel. When this happens, you keep virtually all the details but filter away visual noises from the image.

The level of pixel oversampling is the highest when you are not using the zoom, it gradually decreases until you hit the maximum zoom, where there is no oversampling.

Since there is no moving optics when it comes to zooming, the zoom function is completely silent which is good for video recording.

Nokia 808 PureView uses a new zoom concept called Slide Zoom (which I kinda like). All you have to do is slide your finger up or down on the screen. As you move your finger, a frame will appear and moves in sync with your fingers. This allows you to preview the framing before committing which is again useful for video recording.

If you are interested in more details how Nokia PureView works, check out the PureView Imaging technology White Paper.

It seems that for the upload part, we are still stick with HSUPA instead of HSUPA+ Dual Carrier (DC-HSUPA) as it has not been completed.

Specification wise, it is exactly the same as the LTE variant right down to the dimensions and weight. Interestingly, when Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 900 in CES 2012, the white color was not mentioned.

Nokia Lumia 900 (White) – Front View

Nokia Lumia 900 (White) – Back View

Nokia SIM Door Key

Just want to highlight one of the more prominent change as compared to the Nokia Lumia 800 is that Nokia Lumia 900′s SIM tray design has been redesigned. Now it requires a SIM Door Key (as what Nokia calls it, similar to iPhone’s SIM Tray Eject Pin) to open the SIM tray. Because of this, the micro USB port is now easily accessible without opening any flip.

Specifications

• Operating: Windows Phone Release 7.5 – Mango Commercial Release 2 (Mango + LTE)
• Processor: 1.4GHz Snapdragon APQ8055 + MDM9200
• Networks: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100, GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
• Speed: HSDPA+ Dual Carrier cat 24 (42 Mbps), HSUPA cat 6: 5.8 Mbps
• 4.3″ ClearBlack AMOLED display with WVGA 800×480 resolution
• 512MB RAM
• 16 GB internal memory (14.5GB user memory)
• Primary (Rear-facing): 8MP with f2.2/28mm Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED flash, Auto Focus, 720p, 30fps video capture
• Secondary (Front-facing): 1MP with f2.4, 30fps video capture (VGA video call resolution)
• A-GPS, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), USB 2.0 high-speed, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 3.5mm headset connector
• 1830mAh battery
• Accelerometer, Proximity, Magnetometer, light sensor, Gyroscope
• Volume: 90cc
• Weight: 160 g (5.6 ounces)
• Dimensions (max): 127.8 x 68.5 x 11.5 mm (5 x 2.7 x .45 inches)

Availability: Q2 2012
Retail Price: €480
Nokia Lumia 900 Colors: White, Cyan, Black

Nokia Lumia 900 (White) – Top View

Nokia Lumia 900 (White) – Bottom View

Nokia Lumia 900 (White) – Right View

Comparision With Nokia Lumia 800

Comparison With Nokia Lumia 800

Nokia Lumia 900 (Cyan)

Windows Phone OS now supports a lower cost processor, the Qualcomm 7x27a “system on a chip” running at 600MHz with reduced memory of at least 256MB and hence making it more affordable to emerging markets.

Nokia Lumia 610 is the first Windows Phone to take advantage of this new scheme and ZTE will follow suit with the ZTE Orbit in Q2 2012. For the Nokia Lumia 610, the processor being used is Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 running on 800MHz which is better than the minimum specs while the RAM remains at the minimum at 256MB.

As with all Nokia Lumia devices, the Nokia Lumia 610 (being the fourth Lumia device) will also comes with Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive, Nokia Transport, Nokia Music and Nokia Reading.

Nokia Lumia 610 (White & Black) – Front View

Nokia Lumia 610 (White & Black) – Back View

Nokia Lumia 610 (Cyan) – Side View

The design of the Lumia 610 is slightly different from its family as it comes with beveled metallic edge (which is similar to the Nokia Asha family) to give users a feel that it is a premium product. It is using micro SIM and comes with 8GB of built-in storage. There is no expandable storage simply because (I am guessing) Windows Phone 7 does not support it. If it does support, I am willing to bet that Nokia will include it in.

Specifications

• Networks: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100, GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
• Speed: HSDPA cat 7: 7.2Mbps
• Display: 3.7″ WVGA (800×480) TFT capacitive touch LCD display with pinch zoom
• OS: Windows Phone 7.5
• Memory: 256MB RAM
• Storage: 8GB storage
• Camera: 5Mpix auto-focus, LED flash, Video capturing MPEG-4 VGA @ 30 fps
• Size/Weight: 119.24mm x 62.18mm x 11.95mm (LxWxT) / 77.6cc / 131.5g (with battery)
• Connectivity: WLAN 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, A-GPS, micro-USB connector and charging, 3.5mm AHJ connector
• Processor: 800 MHz Single Core / Qualcomm Snapdragon S1
• Audio: MP3 player, Audio jack: 3.5mm, Supported codecs incl.: mp3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, wma
• Battery: 1300 mAh
• Talk time: GSM: 10.5h, WCDMA: 9.5h
• Standby time: GSM: 670h, WCDMA:720h
• Music playback: up to 35 hours

Availability: Q2 2012
Retail Price: €189
Nokia Lumia 610 Colors: White, Cyan, Magenta, Black

Nokia Lumia 610 (Cyan) – Front View

Nokia Lumia 610 (Cyan) – Back View

Nokia Lumia 610 (Magenta) – Front View

Nokia Lumia 610 (Magenta) – Back View

Nokia Lumia 610 – Battery Cover Off

Nokia Lumia 610 – Battery Off

Nokia Lumia 610 – Back Covers

Links

• Official Windows Phone Developer Blog: Get Ready for 60% More Potential Customers
• Nokia Lumia 610

All Nokia Asha phones are powered by Series 40 (S40) OS. If you notice the Nokia Asha 202, 203 & 302 comes with a metallic bevel to give users a feel that this is a premium product as users from emerging markets associate metal with premium. The Nokia Asha 302 also comes with a metallic back cover.

Nokia Asha 202/203
Nokia Asha 202 and 203 are identical phones expect that Nokia Asha 202 supports dual SIM Cards (1 of them being hot swappable). Both comes with a traditional keypad with a 2.4″ touch screen, a 2-megapixel camera, music player, FM radio, Nokia Browser, and Bluetooth connectivity, and can handle memory cards up to 32GB. Estimated retail price for each is about EUR 60, excluding taxes and subsidies, and both are expected to start shipping in the second quarter of 2012.

Also, the Nokia Asha 202 and 203 will be the first Series 40 devices to offer EA games. As a 60-day promotion at Nokia Store, user can download the EA 40-game pack worth €75 and these games includes popular titles such as Tetris, Need for Speed, The Run and Bejeweled.

Nokia Asha 202 – Front

Nokia Asha 202 – Back

Only Difference Between The Nokia Asha 202 and 203

Colors Available For The Nokia Asha 202/203

Specifications

• System: GSM 900/1800
• 2 MP camera
• Loud and clear inbuilt speaker
• User Interface: Series 40 , Touch & Type
• Display: 2.4″ QVGA, resistive touch
• Memory: Up to 10MB free user memory
• Memory card: Support up to 32 GB microSD
• Connectivity: GPRS/EDGE, 2.0 mm Charger Connector, Bluetooth v2.1 with EDR, micro USB 2.0 connector, 3.5 mm AV connector
• Standby time: Up to 16.5 days
• Talk time: Up to 5 hours
• Dimensions (L x W x H): 114.8 mm x 49.8 mm x 13.85 mm
• Weight: 90g (including battery)
• Nokia Life (in selected markets)
• Nokia Maps (in selected markets)
• Exclusive Games Gift from EA – 40 games to download from Nokia Store
• Easy Swap Dual SIM with dedicated SIM manager to personalize your phone and save up to 5 SIM contacts with unique information (Nokia 202 Only)

Availability: Q2 2012
Retail Price: €60
Nokia Asha 202 Colors: Black, Silver White, Dark Red, Dark Grey, Golden White
Nokia Asha 203 Colors: Silver White, Dark Red, Dark Grey

Nokia Asha 302
The Nokia Asha 302 is Nokia’s first Series 40 phone to support Mail for Exchange, giving people access to their emails, contacts and calendar on an exchange server. That and a stylish QWERTY keyboard make it ideal for young entrepreneurs and professionals seeking a beautifully designed phone. Additionally, the Nokia Asha connects to popular social networks and enables chatting through Whatsapp and other IM services. The Nokia Asha 302 is powered by a 1-GHz processor and supports 3.5G data speeds.

Nokia Asha 302 – Front

Nokia Asha 302 – Back

All The 5 Colors Of Nokia Asha 302

Rubber Case For Nokia Asha 302

Specifications

• System: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100 EGSM 850/900/1800/1900
• 1 GHz processor
• Display: 2.4″ QVGA (320×240), up to 262k colors
• Memory: Up to 140 MB internal memory, support for up to 32 GB microSD memory card Data Services & Connectivity
• Wi-Fi connectivity
• 3.5G, HSPA data access
• 3.2 megapixel camera with 4 x digital zoom
• High performing loudspeakers
• User Interface: Series 40
• Dimensions (L x W x H): 115.2 mm x 58.9 mm x 13.5 mm
• Weight: 106g (including battery)
• Standby time: Up to 29 days (GSM); up to 34 days (WCDMA)
• Talk time: Up to 9 hours (GSM); 5.9 hours (WCDMA)
• Nokia Browser and Webapps for rich and easy internet experience
• Music player, enhanced stereo FM radio
• Nokia Life in selected markets

Availability: Now
Retail Price: €95
Colors: Dark Grey, White, Plum Red, Mid Blue, Golden Light

Links

• Nokia Asha 202
• Nokia Asha 203
• Nokia Asha 302

But because the Purity HD Stereo Headset is Fuchsia (Pink) in color, he don’t really like it. So I swapped with him as I can give it (Purity HD Stereo Headset) to my wife.

The Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster is retailing for SGD$298 in Singapore and is available in 4 colors, Black, White, Cyan & Fuchsia (Pink).

Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster – Box Front

Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster – Box Open

Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster – Box Contents

Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster

Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster

If you want to get it in the Nokia retail shops, they are available in 4 colors, Black, White, Cyan & Fuchsia (Pink). They are retailing it for SGD$148.

Nokia Purity In-Ear Headset by Monster – Box

Nokia Purity In-Ear Headset by Monster – Contents

Nokia Purity In-Ear Headset by Monster – 3.5mm Connector

Nokia Purity In-Ear Headset by Monster – Remote

Nokia Purity In-Ear Headset by Monster – Ear Piece

Woke up at about 9am and went down for breakfast and went back up to my hotel room after that to get my stuff packed. I have requested for my transport to come at 2pm despite my flight is at 6.30pm as I wanted to claim tax refund (18%) and shop at Barcelona Airport!

Beef Burger

Had a simple lunch down at our hotel’s cafe with Katie from 1000heads before bidding her goodbye!

When my transport came to pick me up, I realized that it is the same driver who picked me up from the airport when I arrived in Barcelona!

I reached Barcelona Airport at about 2.45pm and took me 10 minutes to find the stupid tax refund counter. It is hidden all the way to the left side of the airport. I think they purposely isolate it so that you will have problems finding it. You can get a tax refund of 18% and to my surprise there is no queue at all to get your tax refunded. However the attitude of the officer at the counter is really horrible.

Tax Refund Isolated Corner

Take a look at the picture above, there is no indication saying that you can refund tax there except the small “TAX FREE” icon which is so small and located right at the bottom of the sign.

I opted for credit card refund instead of cash refund because I do not want to queue twice (1 at the tax refund and 1 at the bank).

When you purchase stuff from any store (I bought a Loewe bag for my mom) and asked for credit card tax refund, they will give you 2 envelops with 2 tax invoices (1 in each envelop). You are supposed to get both the invoices stamped but only mail back one for the custom to process.

Mailbox

Here are my flight details back to Singapore just for archiving purposes:

• Flight No.: LH1133
• Flight Hours: 2 hours 20 minutes
• Departure: 18:35 on Thursday, 1st March 2012 (Terminal 1, Barcelona Airport, Barcelona)
• Arrival: 20:55 on Thursday, 1st March 2012 (Terminal 1, Frankfurt Airport, Germany)
• Layover Hours: 1 hour 10 minutes
• Flight No.: LH778
• Flight Hours: 11 hours 50 minutes
• Departure: 22:05 on Thursday, 1st March 2012 (Terminal 1, Frankfurt Airport, Germany)
• Arrival: 16:55 on Friday, 2nd March 2012 (Terminal 2, Changi Airport, Singapore)

As this is the last day of my trip, I would like to thank Nokia, Nokia Connects and the girls/guys at 1000heads for the invite to my first Mobile World Congress and the awesome hospitality that you have provided us for the whole trip. It was an awesome one and I really enjoyed myself!

Hope to see you guys at Nokia World 2012 at Helsinki, Finland!

This concludes my coverage of MWC, look out for 4 more blog posts of the newly launched Nokia phones at Mobile World Congress 2012 – Nokia Asha Family, Nokia Lumia 610, Nokia Lumia 900 and Nokia 808 PureView.

Pino Bonetti (Left), Mark Thomas (Right)

Nokia Maps update will be out soon for Nokia Lumia devices which gives you greater zoomed-in details as well as the ability to create and share your favorite places via social networking sites.

Nokia Maps is there to help you, whether you’re in a car, or on foot.

When you’re in hurry it can be confusing to see every eating choice, or art gallery – you only want to know where you’re going.

That’s why Nokia Maps has also been updated for Windows Phone to make the experience simpler, with fewer intrusive objects and signs to get in the way of where you want to go – and a reduced colour palette to allow the brain to process information more easily.

Now you can zoom in to get all the detail you need, and pull back for larger context about what route you need to take – with pedestrians and drivers seeing different maps to reflect their different experiences.

With the updated Nokia Maps you can now also create and collect your favourite places, and access places you’ve recently visited.

Then, if you’re travelling with friends or colleagues, you can share your route with SMS email or social networks.

Nokia Maps now covers over 190 countries – and uses the latest technology to make sure that images are viewable from any browser, device and operating system.

Nokia Drive 2.0 will be out soon which will get full offline. In the pipeline is Nokia Drive 3.0, which is a bigger update that allows you to pin your trip to the live tiles of your home screen. It will also learn your daily commute routes and automatically adjust your routes depending on the day’s traffic.

Nokia Drive has been one of the most popular services on the Lumia, offering free turn-by-turn voice guided navigation in over 100 countries, with multiple views, larger icons for in-car arms length use, one easy search box, and fast route calculation and preview.

Now Nokia Drive on Lumia gets full offline support, with offline search and routing from calculating a route, to navigation and re-routing. A newly designed dashboard now shows speed limit alerts, as well as the speed you’re travelling at, as well as estimated time or arrival, time to destination and distance to destination. You can also access a list of recently saved destinations through a single tap, and then start turn-by-turn navigation.

Nokia Public Transport is a new app that will be rolled out to existing Nokia Lumia devices. Nokia Transport will give you an real-time arrival timing of public transportation such as train and buses. If you city does not have any these data available, the timing will be estimated. For Singapore/Malaysia case, it will be estimated instead of real-time. I really hope Nokia can work with LTA to get the real-time information which is already available out there.

Nokia Public Transport is a natural complement to Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive as part of navigating your life – and is now available as an app on the Nokia Lumia.

Nokia Public Transport is a unique service that allows you to plan fast inner-city routes from point to point, and work out your time of arrival.

Using Nokia Public Transport you can see when the nearest train, bus, tram or metro leaves, find out how to get to the station, discover if you need to change trains or lines along the way, and then use walk routing to reach your final destination.

Check out My Nokia Blog: Mega Q&A session: Lumia/WP Production/Design, Maps, Entertainment & More for more details of the morning Q&A.

There is no lunch Q&A and hence we got the whole afternoon free to ourselves. I went back to MWC to Nokia booth as I got tip that Nokia is giving away free stuff and that includes a Nokia Lumia 800!

There are 2 giveaways on that day, one at about 2pm and the other is about 6pm. Each giveaway will have 20 items which consists of items like the Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-221, Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster, Nokia Purity Stereo Headset by Monster and even Nokia Lumia 800.

Giveaway #1

Giveaway #2

The Lollipop

For each giveaway, they will give out 100 lollipops to the guests around the booth but only 20 of them will have a slip of paper in it to indicate what item you won. If your lollipops contain a piece of paper, you won something, if not try again at the next giveaway!

I did not win in the first giveaway, but I won the Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster in the second giveaway (stayed tuned for that blog post).

After the first giveaway, I went to take a look at the Android Booth because I missed it the previous days. They are giving out free smoothies and Ice Cream Sandwich (not the phone) at the booth!

Free Smoothie

Ice Cream Sandwich

After the visit to the Android booth, I went out of MWC, took a subway to Diagonal station which is their shopping district to help my mom get her Loewe bag. There is a protest going on there as well and I believe they marched all the way to MWC (which is about 6 stations away).

Protest

It is a peaceful protest but I heard things got bad when they reached the MWC. I think the protest is about Capitalism. When I got back to MWC, the main entrance was closed and we have to enter via the side entrance (which is quite a far walk).

Main Entrance Closed

Took a look at these booths after I got back:

• Eset
• W3C
• LG
• Intel
• Mozilla Firefox
• Krusell

Nokia Wins

Did I mention that Nokia also won a couple of awards?

• Global Mobile Awards: Best Feature Phone or Entry Level Phone

  Nokia – Nokia C3-00

  The Nokia C3 was designed to put better social networking tools in the hands of more people around the world, at affordable prices. The C3 features a QWERTY keyboard and access to social networks directly from the homescreen. The Nokia C3 also comes with Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat, meaning first time users can set up email and chat accounts straight from the device. Other notable features are Wi-Fi connectivity, a two megapixel camera, rich color 2.4 inch screen and support for up to an 8GB memory card. The C3 demonstrates Nokia’s dedication to enabling the next billion to connect to the internet.

  Judges’comments

  “The numbers speak for themselves – a blockbusting chart topper with universal appeal.”

  The judges would also like to recognise the companies who are working to solve the needs of the ageing global population. Devices that deliver accessibility above all else are becoming increasingly important.”

• Global Mobile Awards: Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet at Mobile World Congress 2012

  Nokia – Nokia 808 Pure View

• Laptop Magazine: Best Budget Smartphone

  Nokia – Nokia Lumia 610

  Though the Lumia 610 will be marketed at budget-conscious consumers, Nokia didn’t skimp on this Windows Phone’s style or software. Available with a stunning metallic-edged black, cyan, red or white bezel, this handset (189 Euros unsubsidized) looks sexier than, any high-end superphones. Even with just 256MB of RAM and a lower-end 800-MHz processor, the Lumia 610 provides smooth performance when navigating through Windows Phone 7.5 and using Nokia’s suite of innovative applications. It’s also the first phone to come bundled with Nokia Transport, a new app that helps you plan a route using public transportation rather than a car.

• ComputerActive: Best Windows Phone at MWC 2012

  Nokia – Nokia Lumia 610

• tom’s hardware: Best of MWC 2012

  Nokia – Nokia Lumia 610

Dinner was at Ca La Nuri together with Nokia Asha 202 and 203 product managers (Loek van der Helm & Vivian Chan). It is a small world that Vivian is also a Singaporean who once worked for Nokia Singapore but now is based in Beijing (still working for Nokia).

Top (L-R): Me, Vivian Chan | Bottom (L-R): Loek, Trent

We also ended the day quite early as some of the guys have an early flight back home the next day.

Read: New Nokia Services at Mobile World Congress

Dean Patrick From Nokia Entertainment

Dean showcase the new Nokia Reading which of course as the name sounds, allow you to read and buy e-books/audio books on your Lumia devices. It will come to existing Lumia devices in April 2012.

Reading provides a single, integrated hub experience, leveraging a panorama design to make it easier and faster to enjoy news, ebooks and audio books, including the ability to access content offline and pin dynamic content to the start screen as a Live Tile. With an emphasis on local language materials wherever it becomes available, Nokia Reading delivers a highly personalized and locally relevant service. Future updates will include the ability to build dynamic magazines from feeds for a single integrated view of favourite online content. With no sign-in or subscriptions, Nokia Reading will be available from April.

He also passed around the Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-221 for us to play with. It is NFC enabled which is used to aid the Bluetooth pairing process.

Dean also showcase Nokia Mix Radio which is announced back in Nokia World 20122 which allows you to listen to million of tracks for free (without subscription or logging-in) from 100+ preset radio station of different generes. Mix Radio is already available in Singapore. If you do not like the song that you are listening, you can always skip it, but do note that you can skip 6 times per hour due to licensing agreements.

Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-221

After breakfast and the Q&A session, we also received a gift from Red Bull.

Gift From Red Bull

You must be wondering what does Red Bull has to do with Nokia. Well, Red Bull has partnered Nokia to deliver access to amazing experiences, best sporting and culture content to Nokia Lumia devices! You can expect stuff like location and outdoor adventure, augmented reality, and sharing experiences with your friends!

Lunch was at the same hotel yesterday at Hotel AB Viladomat. Before lunch, we have a Q&A with the product managers of Nokia Lumia 610 (Sumi Mikami, Sharat Kungar – Not In The Picture Below & Tanja Rauniaho-Mitchell) and Lumia 900 (Jason Gregory)!

Jason Gregory (2nd From the Left)

Pino Bonetti – Nokia Maps (Left), Tanja Rauniaho-Mitchell (Right)

Sumi Mikami (Front)

One of the most requested feature for the Lumia is the Internet Sharing which is already built-in into Windows Phone 7.5, however it is not enabled in Nokia Lumia devices. Jason Gregory mentioned that it will be available for Lumia devices in the next update.

The White Lumia 800 is now available in stores and the price remain the same as the rest of the colors.

Check out My Nokia Blog: Mega Q&A session: Lumia/WP Production/Design, Maps, Entertainment & More for more details of both the morning & lunch Q&A.

After lunch we head off to Park Güell as one of our sight seeing attraction!

Park Güell

Park Güell – View From The Top

One Of The Longest Benches In The World

Top (L-R): Jason, James | Bottom (L-R): Me, Ali, Katie, Trent

After Park Güell, we headed back to MWC and continue looking at other booths

• Windows Phone
• HTC
• Adobe
• Opera
• Nvidia
• MediaTek
• Dolby
• Singapore
• Futjisu

There is a networking party at the venue itself that happen at 7pm and there are free drinks and pretzels and of course performance by some acrobats!

Performance

We left MWC at about 8pm to head for dinner at La Clara together with the Nokia Asha 302 product managers!

The 5 Colors Of Nokia Asha 302

Dinner ended about 10.30pm and the bus picked us up back to our hotel!

Read: New Nokia Services at Mobile World Congress

The Nokia booth is located in Hall 7 which is about 8 minutes walk from the main entrance. The press conference begins at 8.30am. We reached the MWC venue at 8am but the main press conference hall is already full! So they placed us in an “overflowing” hall which is just beside it. This also means we can’t see the press conference live and everything is projected out for us to see in the hall.

Nokia Banner Outside Hall 7

Overflowing Hall

Steven Elop Being Projected

Nokia announced 6 phones during the press conference:

• Nokia Asha 202
• Nokia Asha 203
• Nokia Asha 302
• Nokia Lumia 610
• Nokia Lumia 900 (Non LTE)
• Nokia 808 PureView

Nokia Asha 202

Nokia Asha 203

Nokia Asha 302

Nokia Lumia 610

Nokia Lumia 900

Nokia 808 PureView

I will cover these phones in separate blog posts once I have completed the coverage of MWC.

The Booth Where All The Phones Are

Nokia Developer Booth

Nickname “The Treehouse”

Nokia Booth

I spotted the upcoming Nokia DC-16 Portable Charger which is available in 4 different colors, Black, White, Cyan & Fuchsia (Pink) and will be retailing for €25 (SGD$41). It has a battery capacity of 2,200mAh and it comes with matching Micro USB cable as well!

Nokia DC-16 Portable Charger

We headed out at about 11.30am to Hotel AB Viladomat for a Q&A Session with the product managers of Nokia 808 PureView (Damian Dinning & Vesa Jutila) followed by lunch at the hotel.

Check out My Nokia Blog: Q&A with Damien Dinning on the Nokia 808 PureView (+Photos) for more information regarding the Q&A.

I will talk more about the Nokia 808 PureView in its own blog post =D

Sensor Sizes (5MP, 8MP, 41MP)

After lunch, went back to the Nokia Booth at MWC and they have ice cream stall in it! Yay!

Ice Cream Stall In Nokia Booth

Caught up with an old friend, Dinesh (now based in Nokia HQ) who was the first person in Nokia to contact me to attend Nokia’s media event, Nokia: Go Play, back in 2007!

Me, Dinesh (Nokia), Jason (smashpop)

As we have some time left before dinner, we went around MWC taking a look at other booths

• Ubuntu
• Velti
• PayPal
• BlackBerry
• Gree
• Symantec
• Samsung
• Motorola
• Sandisk
• Qualcomm
• Duracell
• Sony

El Molino

Dinner was a Nokia/Microsoft party happening at El Molino. The party was great and of course there are free phones to be given away. Just beat the top score of Fruit Ninja and you walk away with a Nokia Lumia 800!

5 Floors Of Party

I manage to grab 2 free Windows Phone t-shirts, 1 t-shirt from Level 6 – VIP Lounge (I checked-in using 4square into the venue) and 1 from Level 4 – Ninja Dojo (they are giving it out).

Skype Cushion, Windows Phone Seats

Love the Skype cushion and Windows Phone seats in the VIP Lounge!

The bus came to pick us up to the hotel at 11pm, it was a little early for a party to end so early but we are kinda tired as it has been a long day!

Took Lufthansa flight for the first time. There is no direct flight to Barcelona for Lufthansa and hence I took a flight (LH779) to Frankfurt, Germany and another flight (LH1124) from Frankfurt to Barcelona, Spain.

It is about 13 hours flight to Frankfurt and with a layover time of about an hour and another 2 hours flight to Barcelona.

While I was entering the gate, they told me that my seat has been changed, I was like WTF? I asked them is it still an aisle seat, and the told me no, they upgraded me to business class! I was so happy as it was my first time seating in a business class and the flight is 13 hours long!

Here are my flight details just for archiving purposes:

• Flight No.: LH779
• Flight Hours: 13 hours
• Departure: 23:55 on Saturday, 25th February 2012 (Terminal 2, Changi Airport, Singapore)
• Arrival: 05:55 on Sunday, 26th February 2012 (Terminal 1, Frankfurt Airport, Germany)
• Layover Hours: 1 hour 20 minutes
• Flight No.: LH1124
• Flight Hours: 2 hours
• Departure: 07:15 on Sunday, 26th February 2012 (Terminal 1, Frankfurt Airport, Germany)
• Arrival: 09:15 on Sunday, 26th February 2012 (Terminal 1, Barcelona Airport, Barcelona)

I reached Barcelona at about 9am on Sunday, 26th February 2012. Barcelona is 7 hours behind Singapore (GMT+1). This time round, I don’t have any jetlag compared to my first trip to Europe which is to London for Nokia World 2011.

Friendly Driver

After I touched down in Barcelona and leaving the arrival hall, the driver is already there waiting for me holding a paper with my name on it.

My MWC 2012 Pass

Since I was early and we are still waiting for another guy (James Ivett), I proceed on to collect my MWC pass at the airport.

My Ride

Didn’t expect the ride to my hotel will be in a Mercedes! The ride from the airport is about 45 minutes. We stayed at La Mola which is very nice but a little isolated as most of the hotel in the city is fully booked 3 months before MWC.

La Mola Lobby

There are 2 buildings in the hotel, 1 building has only 3 floors while the other has 5 floors. I stayed on the building that has 3 floors.

When I entered the room (Room 116), I was like WOW, the view is awesome and thanks to the cool weather in Barcelona (13°), it makes it even more awesome.

My Room

Greens

When you open the door on the left and pull up the blinds, the above picture is what you will see! This will not work in Singapore because it is so humid and full of mosquitoes!

After I settled down and put down all my bags, I met up with the guys from Nokia Connect as well as bloggers to go to the city!

Prepaid SIM

The hospitality of Nokia Connects is awesome, the first thing that they gave us is a pre-paid SIM with data plan of course. That is so thoughtful! Before the trip, I was wondering how can I get a pre-paid SIM with data plan as all the telco website is in Spanish! Google translate don’t work here because the important information are all in images.

I can imagine how much time is needed to get so many pre-paid SIM because when you buy any SIM card, they require you to produce a verification either passport or an identity card. I think for each SIM card, the process will take at least 10-15 minutes. Two thumbs up for that!

As some of the guys came in the day before, they could not collect their pass at the airport because the MWC pass collection at the airport is available only on Sunday onwards and hence the first stop we made in the city is to Fira de Barcelona which is the location that MWC will be held.

Fira

Meg (1000heads), Me, Jason (Blogger), Tom (Nokia), Trent (Blogger), Elina (Nokia)

Barcelona, like most cities in Europe, the shops there basically don’t open on Sunday! The whole shopping center is like a ghost town, but at least restaurants are open.

Had my first Tapas in Spain at a cafe outside the shopping center, Arena de Barcelona, which is located just opposite Fira.

Arena

After the late lunch, we took a long walk all the way to the famous Sagrada Família. Which is still under construction since 1882.

Sagrada Família

After Sagrada Família, our time is up and needed to go back to our hotel, so we took the subway back to Fira and got a cab from there.

Subway In Barcelona

I am pretty impressed with the subway in Barcelona, it is efficient, clean and the arrival timing is precise to the second!

Arrival Timing

Dinner was buffet at our hotel’s cafe because it is more convenient for all of us. It takes about 40mins and €60 for the cab ride to and fro from our hotel.

It was not really a last minute decision. I proposed to Li Xiang while celebrating our 7th Anniversary at Klapsons Boutique Hotel on 22th October 2011. Li Xiang suggested to do something out of the ordinary which is to register our marriage in Las Vegas since we will be going there for holiday in 2 months time. We asked our parents and they did not object it and we went ahead as planned!

We got married on the 4th January 2012, chose Chapel Of The Flowers as our wedding venue and stayed at Caesars Palace.

There are only 2 of us and hence our witness was our photographer. Thanks to the live streaming provided by Chapel Of The Flower, our family members and friends who are back in Singapore could watch it live despite it is 5am in the morning in Singapore!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our family members and friends who woke up so early so that they can catch it live. A big thank you to all of you! And for those who sent us roses and gift certificates via Chapel Of The Flower’s website while watching the live stream, a even BIGGER thank you to you!

Back to the topic of this post, because I got married in Las Vegas and Nokia Connects (@Nokia_Connects) decides to send me this awesome and very creative wedding gift when they came down to Singapore for the Social Media Week (Nokia is one of the sponsors for Social Media Week). They even hand delivered it to my office!

Wedding Gift Box

It’s A Poker Set With Chips

The Illusionists Tickets

Elvis Sunglasses

Nokia Connects wanted this gift to remind me of my wedding in Las Vegas! And of course when you think of Las Vegas, you will think of Casino (Poker Set With Chips), Cirque du Soleil’s shows (The Illusionists Tickets) and Elvis/Elvis’s styled wedding (Elvis Sunglasses)!

A Little Card

On behalf of my wife (Li Xiang) and I, we would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to Nokia Connects (@Nokia_Connects) for the awesome and creative wedding gift!

I will see you guys soon at Mobile World Congress 2012!

Now, if only Nokia included in NFC to the Lumia 900 and it would be perfect!

Nokia Lumia 900

What Has Changed?
The design is almost the same as the Nokia Lumia 800 except it has bigger screen 4.3″ vs 3.7″ while maintaining the same resolution of 800×480.

The processer speed is the same at 1.4GHz, but the Nokia Lumia 900 uses a newer Snapdragon S2 processor, which I think should give it some performance boost over the Nokia Lumia 800.

When it comes to camera, the back camera remains the same while a 1MP front-facing camera has been added.

Gyroscope has been added to the Nokia Lumia 900 which was missing in the Nokia Lumia 800.

According to My Nokia Blog, the SIM tray design has been changed as well, now it requires a SIM Door Key (as what Nokia calls it, similar to iPhone’s SIM Tray Eject Pin) to open the SIM tray. Because of this change, the microUSB port is now exposed.

The battery capacity has also been increased from 1,450mAh of the Nokia Lumia 800 to 1,830mAh of the Nokia Lumia 900.

In the same post, Nokia Lumia 900 vs Nokia Lumia 800 – what’s changed by My Nokia Blog, it states that the Nokia Lumia 800 has a cured screen with no bezel while the Nokia 900 has a flat screen with raised edge bezel.

The Nokia Lumia 900 will only be available in 2 colors (Black or Cyan) instead of 3 like the Nokia Lumia 800.

Technical Specifications

• Operating: Windows Phone Release 7.5 – Mango Commercial Release 2 (Mango + LTE)
• Processor: 1.4GHz Snapdragon APQ8055 + MDM9200
• Networks: GSM/EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900/2100, LTE Band 4 (1700/2100) & 17 (700)
• 4G/LTE – up to 50Mbps down/25Mbps up, HSPA – up to 21Mbps down/5.76 Mbps up
• 4.3″ ClearBlack AMOLED display with WVGA 800×480 resolution
• 512MB RAM
• 16 GB internal memory (14.5GB user memory)
• Primary (Rear-facing): 8MP with f2.2/28mm Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED flash, Auto Focus, 720p, 30fps video capture
• Secondary (Front-facing): 1MP with f2.4, 30fps video capture (VGA video call resolution)
• A-GPS, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), USB 2.0 high-speed, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 3.5mm headset connector
• 1830mAh battery
• Accelerometer, Proximity, Magnetometer, light sensor, Gyroscope
• Volume: 90cc
• Weight: 160 g (5.6 ounces)
• Dimensions (max): 127.8 x 68.5 x 11.5 mm (5 x 2.7 x .45 inches)

Nokia Conversations: Nokia Lumia 900 – Born for the USA
Engadget: AT&T Nokia Lumia 900 Hands-on at CES 2012 (video)
My Nokia Blog: Nokia Lumia 900 vs Nokia Lumia 800 – what’s changed

They are:

• Julian Chow with the picture Sunset at Bedok Reservoir
• Sajnikanth with the picture Bright Side of the Moon

Congratulations guys!

I will be handing over your details to Nokia Singapore for them to courier you the Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset worth €200 (SGD$346) directly. It should take approximately one to two weeks to reach you.

For those who did not win, thanks a lot of your participation and please do try again in my next contests/giveaway. =D

Julian Chow – Sunset at Bedok Reservoir

Sajnikanth – Bright Side of the Moon

The Nokia Lumia 710 will be available in Singapore in the coming weeks for a RRP of SGD$505.

All three local operators in Singapore (SingTel, StarHub and M1) will be offering the Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710.

Nokia Lumia 800

The stunningly social Nokia Lumia 800 features head-turning design, vivid colors (cyan, magenta and black) and the best social and Internet performance, with one-touch social network access, easy grouping of contacts, integrated communication threads and Internet Explorer 9. It features a 3.7 inch AMOLED ClearBlack curved display blending seamlessly into the reduced body design, and a 1.4 GHz processor with hardware acceleration and a graphics processor. The Nokia Lumia 800 contains an instant-share camera experience based on leading Carl Zeiss optics, HD video playback, 16GB of internal user memory and 25GB of free SkyDrive storage for storing images and music.

Nokia Lumia 800

Specifications

• CPU: Single Core Qualcomm MSM8255 @ 1.4GHz
• RAM: 512 MB SDRAM
• Storage: 16 GB mass memory (no slot for micro-SD cards)
• Screen: 3.7″ AMOLED Capacitive Touch Screen (480×800) with ClearBlack Display, Curved Glass and Corning Gorilla Glass
• Camera: Carl Zeiss optics, 8 MP camera, wide angle lens (no secondary/front-facing camera)
• Connectivity: WiFi, Micro USB, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, USB 2.0 High-Speed, 3.5mm AHJ Connector, Bluetooth Stereo Audio
• GPS: GPS, A-GPS, CellID, WiFi positioning
• Dimensions: 116.5mm (L), 61.2mm (W), 12.1mm (T)
• Weight: 142g
• Battery: BV-5JW 3.7V 1,450mAh
• SIM Slot: Micro SIM

Nokia Lumia 710

The purposely built, no-nonsense Nokia Lumia 710 can be personalized with exchangeable back covers and thousands of apps to bring the Lumia experience to more people around the world. The Nokia Lumia 710 is designed for instant social & image sharing, and the best browsing experience with IE9. It is available in black and white with black, white, cyan, fuchsia and yellow back covers. With the same 1.4 GHz processor, hardware acceleration and graphics processor as the Nokia Lumia 800, the Nokia Lumia 710 delivers high performance at an affordable price.

Nokia Lumia 710

Specifications

• CPU: Single Core Qualcomm MSM8255 @ 1.4GHz
• RAM: 512 MB SDRAM
• Storage: 8 GB mass memory (no slot for micro-SD cards)
• Screen: 3.7″ TFT Capacitive Touch Screen (480×800) with ClearBlack Display and Corning Gorilla Glass
• Camera: 5 MP camera, auto Focus, LED flash (no secondary/front-facing camera)
• Connectivity: WiFi, Micro USB, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, USB 2.0 High-Speed, 3.5mm AHJ Connector, Bluetooth Stereo Audio
• GPS: GPS, A-GPS, CellID, WiFi positioning
• Dimensions: 119.0mm (L), 62.4mm (W), 12.5mm (T)
• Weight: 126g
• Battery: BP-3L 3.7V 1,300mAh
• SIM Slot: Micro SIM

All you have to do is the following:

• Capture a photo or video of an ‘Amazing Everyday’ moment and share it with me via Twitter (@gamerz), Instagram (@gamerz), Facebook (facebook.com/lesterchan.net) or even email (lesterchan AT gmail)
• Submit your entries to Nokia Singapore’s Facebook Page – Win A Lumia 800 Page

‘Amazing Everyday’ is the millions of little adventures that await you out there and it comes to life in the Nokia Lumia series. The new Nokia Lumia 800 is the perfect device to find these moments, get into them, capture them and make them yours, to live adventure everywhere.

If you need some ideas of an ‘Amazing Everyday’ moment, head down to Orchard Road (outside Knightsbridge and The Heeren Shop) this weekend on the 3rd and 4th December 2011 between 12pm and 7pm for the Nokia Lumia Amazing Weekend! DJ KoFlow and Xiaxue will be there, for entertaining music and fashion activities!

Also if you are available on the 7th December 2011, join us at the Nokia Lumia Launch Party happening at Clarke Quay to find opportunities for more amazing everyday moments that you can capture!

This contest will end on 11:59pm on Wednesday, 7th December 2011.

About Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset

Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset

• Key features
  • Feel the music with high performance speakers
  • Premium materials, designed for your style
  • Ultra comfort for long listening sessions
  • Sleek, lightweight and superior design
• Technical profile
  • Weight: 180 grams
  • Dimensions (LxWxT): 290mm x 40mm x 200mm
  • Cable length: 1300mm
  • Operating keys: Answer/end key, volume control
• Compatibility
  • Fully compatible with Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710
  • Compatible with other Nokia handsets with 3.5mm Nokia AV connector
  • Compatible with other audio devices with standard 3.5mm audio jack

Fine Print

• This Giveaway is open to all readers of lesterchan.net who are based in Singapore.
• Li Xiang and I will be the judges for this contest, entries will be judged based on creativity and originality.
• Winners will be announced 1 week after the contest closes.
• Winners will be contacted via the respective channel (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or Email) in which they submitted their entry.
• The prizes will be sent out 1 week after the announcement of the results has been made.
• Nokia Singapore will be sending the prizes to the winner directly.
• There will not be a choice of colors for the prizes, Nokia Singapore will decide on the colors for this giveaway.
• Details of winners such as name and the captured photo/video will be posted on lesterchan.net.
• My decision on all matters related to this giveaway is final and no correspondence will be entertained.
• I reserves the right to amend these terms and conditions at anytime without prior notice.
• This giveaway ends on 11:59pm (23:59), Wednesday, 7th December 2011 (GMT+8 Singapore Time).

I will focus on different areas (mainly software related) not covered in the previous 2 reviews after using it as my work phone for almost a week.

The Nokia N9 has been available in Singapore since October 2011 for SGD$799 (16GB) and SGD$899 (64GB).

Nokia N9 Official Specification

• Networks: Pentaband WCDMA 850, 900, 1900, 1700, 2100, Quad band GSM/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900
• Speed: HSDPA Cat10: 14.4Mbps, HSUPA: Cat6 5.76Mbps
• Display: 3.9″ WVGA (854×480) AMOLED display with curved Gorilla glass, no air gap, anti-glare polarizer
• OS: MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan
• Memory: 1GB RAM, 16GB/64GB storage
• Camera: 8Mpix auto-focus Carl Zeiss, wide-angle lens, 2x LED flash, Video capturing MPEG-4 SP 720p @ 30fps, 2nd camera for video calls
• Size / Weight: 116.45 mm x 61.2 mm x 7.6–12.1 mm (L x W x T)/ 76 cm3/ 135 g
• Connectivity: BT 2.1, GPS, A-GPS, WLAN 802.11abgn, NFC, 3.5mm AV connector, uUSB connector, USB charging
• Processor:ARM Cortex-A8 OMAP3630 1 Ghz, PowerVR SGX530
• Audio: MP3 player, Audio jack: 3.5mm, Supported codecs: mp3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, FLAC
• Battery: 1450 mAh
• Talk time: (GSM/WCDMA) up to 11 h / up to 7 hours
• Standby time: Up to 450 hours (WCDMA), up to 380 hours (GSM)
• Video playback (720P): up to 4.5 hours
• Music playback: up to 50 hours

Box

Box Contents

Nokia N9 (Front View)

Nokia N9 (Back View)

Nokia N9 (Top View)

Nokia N9 (Right Side View)

Events Screen

Application Screen

Multitasking Screen

Accounts
The N9 has a Accounts app that manages all your accounts that you have connected with the N9, similar to what Windows Phone 7 is doing. When I first got my hands on the N9, I went straight up and connect all my social networking sites with the N9.

Accounts App

I connected 10 accounts with the Nokia N9. They are: Facebook, Flickr, Google, Google Sync (MS Exchange), Office Email (MS Exchange), Nokia, Picasa, Skype, Twitter and YouTube. I notice that my the N9 has become very laggy once these accounts are connected and sometimes the lag is unbearable. At first I thought this would be fixed in the Nokia N9 PR 1.1 Software Update, but apparently it does not. I do hope that future software update will fix it.

Contacts
Once your accounts are connected, your contacts in your social networking sites will appear in your Contacts app, similar to that of Windows Phone 7. I am using Google Sync to sync my personal contacts over to the N9. If your contact’s email matches a Facebook contact, it will merge them together and your contact’s display picture will be his/her Facebook Profile Picture. Pretty seamless here.

Contacts App

One nice little touch to the Contacts App is that it will have an icon that represents your contact initials. I store the names of my contact only in the first name field to avoid conflict when syncing to multiple devices and hence you will see only a single letter “D”.

Contacts Category

If you are like me that links many accounts to the Nokia N9, you will notice that scrolling through the contacts is a little laggy. One nice feature but rather a buggy one is it allows you to filter your contacts based on account. As you can see from the above screenshot, I got 102 contacts in Facebook, 126 in Skype and 6 on Gtalk, by tapping on any of them will only show the contacts in that respective account.

If you notice my phone book has 378 contacts, I have no idea how they arrived at the number, my Google Sync has 349 contacts so technically I only expect to see 349 of them. I also realized that some of my Skype contacts sneaked into with my Google Sync and got sync back to my Google Contacts and I have to manually delete it. I am still figuring out how that happens. This is sometime the reason why I love iOS sandboxing because often the app can’t mess with your contacts.

Calendar
The Calendar app in N9 was pretty alright, it allows you to rename the calendar and even allow you to choose your own color label. No complains here.

Manage Calendar

Email
The Email app is not that bad, once you have new emails, it will sent a notification to your Events Screen, my only complain is that you can’t rename the email account. I have 2 Mail for Exchange accounts initially but I have no way of differentiating between them as both mailboxes will just write “Mail for Exchange”. So I dropped the Mail option for Google Sync and switch it to Gmail, so at least now I can differentiate between my work mail and personal email.

Manage Email

Syncing Schedule
Similar to all Symbian devices, I love the syncing schedule as this allows you to fine tune the polling time to the server to get new contents. A good use case is for my work email. When I am at work, I do not need the device to keep polling the Exchange server for new emails/calendar events/contacts as I will get a prompt by Microsoft Office 2011 on my Mac. However, once I finished work, I need to be kept up to date with emails and meeting invites. The sync schedule allows just that!

In the screenshot you see below, it is the settings for my Google Sync, I need it up to date no matter what day and time is it.

Sync Schedule

Twitter

Twitter App

There is a lack of Twitter clients in the Nokia N9 and the built-in Twitter app is the best Twitter client you can get on a N9. It works as advertise without any settings that allows you to customize it. I can’t get retweet and photo upload to work.

For retweet, when I tap on it nothing happens despite the retweet icon being lighted up and for photo upload, after I pressed the photo button, it just gives me a black screen with the button “Done” at the top. I hope this is also address in the next software update. Pretty disappointed in this 2 areas as I use both of this features pretty often.

Facebook

Facebook App

The built-in Facebook App is pretty good despite not having all the features as compared to the iOS/Android version, but it is acceptable. UI is smooth and responsive and all the features work as expected unlike the Twitter App.

My wishlist for both Facebook and Twitter App is for Facebook’s notification and Twitter’s mentions/direct message to be pushed as notifications to my Events Screen. Right now, I have no way to know who have mentioned me on Twitter or replied to my post in Facebook without going into the respective app itself.

Nokia Store
The apps on Nokia Store is pretty limited and the User experience design (UX) needs more work. As it is my first time visiting the store, I would like to get free apps first, preferably most popular free apps to see what others are downloading. To do that, I need to tap on the 2nd icon at the bottom, go to applications and tap again for “All Applications” before it allows me to see the top free apps or another way is to scroll down to the bottom of the home aka featured page and tap on “All Applications”. I reckon they should have a popular apps shortcut to allow users to discover popular apps easily.

Nokia Store

I hope to see more apps on the Nokia Store for the N9 but that is provided that Nokia do not kill it.

Multitasking
The Nokia N9 boost true multitasking which I really like! When in the app just swipe to the top, left or right and the app will be brought to the background and you can see all apps in the background in the Multitasking screen. Just press and hold on the preview and you have the option to close all apps! This is brilliant and the iPhone needs this feature. Also, when you restart the phone, the background apps will no longer be there unlike the iPhone.

Multitasking

Wi-Fi Hotspot
Nokia N9 has a built in Wi-Fi hotspot feature which is good for Internet sharing! Right now only WEP64 and WEP128 encryption is supported.

Wi-Fi Hotspot

Software Update
When I first heard of the Nokia N9 PR 1.1 software update, I was looking all over the phone to find out where I can upgrade it via Over The Air (OTA), after searching high and low for the options, I finally found it and it is under “Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> 2nd Icon At The Bottom”. I was expecting it to be under “Settings -> Device” or “Settings -> About”. But too bad the PR 1.1 update is not yet available via OTA in Singapore, so I have to use Nokia Software Updater to update my N9 firmware.

Software Update

After updating, it seems that all the passwords for my linked accounts got wiped and I have to enter it again. I wonder is this for security reason or a bug in the software update process. But nevertheless, it is not a big deal.

Camera/Video
The N9 camera takes pretty impressive pictures but when it comes to low light, it is a little grainy. I also love the continuous autofocus when taking video!

Taken With N9 (Click To Enlarge

Taken With N9 (Click To Enlarge)

Taken With N9 (Click To Enlarge)

The front facing camera is a little useless right now, I can’t seem to find any Apps within the N9 itself that activates the front facing camera, you only can rely on 3rd party app from the Nokia Store like Simple Mirror.

NFC
Nokia N9 has NFC capabilities for you to transfer contacts and photos to another NFC enabled phone and even stream music to the Nokia Play 360° Speakers. Unfortunately I can’t test that as I do not have any other NFC devices. I do wish that a developer will create a app that allows us to read the contents of our EZ-Link card similar to the one they have in Android called FareBot.

Battery Life
The N9 has a 1,450mAh battery and the battery life is pretty decent, I got about 2 days of standby time (not touching the phone at all) and about a day for normal usage. Normal in the sense that I check my tweets and Facebook often which averages to once per hour and I get pushed emails for my personal Gmail account instantly and pushed email for my work account happens instantly only after office hours.

The battery life easily last twice that of my iPhone 4S.

Conclusion

• Pros:
  • Fantastic screen with clear visibility under direct sunlight
  • NFC supported
  • True multitasking
  • Unique UI
  • Great Camera with continuous autofocus for video taking
  • Decent battery life
• Cons:
  • Laggy user interface once you have many accounts linked
  • Limited apps available
  • Price a little steep as compared to competitors

Links

• Blog Post: Nokia Connection 2011
• Blog Post: Nokia N9 Blogger Event
• Official Site: Nokia N9