Nokia launches Lumia 920 and 820 in India, 620 coming in February

Nokia Lumia 620, Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia Lumia 820

Nokia is launching its Lumia 920 flagship in India today alongside the Lumia 820. The phones will be available in brick and mortar stores as well as through Nokia's online store with free shipping starting tomorrow and will cost $697 and $504 (RS 38,199 and RS 27,599)respectively.

The budget Windows Phone 8 offering Lumia 620 will be available in India from February but the price and exact date aren't available just yet.

The Lumia 920 isn't exactly on the cheap side - you could get a Galaxy S III for less and a Galaxy Note II for about the same. The Lumia flagman is, however, cheaper than a brand new iPhone 5.

HTC's Windows Phone 8X and 8S, which are the other available WP8 smartphones in India are also priced lower, but that's to be expected given their more modest specs sheets.

To refresh your memory the Lumia 920 has a 4.5" ClearBlack IPS display on tap with the PureMotion HD+ technology, which ensures higher framerates for lower motion blur. There's an 8.7 MP snapper on the back with PureView technology for enhanced low-light performance and Carl Zeiss optics. The device is powered by a dual-core Snapdragon S4 with two 1.5 GHz Krait cores.

The Lumia 820 uses a lower-grade dual-core Krait chip, 8 MP camera with 1080p video recording and a 4.3" ClearBlack AMOLED display of WVGA (480 x 800) resolution.

Finally the Lumia 620 has a 3.8" WVGA screen (again ClearBlack technology), 5 MP camera and a dual-core 1 GHz Krait processor.

All three smartphones are running on the Windows Phone 8 platform.

Thanks, Aswin Bhojarajan for sending this in!

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Before Windows 8, Microsoft Unveils New Logo

In advance of the Windows 8 launch on Oct. 26, Microsoft today unveiled a new logo that's 25 years in the making.

For almost three decades, Microsoft's logo has simply been the company's slightly italicized name in thick letters (below). Going forward, however, the new Microsoft logo (left) will feature the logo on the right and a block of four, colored squares on the left.

"From Windows 8 to Windows Phone 8 to Xbox services to the next version of Office, you will see a common look and feel across these products providing a familiar and seamless experience on PCs, phones, tablets and TVs," Microsoft said in a blog post. "This wave of new releases is not only a reimagining of our most popular products, but also represents a new era for Microsoft, so our logo should evolve to visually accentuate this new beginning."

Microsoft opted to use the Segoe font for the new logo, which is also used in its marketing communications and on Microsoft products. For the symbol to its left, Microsoft said the colors - red, green, blue, and orange - "are intended to express the company's diverse portfolio of products."

Redmond will start rolling out its new logo today. It will be displayed prominently on Microsoft.com, as well as in Boston, Seattle, and Bellevue, Wash. retail stores, and will appear at other retail locations and on global TV ads in the coming months.

"Fully implementing a change like this takes time, so there may be other instances where you will see the old logo being used for some time," Microsoft said.

In recent months, Twitter also rolled out a new version of its blue bird logo, which some thought looked a lot like Batman.

Samsung Galaxy Note Won't Get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Until Q2

Source

http://www.pcmag.com

Another round of devices will be upgraded to Android 4.0 soon. Samsung on Thursday announced that the Galaxy Note will get Ice Cream Sandwich in the second quarter of the year.

Though Samsung previously said ICS would come to the device in the first quarter, it has pushed back the update to an unspecified time in Q2. In the meantime, Samsung is offering a Premium Suite upgrade for Galaxy Note users, which includes a handful of apps compatible with the Note's S Pen.

One of these apps is S Note, a writing app that offers various templates to format notes, scribbles, and digital content into neat packages.

Another pen-optimized app included is Shape Match, which automatically corrects shape. There's also Formula Match, which solves hand-drawn numeric formulas. Additionally, Samsung is dropping My Story, an app that lets users create personalized digital cards using their videos, photos, text, and hand-drawn notes.

Sony has also announced that the Sony Tablet S and the Sony Tablet P will be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich in April. However, at this point, it only applies to Japan, and it's unclear if and when other countries will get the ICS update.

Samsung started rolling out ICS to its Galaxy S II smartphone in several European countries last week. IT said the update will reach other markets "gradually."

HTC also confirmed ICS updates for 16 of its phones last week, though it did not offer specific dates. However, the first of these, for the HTC Vivid, occurred Thursday. The update also includes Beats by Dr. Dre Audio, an optimized audio experience; an updated HTC Sense Experience; and Face Unlock. Users can visit AT&T's Web site to enable the update. It will be followed by these additional phones over the coming months, AT&T said:

• LG Nitro 

• Motorola ATRIX 2 

• Motorola ATRIX 4G 

• Pantech Burst 

• Pantech Element 

• Samsung Captivate Glide 

• Samsung Galaxy Note 

• Samsung Galaxy S II 

• Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket 

• Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9