Concept

Nokia Windows 8 concept tablet looks pretty neat

May 11, 2012 | By Surur

Nokia’s pretty sure to deliver a Windows 8 tablet in the next few months, and Andy Weir at Neowin has tried to imagine what such a device would look like.

The result: the Nokia Tiviti 9210.

NOKIA Tiviti 9210 with Windows RT Specs

Processor: Dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8960 Pro Snapdragon S4
Dimensions: 260.2 x 177.5 x 8.8 mm
Weight: 575g

Display:

10.1" capacitive multitouch display
Super IPS+ LCD | ClearBlack | 1920x1200px Full HD
Corning Gorilla Glass 2

Storage and memory:

32GB/64GB integrated local storage + SkyDrive cloud storage
1GB SDRAM

Power management:

Integrated 7700mAh battery for up to 12 hours of usage

Imaging with Carl Zeiss Optics:

Front camera: 2MP for video calling
Rear camera: 8MP
- Rear F number / aperture: 2.2
- Camera focal length: 28mm
- Video recording with rear camera, Full HD (1080p) up to 30fps with stereo audio capture

Sensors:

Accelerometer | Ambient light sensor | Assisted GPS + GLONASS | Compass | Gyroscope | Proximity sensor

Hardware keys:

Power | Volume | Camera | Rotation lock | Windows button

Connectivity:

Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n)
Bluetooth 4.0
4G LTE | UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA | CDMA EV-DO Rev.A | GSM/EDGE
DLNA/PlayTo
Micro USB
3.5mm AHJ connector

Pricing off-contract:

32GB WiFi + 4G: $499 USD | £449 GBP | €529 EUR | $659 AUD
64GB WiFi + 4G: $629 USD | £549 GBP | €649 EUR | $759 AUD

Andy asks if we would buy such a relatively realistic device. Let us know below.

Via Neowin.net.

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This Apollo concept looks pretty good

April 23, 2012 | By Surur

Most concept designs tend to go a bit overboard in the changes they make, but Jonas Dahnert’s work is pretty subtle, which hopefully makes it all the more realistic.

Jonas postulates a Nokia Lumia 920 with an HD screen, Windows 8 icons and grouping and labelling inherited from the tablet OS. It also of course postulates a landscape start screen, something sorely missing from Windows Phone 7.

What do our readers think of this concept (I give it 5/5 by the way). Let us know below.

Via Pocketnow and 1800pocketpc.com

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Some greatly rendered Windows Phone 8 concepts

April 14, 2012 | By Surur

1800Pocketpc’s resident graphics designer has taken to Photoshop and created some pretty nice looking concepts of how he envisions Windows Phone 8 should look.

Yanko Andreev envisions large, high resolution 1280*800 screens where the start screen works both in portrait and landscape mode with Live, active and scrollable tiles with direct control on them which can be grouped and labelled and which also works with semantic zoom, much like Windows Phone 8.

He also envisioned a variety of edge gestures from every part of the screen (depends from the landscape or portrait mode) – for example swiping from the right side of the screen reveals the last notification and swiping from the bottom open all applications. Swiping from the top open a small panel with several quick settings – for Airplane mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Location, Sound, Screen brightness and Screen rotation.

See and read more at 1800Pocketpc.com here.

What do our readers think of changing Windows Phone into what seems to be close to a mini Windows 8 tablet? Let us know below.

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Another new Windows Phone Home Screen concept

March 26, 2012 | By Surur

Kasser has sent us this picture of his concept of what a future Windows Phone Home screen would look like, utilizing a swipe to the left to add a notification page, and of course adding background wallpaper.

While his design is certainly very attractive, I think it misses the original idea of Windows Phone – that the tiles would allow more information-rich glance and go-type notifications, and that the OS is meant to be “quiet”, not bombarding the user with long lists of events.

In that spirit the use of the left side of the Home page is a bit unclear, and one can question if there is even a need to utilize the space for anything at all.

What do our readers think? If that space should be used, what best to fill it with? Let us know below.

Thanks Kasser for the tip.

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Nokia Lumia 1000 concept runs Windows 8

March 13, 2012 | By Surur

Some love them and some hate them, but they still keep popping up every once in a while. I am talking about concept phones of course, those figments of fantasy and imagination turned into pictures and specs sheets.

Above we have Tasak’s concept of what the Nokia Lumia 1000 will look like. Interestingly his fantasy device will run Windows 8 rather than Windows Phone 8, making it more a tablet (or is that a phablet) than a phone, and will be powered by dual-core Atom processors rather than the ARM type.

The list of specs include an Intel ATOM Z2580 dual core 1.8 GHz processor, a PowerVR SGX 544MP2 GPU at 533 MHz and a 4.3 inch AMOLED 1024 x 768 pixel display. Other specs include a microSD card slot, 64 GB of internal memory, 2 GB RAM and a secondary VGA camera with 30 fps video recording (VGA). The Nokia concept also offers NFC, USB 3.0 on the go, an accelerometer, proximity sensor, compass, stereo FM radio, infrared, Bluetooth, WiFI, GPS and a QWERTY keyboard with joystick.

Don’t forget the 41 megapixel Pureview camera technology and TV receiver of course.

Of course if my phone is going to run a tablet OS I would prefer the screen to be bigger than 4.3 inches (maybe 5.3 inches like the Galaxy Note) but the strangest part really is that there is in fact no reason why a device exactly like this could not be created by the end of the year.

Would our readers want this fantasy device? Let us know below.

Via Concept-phones.com

Thanks John for the tip.

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Shopping concept uses Augmented Reality glasses and a Windows Phone

March 12, 2012 | By Surur

It seems students are starting to pick up Windows Phones in droves, as this latest student project again uses a Windows Phone as part of a re-imagined shopping experience.

Created by 4 students, Katie Yau, Shima Reza-Zadeh, William Wong and Frankie Ng from the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at the Simon Fraser University , the aim is to target the increasing trend towards online shopping.

It will no longer be necessary for users to station themselves at home, but scan items that interests them while on the streets through augmented reality glasses to retrieves product information. It also allows users to try on scanned products virtually. Products can be purchased on the spot without security concerns as personal information is obtained through optical scans.

Of course the concept uses technology which is not yet available, but at the pace at which things are advancing these days, it could very well be in a year or two, and hopefully it will also find its way into a Windows Phone along the way also.

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Nokia Snow a nice-looking concept Windows Phone

March 5, 2012 | By Surur

Its not just the Sony Ericsson people who love their concept phones. It seems Nokia lovers are also in the game.

The above video and device is the creation of Mohamed Magdy Mahmoud of RecentGlance Vision and has all the dream specs one can expect, including a 4 inch 1000 x 600 screen, 14.1 ,megapixel read camera and 2 megapixel front-facing camera and micro-HDMI out.

The device is of course not real, but who knows what we will see next year when Apollo brings support for a much wider range of technologies and resolutions?

Via concept-phones.com and wpsauce.com.

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Nokia Lumia Tablet concept looks pretty cool

February 8, 2012 | By Surur

nokia-coffee-tab

There is something to be said for having a consistent design language, and this concept Windows 8 Nokia tablet certainly takes its cues very well from the much lauded Nokia Lumia 800 design.

The concept, created by a MyNokiablog reader, has the following specs:

Lumia “coffee” tab

1.4GHz cpu

512Mb ram

16/32/64Gb storage

9.7? AMOLED “clearblack” display (1280×800)

8Mp Rear camera, 2Mp front facing camera

Windows 8 tablet edition

Wifi/3G connectivity

lumia-coffee1-600x450

Looks pretty great, and who knows, with Nokia strongly believed to be working on a Windows 8 tablet, it may even become reality.

See another picture after the break.

Continue reading →

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Windows 8 watch concept should be Windows Phone

January 31, 2012 | By Surur

There has been some speculation recently about Windows 8 replacing Windows Phone 7, even on the phone. While the Windows 8 UI on a Windows Phone is very, very unlikely, the above concept design by Mithun Darji from Ahmedabad, India shows that it could in fact look pretty cool, and could in fact be stuffed in many innovative from factors.

His concept features a Windows 8 PC with WIFI and Phone functionality on a watch strap with an integrated Bluetooth headset, 4 music transport keys, two volume keys and 4 other keys, including phone keys.

Mithun’s design is just a concept, and it is somewhat a pity Microsoft no longer has a mainstream OS that can be stuffed into interesting form factors, much like Android is being used these days.

See Coroflot for full-sized pictures.

Via MotoringCruch.com

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Thurrott wants Windows Phone 8 start screen to scroll horizontally

November 11, 2011 | By Surur

Paul Thurrott has put in his 2c regarding his wish for the future UI of Windows Phone 7.

His ideas are a bit more radical than most, and would see a significant change in the UI paradigm of the OS.

His idea would be replacing the start screen and app list with a single, horizontal-scrolling panorama.

He writes:

… instead of having to scroll up and down on the Start/all apps screens, you would scroll left to right and vice versa.

I’ll take it a step further. There shouldn’t be two screens, but just one, as with the Windows 8 Start screen. Every time you install an app, it is added to the Start screen, on the far right. You can remove (unpin) apps from this screen as you would in Windows 8, and to find them, you could utilize search (again, as per Windows 8).

The Windows Phone Start screen should evolve to work like that of Windows 8, and offer left-to-right scrolling.

As with Windows 8, this screen should include customizable groups so that the user can create a phone-based version of folders and organize things as they wish. And Microsoft should add the ability to easily contract and expand groups so that little-used apps could be hidden by default and be more easily swiped over. That could look something like this:

This screen should orient itself automatically with the phone, so that if the user holds it horizontally (in landscape mode), the view switches to accommodate that and is thus not "sideways" as it is today.

Windows Phone 8 should also support a Windows 8-style Edge UI, both from a system-wide perspective (charms) and within apps. This could work much like it does in Windows 8 and doesn’t bear much discussion.

He also said users should be able to toggle between a square and double-sized tile, and background images should be allowed.

Paul basically wants Windows 8 on the phone, saying:

Put simply, if you accept the fact that Windows 8 represents the latest thinking when it comes to a Metro-style UI, you should further accept that the best ideas from Windows 8 should be pushed into Windows Phone as well. In fact, where possible these user experience elements should be identical, to provide a similar or nearly identical experience where it makes sense. I feel strongly that people who see Windows 8 tablets and PCs in stores next year are going to be very excited by this system. And they’re going to want it on their phones too.

What do our readers think of Paul’s exposition? Should Windows 8’s paradigms come to Windows Phone, or are the platforms very different? Let us know below.

Another Windows Phone Notification Concept

October 12, 2011 | By Pradeep

XDA Forums member the0ne has done this notification system concept for Windows Phones.

This is how it works,

To go to the Notification center, just drag down from any app. That is works even in the lock screen. The Notification center, have pinned apps like weather, Zune or the radio. In the notification tab appear missed phone and skype call, mails and messages, new Facebook and Twitter updates. In the reminders tab appear all from your calendar as meetings, tasks, alarms and others. New toast notifications appear briefly at the top of your screen. Quick toast notifications are used to promote awareness of a new event to the user and request action from the user in an unobtrusive and friendly manner. Users may interact with the toast notifications by tapping on it. The toast will then launch the Notification center, or directly the notifying application.

You can give him feedback over this concept here. Even though Microsoft’s intention is to not create a notification center( they call it as Junk drawer), its interesting to see new concepts from designers.

via: XDA Forums

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Potential Windows Phone 8 UI design concepts

October 7, 2011 | By Surur

Update: Well, the best proof that these are real is that we just received a take down notice from Microsoft. I guess those large and mini-tiles are coming after all XXXX has taken down his whole site it seems.

We often feature Windows Phone UI concepts, but it is not often that these concepts originate from Microsoft designers.

XXXXX worked at Microsoft in the design department.

The mockups and drawings show much larger live tiles with greater visual identity, almost providing a background image effect without actual wallpaper, and also shows collections of mini-tiles which may be a folder concept for Windows phone often imagined by many fans.

Of course there is no guarantee that these concepts will make it into a real UI, but this is likely as close to seeing Windows Phone 8 as we will get for many months.

We are somewhat hampered from interpreting these concepts by not understanding Chinese. If our readers spot anything else new and interesting let us know in the comments below.

The images have been taken down in most sources.

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Windows Phone 8 UI concepts updated

October 6, 2011 | By Surur

Jozef Kocur, who’s concepts we have featured before, have updated his concepts of what the next version of Windows Phone should look like.

He has refined his ideas somewhat, and thrown out the concept of combining Aero and Metro. His latest idea for the control bar has been simplified, a now would allow one to slide the music controls to the side and have access to common toggles (see above).

He is also suggesting “folders” of Grouped Apps. He writes:

Group Tiles let you to create a “Group” of Applications, Contacts, or Web Sites’ bookmarks (2-4 mini Tiles). It’s the simplest way to keep your Home Screen organized. I think this is usable just for the titles that are not showing life content, such as Adobe Reader, Netflix, different games, etc. Also, if you add a Live Title or a Contact Tile, they won’t be showing any further information, just a plain icon. It basically divides a Tile into 4 small mini-Tiles.

To Create a Group just tap and hold a Tile. Then drag that Tile and drop it on top of another Tile. A group tile will be automatically created.

Lastly he suggests the lock screen should get daily Bing wallpaper updates, and that there should be a way to answer SMS messages directly from the lock screen if the phone is not password protected.

Usually these concept ideas are just shouting into the wind, but Microsoft’s User Voice Section, which explicitly asked for Windows Phone 8 ideas, provides a place for users to surface popular ideas.

If you like Jozef’s concepts you can vote them up here, and see his ideas in more detail on his website here.

Thanks WPuser for the tip.

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