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UkSnow–find where it’s snowing via Twitter

February 5, 2012 | By Surur

uksnowqr The snow has finally started falling in UK, and it arrived with a vengeance, causing travel chaos across the country.

If you want to keep an eye on where the snow is falling UKSnow, a Marketplace app, appears to have arrived at just the right time. The app searches twitter for the #uksnow hash tag and applies snowflakes to the map from where the tweet originated.

UkSnow is free and can be found in Marketplace here.

Via AAWP.com

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Nokia targets Magenta Nokia Lumia 800 at women

February 3, 2012 | By Surur

Nokia UK’s YouTube account has posted this above video, celebrating the release if the Magenta (or simply pink) Nokia Lumia 800, which I think, from looking at the video, appears clearly targeted at women.

Surprisingly however the video does not take this theme very far, towards the end defaulting to the standard version of the ad. Given that Nokia is able to differentiate their handsets with a distinct colour, I think they could have gone a lot further to show features which would appear distinctly to female users.

Do our readers agree? Let us know below.

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Carphone Warehouse confirms Nokia Lumia 900 for UK in June

January 23, 2012 | By Surur

900reg

Well, that neatly puts an end to any speculation there may have been about the Nokia Lumia 900 for Europe.

Carphone Warehouse have just put up a pre-order page where the 4.3 inch screened handset can be placed on your wish list and the page also makes it pretty clear when the handset is expected, that being June 2012.

specsnl900

Also revealed is the specs, which puts a stop to the 12 megapixel rumour that has been going around . Of note is that LTE is not mentioned anywhere.

The only worrying feature about this early disclose is the effect of pre-announcing your handset 6 months before its availability. One hopes it does not Osborne the Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia with it.

See the page here.

Via WPCentral.com

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UK carriers demand price cuts for Nokia Lumia 710

January 20, 2012 | By Livven

According to a Financial Times report, carriers in the United Kingdom have pressured Nokia to cut the price for its cheapest Windows Phone, the Lumia 710. The device, which will launch in the next few weeks, was orginally intended to be sold for £25 a month on contract, but the price has now apparently been slashed down to £20 a month.

The report cites weak sales of the previously introduced Lumia 800 as the reason for the price cut. Even though Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone in Europe has done pretty well compared to other Windows Phone devices from HTC and Samsung, and considerably improved the marketshare of Microsoft’s smartphone platform, it probably wasn’t the big blockbuster success à la iPhone 4S or Samsung Galaxy Nexus that some analysts and carriers were expecting. By lowering the price of the already cheaper Lumia 710, even if not quite voluntarily, it will hopefully be able to appeal to even more price-conscious consumers who aren’t explicitly looking for smartphones.

Source: Financial Times (behind paywall), via Heise online

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ZTE Tania announced for UK

January 18, 2012 | By Surur

The ZTE Tania has been announced for distribution in the UK. The budget handset will be available on Go Mobile, Virgin Mobile and possibly Expansys or Phones4U and will be on sale for only £10-£20 on contract , which is a great price for a 4.3 inch screen, 5 megapixel camera and 1 Ghz processor.

The handset also comes with mobile hotspot enabled from the start, something TechRadar notes even the Lumia 800 did not manage.

ZTE-Tania_000009-580x435 The handset’s main defect is the non-expandable 4 GB storage, with only 2.5 GB available to the user, but reviewers note the screen is also of pretty low quality, but that is rather to be expected from a budget handset.

Slashgear notes the camera is pretty reasonable (right), and the 1400 mAh battery managed to last a full day on default settings.

Leila Martine, director of Windows Phone UK, told Pocket-lint: "Having ZTE join the Windows Phone family is great news. Their expertise will be crucial in delivering Windows Phone to new and different customers. We look forward to continuing and developing our relationship with ZTE in the future".

Via Slashgear.com

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Nokia Lumia 710 coming to UK February 1st, Lumia 800 to Switzerland now and both to Australia eventually

January 15, 2012 | By Surur

nezealand Nokia has announced the Nokia Lumia 710, the cheaper Nokia Windows Phone, will be released in UK on the 1st February 2012.

The handset will come in 6 different colours and is confirmed for Three as well as Orange, although T-Mobile and Vodafone are expected to stock it too. More at Pocket-lint here.

Separately the Nokia Lumia 800 is now available in Switzerland on MobileZone, and will be available in all three colours. Read more about that at MobileZone here.

Lastly the Nokia Lumia 710 and 800 also seem to be on their way to Australia, probably on the same time scale as their South Eastern neighbours New Zealand in February 2012.

Thanks Hypi and Vinodh for the tip.

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Nokia Lumia 800 release doubled Windows Phone installed base in the Netherlands

January 5, 2012 | By Surur

nl800nl

While Nokia’s transition to Windows Phone 7 may not have had a massive influence yet on Nokia’s fortunes, they have certainly moved the needle for Windows Phone 7.

We have seen numerous reports of the Nokia Lumia 800 selling very well in the Netherlands, and data from Statcounter, which reflects but does not directly measure installed base, shows a massive boost in the number of active Windows Phones in the European country.

Prior to the release of the Nokia Lumia 800 market share in the Netherlands was basically flat, but took off pretty strongly with the release of the handset in week 46 of 2011.

Continue reading →

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Nokia Lumia 800 the 4th best selling phone at Expansys UK this week, ahead of iPhone 4S and Blackberry

December 23, 2011 | By Surur

mostpopular

Maybe the critics are more likely to believe a best-seller list if the Lumia 800 is not actually at its top.

The list of weekly best sellers on Expansys UK features the Nokia Lumia 800 in the 6th spot, and the 4th phone overall, behind the Galaxy Note, Galaxy Nexus S and the super-cheap Acer Liquid Metal.

The handset is however ahead of the newly released Blackberry Torch 9860 and 16 GB iPhone 4S.

Some commenters have suggested these lists are actually handpicked, but I cant think of any reason why Expansys would want to push the Microvision VGA Dock Adaptor for SHOWWX Pico Projectors, can you?

Thanks AG for the tip.

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Latest Kantar data shows small gain in UK Windows Phone market share in November 2011

December 22, 2011 | By Surur

kantar-uk-nov-2011 The latest Kantar Worldpanel market share data, collected over the preceding 12 weeks and published monthly, shows Windows Phone 7 has managed a small gain in UK smartphone market share, growing from 1.0% in October to 1.2% in November 2011. This includes 2 weeks of Nokia Lumia 800 sales.

The small increase is in the face of the release of the iPhone 4s in the same period, which increased its market share from 27.8 to 30.9%, and Android, which increased from 46 to 46.6%

The gains are at the expense of Symbian and Blackberry, which both decreased from 3.9 to 3.2 and 19.6 to 16.9% respectively.

The full impact of the Nokia Lumia release should be seen in next months data, which will include 6 weeks of Lumia sales in the 12 weeks covered.

Via The Telegraph.co.uk

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Phone comparison site claims Nokia sold only 180 Lumia 800s in UK so far, needs to check their maths

December 21, 2011 | By Surur

No, that’s not 180,000. That’s 180 total, for a market share of 0.17%, ie less than 2 out of every 1000 buyers.

Mobileplease runs a phone comparison service which deals with over 700,000 queries a month delivered through over 100 websites in UK. They took a sample of 5377 sales resulting from such queries and posted their stats. They call this sample less than 5% of the UK market but still statistically valid.

The result:

Handset	% sales
Samsung Galaxy S II	16.13%
Apple iPhone 4 16GB black	10.24%
Apple iPhone 4S 16GB black	5.50%
BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900	3.79%
Apple iPhone 3GS 8GB	3.03%
BlackBerry Curve 3G 9300	2.54%
HTC Sensation	2.16%
Apple iPhone 4S 16GB white	2.01%
Nokia Lumia 800 black	0.17%

*Statistics based on sample of 5,377 UK mobile phones sold across major UK retailers and networks in November 2011

While those who would like to bury Windows Phone 7 would love to believe the numbers, they make very little sense. If 5377 represents about 5% of sales, that would mean about 107,540 phones were sold in total in UK – a small number for a country of 60 odd million. In fact in a country with more phones than people I would expect around 2 million phones per month to be sold, making their 5000 sample less than significant. Be that as it may, if one extrapolates further that would mean around 180 phones were sold in total in November in UK, the launch weeks of the Nokia Lumia 800.

In short the numbers are completely unrealistic and not representative of the actual UK market, and the only reason we are posting this report is to explain why.

Mobileplease reports sales “improved” to 1% of the market in December, and provided all kinds of justifications for the poor performance of the handset, such as poor battery life.

We suggest MobilePlease stick to serving their customers and stay out of the analyst game.

Read the “report” at MobilePlease here.

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Nokia says “the Lumia 800 is getting good traction in all six European markets” but GfK disagrees

December 19, 2011 | By Surur

If ones goes by the various carrier sales rankings the Nokia Lumia 800 must be selling brilliantly. Unfortunately analysts are finding a different metric, with GfK reporting, according to FT.com, that the handset has failed to break the top 10 in UK for all of the weeks since its launch, despite a £20 million advertising spend.

In fact they say it sold only narrowly more than Nokia’s more basic “Touch and Type” phone in the period. The list according to GfK was dominated by variants of the iPhone, including the venerable iPhone 3GS and also by Samsung Android handsets.

Nokia for its part has insisted everything is going according to plan, saying:

“We have only started our journey to regain smartphone leadership, but we are pleased with the early results. The Lumia 800 is getting good traction in all six European markets where it has already launched. Initial feedback from India, Hong Kong, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan — where the Lumia 800 starting selling this week — has been very encouraging”

Seems like there is still a whole lot of work to do however.

Via 1800pocketpc, slashgear and FT.com

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Nokia Lumia 800 voted the most popular phone this week at CNET UK (ignoring the Samsung Note)

December 7, 2011 | By Surur

CNET have posted their list of the most popular phones this week, as voted for by their readers, and for the first time the iPhone does not even feature in the list. The list is however chock and block full of Samsung Galaxy devices, but you will find the Nokia Lumia 800 the first phone on the list, ignoring the Samsung Note of course, which is really more of a mini-tablet.

See the list at CNET here.

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UK phone sales staff say Nokia Lumia 800 flying of shelves, not coming back

December 5, 2011 | By Surur

Nokia has a website where they train and engage carrier sales staff in training and rewards, and in the site’s forums there are a huge amount of positive feedback from carrier sales staff from all across the spectrum.

The posts confirm that customer satisfaction levels high, and that the phone is selling well. See two example posts below:

The Lumia is flying off the shelves, especially from one who has really taken the training on board and pitching them to everyone. The main things that are selling the phone are the design, superb screen and the way the social networks are integrated into the phone OS so don’t need to keep switching apps and all the messages are compiled into one thread.

From a standing start, Nokia have really grabbed people’s attention with the Lumia and the advertising is starting to pay off as people are coming in and asking about the handset, and asking to upgrade to it.

by Iain McLaren (Carphone Warehouse) (27th November)

After doing customer call backs again today it’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that customers are finding it so simple to use the Nokia Lumia, I haven’t had one single customer back in with an issue or concern with the handset. In two years selling Nokias at Phones 4U I think that is a first, and I’m sure we all agree. Amazing job Nokia!

Paul Singer (Phones 4U) (24th November)

The site also shows Nokia is incentivising staff to sell phones, with sales quotas and free phones, which is of course necessary too bootstrap the phone, and again shows Nokia is not going to let the Lumia just sink into oblivion under a flood of Android handsets.

MyNokiaBlog has collected many more posts, and the website can be seen here.

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