Windows Phone 7

This is one thriller of a show you can't miss! Stephen sets the mood with some intros that will make you scream, we consider what it takes to bring Nokia back from the dead, and if RIM and Web OS have a chance at reversing their own decrepitude. Plus: a look at two Android phones with killer value, and Nicole shows off her pre-Halloween spirit as a pirate zombie vampire. Frightful!

Do Nokia's Lumia Windows Phones have what it takes? Last week, … Read more

Nokia got its star turn this week when it finally unveiled its long-awaited Windows Phone 7 devices in London.

Of the two new handsets, the Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, the former definitely is the more interesting given its sleek design and high-end features. And of those features, we're particularly excited by the 8-megapixel camera with the high-quality Carl Zeiss optics and an f/2.2 aperture.

Given Nokia's strong history with camera phones (the N8 was a stellar shooter) our friends at CNET UK decided to put the Lumia 800 to the test to see just … Read more

Windows Phones just aren't selling (only 1 percent in the U.S., according to Nielsen in June). The new Mango OS is nice enough, but with shelves awash with so many excellent Android phones, what Windows Phone badly needs is a hardware hit.

If Nokia has its way, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 will deliver it.

"It's a new dawn for Nokia," its CEO Stephen Elop said this week in London. "And we think we can break through."

Nokia's optimism and energy will certainly help. More important, so will its marketing dollars. Yet Nokia won't going anywhere if it doesn't produce the kinds of phones that people want to buy. On the surface, Nokia's two first Windows Phones are promising starts, and now it's time for a closer look. But I can already tell you this--it's going to be a long, tough, uphill trek for the company.… Read more

LONDON--Nokia's new Windows Phone-based Lumia smartphones will not hit the U.S. market for months, but when they do, will the devices have what it takes to entice U.S. consumers?

That's the question everyone is asking this week as Nokia introduces its its first Windows Phone smartphones: the flagship Lumia 800 and the lower-cost Lumia 710. These phones are the first to be announced since Nokia's new CEO, Stephen Elop, took over and threw out the company's old Symbian operating system and partnered with Microsoft.

Nokia, which has struggled in the smartphone market since Apple'… Read more

One of the first things we noticed about the Nokia Lumia 800 is that it looks strikingly like the Nokia N9, which runs Nokia's soon-to-be-extinct MeeGo OS.

Indeed, it has a similar unibody polycarbonite shell along with the same curved AMOLED display. But on probing further, we found that the differences between the two go far beyond just operating systems. Here we compare the two devices side by side.… Read more

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--Mere hours after Nokia launched the Lumia 800 and its lower-end sibling, the Lumia 710, in London, we headed on over to the Nokia offices in Sunnyvale, Calif., to get a hands-on look at the new devices for ourselves. (Read Jessica Dolcourt's take on the Nokia Lumia 710 here.)

Check out CNET UK's full review of the Nokia Lumia 800.

If the Nokia Lumia 800 looks at all familiar to you, you might be thinking of the Nokia N9. Indeed, the hardware looks remarkably similar, with its unibody polycarbonite shell. As our colleague Jessica Dolcourt said, … Read more

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--Nokia's first, highly anticipated foray into Windows Phone gives both the phone builder and the software maker a second chance. Two of them, actually.

A few hours after Nokia's big unveiling of the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 at Nokia World, Senior Associate Editor Nicole Lee and I went to Nokia's Sunnyvale office to spend some quality time with both phones. (Stay tuned for Nicole's hands-on impressions of the Lumia 800!)

The Nokia Lumia 710 is the more midrange of the two, but I must say, it was attraction at first sight. The phone itself is pretty typical in dimensions and layout--Nokia left all the design risks to the Nokia Lumia 800, with its polycarbon unibody design, lack of a battery cover, and single visible screw.

Yet the Lumia 710 fits together well, feels good in the hand, and has some fun, funky colors and quirks that set it apart from the legion of sleek 'n' glossy, black and gray phones that seem to dominate. … Read more

LONDON - Nokia is launching an aggressive marketing campaign to sell the world on its new smartphones based on the Windows Phone operating system.

Wednesday marked Nokia's coming out party for the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, the first two Nokia smartphones that will use Micrsosoft's Windows Phone operating system. But it also marked the beginning of a marketing program that will Nokia hopes will get consumers excited about the new Lumia product line.

How Nokia markets and positions the Lumia phones against competitors, such as the Apple iPhone and a growing list of Google Android phones is … Read more

Though the headliners of Nokia World were the company's first Windows Phone devices, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 700, Nokia also introduced a new line of handsets today designed for emerging markets.

The new Nokia Asha (which means hope in Hindi) family includes four models--the Nokia Asha 200, Asha 201, Asha 300, and Asha 303--and is part of the company's mission to bring affordable, stylish, and feature-rich phones to all parts of the world. The Asha handsets run on the Series 40 platform but vary in design and purpose. Here is a breakdown of each of the models. … Read more