Technology
Nokia unveils its first Windows Phones
By Seattle Business Magazine October 26, 2011
On Wednesday, the world got to see what the Microsoft and Nokia partnership will look like. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop unveiled two Windows Phones, called the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, during his keynote address at the Nokia World conference in London.
Nokia will not sell either phone in the United States immediately, but Elop announced that a portfolio of products would be introduced in early 2012. The Lumia 800 sports a hefty price tag of $585; the Lumia 710 is slightly more affordable at $376.
Lumia 800 phones feature a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen, an 8 megapixel camera, a 1.4 Ghz processor and Carl Zeiss optics. Nokia also announced navigation, music and ESPN sports apps unique to the phones. Elon called the device the first real Windows Phone.
The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands will launch the phone in November, followed by Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan before the end of the year.
Both companies have a lot riding on the success of their partnership. Microsoft seeks to finally gain a stable foothold in the highly competitive smartphone marketplace dominated by Apple, Android and Research in Motion. Nokia, which has seen its market share erode in recent years, hopes to stop the bleeding.
In a separate announcement, Microsoft and Mozilla released Firefox With Bing, a customized version of the popular search engine that sets Bing as the default search engine in the search box and AwesomeBar and makes Bing.com the default home page. Prior to the announcement, Google was always the default search engine option. Google offers the Chrome internet browser, which competes directly with Firefox.