Nokia unveils new Windows Phone 8.1 smartphones

THE rollout of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.1 is gaining momentum with Nokia announcing two new smartphones.

Nokia Lumia 930 smartphone

THE rollout of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.1 is gaining momentum with Nokia announcing two new smartphones, one being its new premium Lumia 930 handset. The 930 has a metallic look. It has an aluminium body and a polycarbonate back, and is available in four colours — black, white, green and orange.

The Lumia 930 has a small bezel. Microsoft’s signature tiles home screen takes up nearly all the front real estate. With Windows Phone 8.1, the tiles are transparent, with wallpaper floating underneath.

It boasts a 5-inch full HD OLED display with a high resolution 441 pixels per inch screen, a 2.2 Gigahertz quad core Qualcomm processor and a 20 megapixel “PureView” camera with Nokia’s signature optical image stabilisation. There’s a smaller, 1.2 megapixel wide angle front facing camera.

Nokia however has not included a removable battery with the 930. It has a 2420 milliampere hour fixed battery, and 32 Gigabytes of internal storage. Nor is there provision for a microSD card. You either have to manage with the 32GB of internal storage, or store data in the cloud with Microsoft OneDrive.

Nokia has included activity monitoring with “SenseCore” software which features an on-board steps counter, calorie tracker and GPS integration. Unlike Samsung, which seeks to sell companion health monitoring devices, Nokia is simply offering its software development kit (SDK) to developers to make use of the sensor technology.

The Nokia 930 will be available later this month for $729 outright or through carriers.

The second new model, the Lumias 635, is a budget smartphone costing $279. Unlike its premium cousin, the 635 does have a removable battery and a slot for a micro SD card to add up to 128GB to its 8GB of internal storage. It features a 4.5-inch screen but is a 3G rather than 4G handset.