Ewan Spence

PureView imaging technology; the ongoing styling story; Nokia’s additional software; NFC and Wallet Hub support; and if they announce a price and carrier in the US market.

More detail over on Forbes, and we’ll be on top of all the legitimate news in a timely manner on All About Windows Phone this week.

Lee Williams via CNet.

When I was at Nokia and we shipped a Symbian product and it was bad, in its worst incarnation we knew that if we just flipped the switch, we could move 2.5 to three million units — overnight, no matter how bad the product. That was Nokia. That was Nokia’s brand, we knew we could count on that.

The problem is you can only pull that trick once before the networks see the customer feedback. 24 months later, all those customers looking to buy another smartphone on contract… didn’t buy a Nokia.

It’s been a busy week in the Windows Phone world, what with CES, new models, and some great app announcements. What better way to catch up on all the news and make sense of it with the All About Windows Phone Team and our weekly podcast?

In this episode… we bring you all the Windows Phone related news from CES. There’s discussion of the Microsoft keynote, upcoming Xbox Live titles and the first Windows Phone LTE devices, the HTC TITAN 2 and the Nokia Lumia 900, both of which will be available through US operator AT&T. We finish, as usual, with an app pick from each of the team.

[audio:http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/aawp_20120113_010.mp3]
MP3 File - Show Notes - Insight RSS

Paul Thurrott on the whole one hundred million dollars of PR for Microsoft and Nokia stories going around. This is why blogging rumours on top of rumours on top of guesswork to chase page-views really damages a lot of tech reporting online.

I’ve been sitting on this information for weeks so that Microsoft can make its big announcement at CES this coming week. But with these leaks, as with the equally inaccurate LTE leaks last week, I felt the need to set the record straight. The way tech blogs work these days is that any information, no matter how inaccurate, is simply parroted between all the gadget blogs and then, inevitably, to the increasingly lazy mainstream news as well. So let’s at least get it right.

Anyone following All About Windows Phone will not have seen this story in our news headlines, or in the “flow” sidebar of interesting links. It’s long been the rule of thumb at “All About…” that we don’t cover leaks, rumours, spy shots and similar topics. Does it leave us looking a bit behind the curve? In the eyes of some, yes, but we think it makes for a better experience and helps build up the trust between the writers and the readers.

Nokia sneaked this one out via a blog post - we’ll not hear of Symbian Belle again, it’s getting a rebrand as Nokia Belle.

The all new Nokia Belle (previously Symbian Belle) user interface will soon be available for download to some existing smartphones and begin shipping with a selection of smartphones that are already on the market.

Of course the phones will still be Symbian smartphones, it’s just that they’ll be called Symbian smartphones running Nokia Belle. More from Rafe (on the increasingly wonderfully named All About Symbian) and myself (on Forbes).

Nokia didn’t get huge by selling the Nokia N810. They got rich selling Neo’s 7110.

John Biggs, in one sentence, shows the Nokia/Microsoft strategy.

Every time I have to write about Nokia’s Clear Black Display (“ClearBlack Display helps solve this issue while preserving image quality and and keeping blacks as dark as possible”), I can’t help think of something else…

Free wifi? In London? Sponsored by Nokia? You’d think they have something to sell that they’re proud of this year…

The summary is simple, Nokia announced their first two Windows Phones (the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710) at the London ExCeL centre this morning. The detail, strategy, and finer points will come out once I leave the bubble, but for now I want to make one point.

From an announcement on Feb 11th, through the finalising of  the contract in April, to shipping the device out the factory door yesterday is an insanely fast schedule. Nokia and Stephen Elop wanted to show they could deliver to schedule, and they have clearly done that. You can look at the standard components from Compal and Qualcomm, and the use of the N9 styling and design as reasons for this speed - but back in February, people thought that getting a very  limited release out before the end of the year would be a good result. Nokia have beaten the deadline by two months, with two handsets.

More coverage and editorial will be up on All About Windows Phone, but for now, on the production side, I’m impressed. I wonder what herophone  Nokia can come up with after another twelve months?

Back in February, a huge number of people wondered why Nokia went with Windows Phone 7 and not Android. Here’s another reason to add to the rather obvious business cases that were pointed out after Feb 11, and it’s all to do with Samsung.

Today, Samsung announced they would be paying Microsoft a per-device royalty on all their Android devices. And the per-device Android fee handed to Microsoft is more than the per-device cost of licencing Windows Phone 7. There’s a potential fiduciary argument that Windows Phone is now cheaper than Android.

Starter for ten, how much are Nokia paying per Windows Phone they sell? Well it’s “significantly lower than for other Windows Phone licensees” (AAS) and Nokia are receiving ”substantial payments” from Microsoft in regards to their IP. There’s no hard and fast numbers out there but I bet the balance sheets, at least for the next two or three years, are going to be in Nokia’s favour on that per-device cost.

Nokia and Stephen Elop were always playing the long game, and it’s starting to bear fruit.

Because the Nokia UK MD wouldn’t want to get fired for giving it 8/10, perhaps?