Microsoft Lumia 950 goes official with PureView camera

Owners of a flagship Windows Phone have had their patience stretched thin, but those that held off have been rewarded. The Microsoft Lumia 950 improves on just about every feature of the Lumia 930. About time too, the 930 is a year and a half old.

The Windows 10 Mobile device comes with a 5.2" QHD screen – the sharpest on a Lumia yet. Like the XL screen, this one is an AMOLED with Glance screen and ClearBlack, except in a more compact footprint this time.

The camera is basically the same – a 20MP PureView sensor (1/2.4") with 5th gen optical stabilization and Carl Zeiss optics (f/1.9). It can record 2160p video natively with Lumia's traditional Hi-Fi audio recording. There's a 5MP/1080p selfie camera too, but without the LED flash.

The Lumia 950 is powered by Snapdragon 808 with liquid cooling and 3GB of RAM. Gaming performance will take a hit if devs want to use the screen's full QHD resolution, but for general app usage Windows was never picky about the chipset.

The phone comes with USB Type-C and wireless charging, plus a relatively big 3,000mAh battery. Using the Type-C connector you can hook up the Display Dock, which gives you HDMI and DisplayPort video out plus three USBs.

The Microsoft Lumia 950 will cost $550, available in November. There's a dual-SIM version too.

$139 Microsoft Lumia 550 is a 4.7" Windows 10 smartphone

Microsoft announced the Lumia 950 and L flagship pair and just as we though the devices event was moving from the Lumias towards the Surface, a Lumia 550 was briefly mentioned. An entire ten seconds of the spotlight were enough to announce the affordable smartphone will be available in December for $139.

The list of specs starts with a 4.7-inch LCD display of a 720p resolution, which seems to be the best part on paper. Computing power comes from a Snapdragon 210 chipset with a quad-core 1.1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM.

Storage is a rather limiting 8GB, but is expandable via microSD. There’s a 5MP/2MP camera combo and full LTE support, courtesy of Qualcomm’s chip.

   

Microsoft Lumia 550

The Microsoft Lumia 550 will be available in a variety of colors for its detachable polycarbonate back cover, a staple of the lower end Lumias. Battery capacity is listed at 2,100mAh, and the whole package measures 136.1 x 67.8 x 9.9mm.

The affordable Windows 10 device tips the scales at 141.9g, virtually the same as the new iPhone 6s. Apparently, that's the industry standard for a 4.7-inch smartphone.

Microsoft announces which Lumias will get Windows 10 first

The desktop PC version of Windows 10 has been out since yesterday, but the mobile variation of Microsoft's latest OS is still in the making. Furthermore, we don't even have an exact release date for Windows 10 Mobile yet, so it may take a few months for it to actually surface. In fact, the latest rumors on the matter talk about a November launch.

In the meantime, however, you might want to know which Lumia-branded smartphones are going to get the update to Windows 10 first. Microsoft has helpfully published an official list.

So, if you own a Lumia Lumia 430, Lumia 435, Lumia 532, Lumia 535, Lumia 540, Lumia 640,Lumia 640 XL, Lumia 735, Lumia 830, or Lumia 930, you'll be among the first people on the planet to experience the final version of Windows 10 Mobile when it hits.

If you have a different Lumia, there's no reason to panic just yet. Microsoft has confirmed that the above are not the only Lumias to get Windows 10, just the first in line for the update. So the new OS should make its way to many more models at some point. In all cases, the update to Windows 10 Mobile will be free.

On this occasion, Microsoft has once again promised that all Lumias running Windows Phone 8.1 with the Denim software will eventually get upgraded to Windows 10.

Source | Via

Microsoft working on software to convert Android phones to Windows 10

After Microsoft announced on their blog post that Windows 10 will release this summer, the company also added that it is working with Chinese handset maker Xiaomi to offer some customers a test version of Windows 10 on their smartphones.

Microsoft wrote said that, it will help a select group of Xiaomi Mi4 users ‘flash’ their phones with the new Windows 10 OS on their handsets and let them contribute to its future release later this year. These users will then use Windows 10 on their Mi4 devices and provide valuable feedback. Xiaomi stresses that this is not a partnership but an initiative. This move portrays Microsoft’s new platform through a unique approach, points out TechCrunch.

As the company uses the word ‘flash’ here, it indicates that Microsoft will offer a ROM, similar to custom ROMs like CyanogenMod, to install their OS on the Android smartphone. Microsoft will deliver Windows 10 ROM for Mi 4 users with a software that helps convert an Android phone into a Windows 10 phone, complete with access to all Microsoft services, added the report. 

But the bigger news is that Microsoft will soon be rolling out this feature out to other devices as well.

With this move, Microsoft could attract many Android users to Windows 10, without having the need to to purchase another phone. Microsoft also added in their blog that China is an ideal market for testing such an initiative, given the region’s relative lack of lock-in to Google services and a general affinity towards custom ROMs.

The availability for Windows 10 on Xiaomi Mi 4 will be announced in a few months.