Nokia has been rolling out new camera features and this will affect the entire range of its Lumia smartphones. This will include the Cinemagraph digital camera lens and updated Camera Extras with object remover.

These features are already available on Windows Phone 8 phones and this update will continue to roll out on the Nokia Lumia 900, 800, 710, 610 and 510 smart phones in the coming weeks.

Another update that continues to roll out is the Windows 7.8 software update. This update also has these new camera features and users just have to keep an eye out for them.

Cinemagraph as explained by Nokia’s Kingori Gitahi, is like a piece of Hollywood magic in your pocket because it lets you bring your pictures to life by animating a part of the picture. When combined with the new features on Windows Phone 7.8, Nokia Lumia will feel like a brand new device. The Read more »

Windows Phone 8 is the in thing now. Currently, Nokia, Samsung and HTC are the only ones doing mass Windows Phone 8 smartphones. There’s Huawei, but they have only done one so far so we will not include them in that list for now. 

Story Kidogo about the Design (and how it looks at first glance) - The build is something called a candy-bar. It even looks tasty, like something you could eat. It looks nice. Funny thing though, at first you cannot find out how you open it. But you do get the hang of it and then it becomes easy. You know how men never read manuals? This one you will have to read. I had to read it too so don not feel so bad. Was worth it too. Be sure that if you do not find out how to open this, you will break the darn thing. The plastic back cover of the Lumia 820 which is nicely rounded along the corners. I had the black version and I kept getting a feeling that buying a new back cover could make this phone feel totally brand new when you need to sell it. It is worth considering in this day and age of ‘new smartphones every day’ Thank God the battery is removable. SIM goes behind Battery. It weighs 16 Read more »

Image Courtesy, AllAboutWindowsPhone

I must be very honest from the get-go. When I was called to collect this device courtesy of my good friend Rogers (Roger, with an ‘S’), I must say I wasn’t too keen. Everyone who has been talking about the Lumia series was focused on the higher range of Lumias. This is the 810, the 900 and the 920. I especially fancied the Magenta 920. I kept picturing how good it would look on the table as I did PowerPoint presentations. How well it would distract those keen execs. I work with so they wouldn’t notice a typo in my presentation. But this isn’t the 920, it is the 510; the 920’s younger brother.

A Bit of Specs

This phone weighs in at 129 grams. I was surprised at how light it actually felt and was even more surprised to find it had a battery inside. It fits perfectly into my shirt pocket and has a good well rounded feel that doesn’t make you feel like you’re over-stretching your fingers to type on the screen. Read more »

Nokia has announced availability of the first Lumia smartphone in East Africa, the Nokia Lumia 510. This Nokia Lumia 510 is the most affordable smartphone in Lumia family.

One of the most exciting features of new Windows Phone OS is the live tiles which allows you to know what is going on with your phone at a glance. This phone, a Windows Phone device, is different to other smartphone platforms thanks to features like:

• Live Tiles – make it easier to see incoming messages and updates
• People Hub – brings together contacts and updates from across social networks into one location
• Microsoft Office – for word and document processing suites
• Internet Explorer 9 on the mobile
• SkyDrive storage with Windows Account – This is coupled with the Microsoft input in the OS software Read more »

Image courtesy, www.facebook.com/NokiaIndia

Nokia is obviously betting big on Gaming Elements.

This alongside its array of mobile entertainment sets in a bid to attract the youth to take up its new low-cost (read affordable) handset dubbed the Nokia Asha series. A local app developer such as the consortium that came up with Ma3 Racer that has averaged 870,000 downloads from the Ovi Store since launch is one of the beneficiaries of this line. Nokia has managed to partner with gaming powerhouses such as EA (Electronic Arts), Gameloft, Rovio of the famous Angry Birds, NAMCO BANDAI who are doing big things on Windows Phone and, most recently Zynga who do Farmville; Nokia is able to introduce some of the world’s leading games to the youth consumers on their mobile handsets. Read more »

“The product has to be new, it has to bring in new innovation on how a company runs its operations.” says Brian Longwe. This was during outreach launch of the DEMO Africa (innovation tour), a launch pad for emerging technology and trends that will run in October 2012. Brian briefed interested parties gathered at Strathmore University’s iLab, who are one of the collaborators of this event.

Harry Hare, the producer of DEMO Africa says unlike other start ups, DEMO Africa is not a competition for money; it is more than that. It is meant to be a competition for markets and for developers to come up with a compelling, bankable product that will attract investors into investing in it for long-term gain. He says DEMO will be big; the event will be looking for business ready products that will disrupt the tech scene, a unique product that will push investors to turn Read more »

There’s been a gap in the GM quarters at Nokia since Kenneth Oyolla who now heads Global Market Activation at Nokia based in London left in early 2012. We finally managed to get in touch with the guy who set out to fill Ken’s big shoes and had a chat with him on his views on the market currently as well as his vision for East Africa from a Nokia standpoint. His name is Bruce Howe, and here is his story:

Juuchini: Background in Education and Nationality? 

Bruce Howe: I’m from New Zealand although I do think of myself more as a Global Citizen. This is mostly because I have lived and worked across India, South East Asia, Middle East and Africa. My background is in Marketing and management. I graduated University of Auckland, New Zealand, with a Bachelor of Commerce Degree.

Juuchini: Where were you before you came to Kenya? What were you doing there? 

Bruce Howe: Prior to this role, I was Director of Portfolio, Business Planning and Consumer Insights for Nokia Middle East and Africa, based out of Johannesburg South Africa. That basically means I managed teams across Johannesburg and Dubai with key focus on Read more »

Are you a rapper? Are you a singer? Do you speak ‘Spoken Word’? if yes, you’re in for some good news.

Nokia today, 10^th July 2012, announced the first round of auditions for the upcoming “Don’t Break the Beat” competition. This campaign largely tied to the Nokia Asha range of under 10,000 KES price-point Nokia devices seeks to find the best Cypher among the youth in all of EastAfrica.

Auditions are set to begin on Saturday 14^th July 2012 at the National Museums. Once picked, all contestants shortlisted will get a chance to battle it out in public at favourite Nights spots around the city. Read more »

If you own either an Asha 302 or an Asha 303, Nokia have got some pretty exciting news for you. You can now get Mail for Exchange (principle for push email, calendar and contact data synchronization between compatible Microsoft Exchange email servers and your phone) via Nokia’s OviStore for free. This is what Microsoft originally called Microsoft ActiveSync when they ran it exclusively on Windows Phones. This protocol-based app for business communication purposes is now available on Asha devices costing right under 10,000 KES in the Kenyan market. This is Nokia’s way of bringing business opportunity to entrepreneurs and businesses in high growth economies around the world.

“Nokia Asha phones blur the lines between feature phones and smart-phones, and Mail for Exchange on the Asha 302 and Asha 303 represents a significant step forward in connecting the next billion people to more critical information around them,” said Dieter May, Senior VP, Mobile Phones Services. Read more »

Nokia East Africa will on 23^rd and 24^th June 2012 host ‘Nokia Hack’ – A 2 day mobile application development competition. The main aim of the competition will be to challenge participants to develop the best Qt apps. Qt offers a User Interface framework for the development of rich, compelling apps for Nokia smart-phones such as those based on Symbian Belle; the latest software upgrade in the Symbian range.

“Through Nokia Hack, we want to recognize and reward local app developers by giving them a platform to create their best apps with Qt. We will also work closely with them to refine the apps for publishing on Nokia Store and have already seen great traction in East Africa and globally for downloads of these smart-phone apps,” said Peter Karimi, Business Development Manager EDX at Nokia East Africa. Read more »