Microsoft outs list of Lumia phones in line to get Windows 10 Mobile update first

Microsoft has revealed the list of Lumia smartphones which will be getting the Windows 10 Mobile update first.

Microsoft confirmed that the Lumia 430, Lumia 435, Lumia 532, Lumia 535, Lumia 540, Lumia 640, Lumia 640 XL, Lumia 735, Lumia 830, and the Lumia 930 will be the first devices to get Windows 10 Mobile update. 

The above mentioned Lumia models are just the first in the line for the Windows 10 Mobile update. Microsoft also revealed that all Lumia models running Windows 8.1 with Denim update will get upgrade at later stages. So you don't need to panic if you have a different Lumia model that's not on the list.

Windows 10 Mobile brings an improved Action centre, new browser called Microsoft Edge, revamped settings, universal apps like Calendar, Groove, Video and Cortana virtual assistant.

The Windows 10 Mobile update roll out is expected in November. However Microsoft is yet to officially announce the exact timeline.

Microsoft is working on two high-end Lumia smartphones codenamed 'Cityman' and 'Talkman'

The last few Microsoft Lumia smartphones have been entry-level and mid-range devices handsets, the latest being the most affordable Lumia handset to date, Lumia 430. Now Microsoft has shifted its focus on high-end devices with premium specs.

According to a report from Unleash the Phone, Microsoft is working on two high-end Lumia smartphones codenamed 'Cityman' and 'Talkman' running Windows 10. The specifications of these smartphones have also been revealed.

The Cityman will feature 5.7-inch QHD display, octa-core Qualcomm processor, 3G RAM, 32GB internal storage, a microSD card slot, 20-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front facing camera. It will pack 3300mAh battery.

The Talkman features 5.2-inch QHD display, hexa-core Qualcomm processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, a microSD card slot, 20-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front facing camera and a 3000 mAh removable battery.

The rear camera of both the smartphones will be equipped with triple-LED flash to support different tones for photos. Unleash the phones also states that Microsoft is going to try and make the Talkman slimmer than the Lumia 930.

In related news, The Verge have confirmed that Microsoft is working on new Windows 10 Mobile flagships codenamed Cityman and Talkman. However, The Verge points out a new feature that was not mentioned by Unleash the phones. 

It adds that Cityman will support Continuum for phones feature, allowing you to use the device like a PC. Microsoft is  planning to bundle some additional hardware with the Cityman to enable this. It is unclear whether Talkman will support Continuum feature.

Source : Unleash The Phones | The Verge

Microsoft announces Continuum for phones, turns Windows 10 phones into a PC

Microsoft announced that Continuum will be coming to Windows 10 for phones. With Continuum, users can use their Windows 10 Phone like a computer. Users can do so by connecting their phone to an external monitor via HDMI, along with a Bluetooth Keyboard and mouse.The user interface will adapt to fit the monitor.

This feature is better experience with Univesal Windows app. Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore at Build 2015 keynote showed off Microsoft Office running from a phone on an external screen, and on the big display the UI was similar to Word app running on PC.

There are no details yet on which smartphones will support the Continnum feature. However Microsoft said the the feature will be built into "select premium phones" running Windows 10.

Microsoft also  posted a video that shows how Continuum feature will work on Windows 10 for phones. Check it out-

Microsoft releases Windows 10 Technical Preview build 10052 for phones

Microsoft has released Build 10052 of the Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones on the Fast track program. The new build is a minor update from the 10051 build and comes with fixes and improvements.

Microsoft notes that "There are no new features in this build, but it should be much more usable day to day with these improvements".

Here is what is new in the Build 10052

• Flight mode can now be enabled.
• You can now disable data connections.
• We fixed the bug in which your phone’s MMS settings were lost after upgrading from Build 9941.
• We fixed the issue in which you couldn’t download keyboards for additional languages.
• We fixed the issue where the viewfinder in the Camera app gets composed incorrectly on some devices like the Lumia 1020.

In addition, Lumia 520 users now can once again download the Windows 10 technical preview. Last week Lumia 520 users reported that their device was not able to revert back to Windows 8.1 from Windows 10 using the Windows Phone Reset tool. Microsoft paused the roll out to fix the issue. Now, Microsoft has fixed the issue and updated the Windows Phone Reset tool.

Source : Microsoft Blog

Related :

How To Revert Windows 10 Phone Preview Back To Windows Phone 8.1

All new features, bug fixes and known issues in the Windows 10 Build 10051 For Phones 
New Windows 10 Technical Preview build 10051 now available for phones

All new features, bug fixes and known issues in the Windows 10 Build 10051 For Phones

Today, Microsoft released a new Build 10051 of the Windows 10 Technical preview for phones. The build not only supports more Lumia devices but brings new features that users will experience for the first time. Microsoft has also fixed some major bugs in this build.

Here are the full list of new features 

Project Spartan: An early version of Project Spartan is available in this flight. It uses new rendering engine to give greater interoperability with the modern mobile web, and includes early versions of Reading View and Reading List. For now, Project Spartan is not the default browser, and exists side-by-side with IE11. You can find it in the All Apps list and pin it to your Start Screen from there. Please send feedback on sites and design. For more details on Project Spartan on the phone – see this blog post.

New mail and calendar apps: Outlook Mail and Outlook Calendar are the new built-in mail and calendar universal apps for Windows 10. These new apps bring a fresh UI, with a toggle to freely move between your email and calendar without returning to the Start screen. Outlook Mail includes customizable Swipe Gestures, letting you swipe right or left to take actions like delete, flag, move or mark as read/unread. Outlook Mail leverages the familiar capabilities of Word to create a richer email experience. You can do formatting tricks like inserting tables, adding pictures and using bullets and text. Outlook Mail and Outlook Calendar connects to Office 365, Exchange, Outlook.com, Gmail, Google Calendar, Yahoo!, IMAP, POP and other popular accounts.

New Phone and Messaging apps: The Messaging app has a new visual design. You can also easily upgrade from a messaging conversation to a voice call with one click of the phone icon in the new app bar.

New People app: The new universal People app has a new visual design but will continue to be the comprehensive list of all your contacts across the services you care about such as Exchange, Outlook.com, Gmail, Facebook, etc. You’ll be able to easily manage all your contacts and quickly connect with them. 

New Maps app: It offers you the features and tools you need to explore and navigate the world. This includes the best maps, aerial imagery, rich local search data, and voice guided navigation experiences from both Bing Maps and HERE maps, integrated together for the first time into a single app for Windows.

Updated App Switcher: Check out the updated app switcher by pressing and holding the back button on your phone to see your recently used apps. We’ve added support for landscape when invoked from an app being viewed in landscape. For large phones like the Lumia 1520, a new grid layout is introduced so you can be more efficient at switching between apps. The length of recently used apps is extended to 15.

The major bug fixes in the latest build are-

Updated  keyboard: The keyboard layout now has period, comma and emoji keys on first page of keyboard. Language switching is enabled by press-and-hold on the &123 key. There is also an option to replace the emoji key with the language switching key.

The Cortana icon resolution now scales with tile size

Fixed Photo app issue that failed to launch periodically when attempting to add a attachment to an email, OneNote or Facebook item.

Fixed the issue where the Microsoft Band wouldn’t sync with your phone after upgrading to Windows 10.

The Photos app’s tile will now pick up the phone’s theme color before it’s launched and then start showing pictures from your collection including OneDrive in the Live tile.

And since the Windows 10 Build 10051 for phone is pre production software, users can expect to see some bugs. Check out the list below-

• There might be situations in which auto-upload of your Camera Roll to OneDrive may not be working. Please be sure to back up your photos especially if you need to use the Windows Phone Recovery Tool to go back to Windows Phone 8.1.
• The Office Hub has been removed from this build. You won’t be able to open Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote files in this build. Preview versions of the universal Office apps will be available in the coming weeks.
• We are redoing how text messages are handled and processed by Cortana so in this build text messages cannot be read out over Bluetooth.
• After upgrade, some apps that have been installed onto a SD memory card will fail to launch. To fix this, uninstall and reinstall the apps.
• About 1% of the time, incoming phone calls may not play a ringing sound.
• Call + SMS filtering will not work after upgrade.
• For people upgrading their phone from Build 9941, there is a bug in which your phone’s MMS settings will be lost after upgrade. The new Messaging app doesn’t yet have the ability to re-enter these settings. You will need to use the Windows Phone Recovery Tool to go back to Windows Phone 8.1 and then upgrade to this build to get MMS working again.
• Also for people upgrading their phone from Build 9941, the tiles on your Start screen for the Camera and Photos apps may be missing or corrupt. You will have to unpin any corrupt tiles and re-pin the apps to your Start screen.
• On some phones, due to a scaling bug the dismiss button won’t be visible when an alarm is triggered. To stop your phone from “alarming “just touch the arrow and swipe up on the notification and off the screen to end the alarm.
• On phones with 512MB of memory, apps can randomly crash due to an issue with memory management.
• Flight mode cannot be enabled.
• Data connections can’t be disabled.
• You may need to re-pin the Phone app after upgrade.
• The Insider Hub is now included on Phone but may fail to launch on some phones.

Source : Windows Blog

New Windows 10 Technical Preview build 10051 now available for phones

Microsoft has released the Build 10051 of the Windows 10 Technical Preview for phone. The build supports more lumia devices and brings tons of new features that users will experience for the first time.

The latest build is available for Lumia 1020, Lumia 1320, Lumia 1520, Lumia 520, Lumia 525, Lumia 526, Lumia 530, Lumia 530 Dual Sim, Lumia 535, Lumia 620, Lumia 625, Lumia 630, Lumia 630 Dual Sim, Lumia 635, Lumia 636, Lumia 638, Lumia 720, Lumia 730, Lumia 730 Dual SIM, Lumia 735, Lumia 810, Lumia 820, Lumia 822, Lumia 830, Lumia 920, Lumia 925, Lumia 928, Microsoft Lumia 430, Microsoft Lumia 435, Microsoft Lumia 435 Dual SIM, Microsoft Lumia 435 Dual SIM DTV, Microsoft Lumia 532, Microsoft Lumia 532 Dual SIM, Microsoft Lumia 640 Dual SIM and the Microsoft Lumia 535 Dual SIM.

Unfortunately, Lumia 930, Lumia Icon and Lumia 640XL will not be getting the latest build. 

The new build bring new features like Project Spartan browser, new mail and calendar apps, new phone and messaging apps, updated app switcher and new people and map app. It also brings some bug fixes.

To download the latest Windows 10 for phones build follow these steps

• To get started you will need to Download the Windows Insider App from Windows Phone store
• Launch the app and login with your Microsoft account. Make sure you are enrolled in the Insider program. Visit insider.windows.com to enroll.
• Choose between Insider Slow or fast. You can opt for Insider Slow' option if you wish to get reliable and slower updates or you can opt for 'Insider Fast' if you want to get the latest updates.
• Accept the terms of the Insider program. Note that you may void your device's warranty by doing so.
• Hit Check mark
• Go to settings > Phone update > Check for updates > Update
• Your Lumia device will start downloading the Windows 10 preview update
 

 

You will find more details about the new Windows 10 for phones build at  Windows Blog.

Microsoft launch the Lumia 535 in India, priced at Rs 9,199

Microsoft  launched  the Lumia 535 Dual SIM, in India.The Lumia 535 will be the first device bearing the Microsoft Lumia label instead of Nokia Lumia. The device is aimed at the emerging market for affordable smartphones.

The Lumia 535 sports a 5-inch IPS LCD display with a qHD (540x960 pixels) resolution and a pixel density of 220ppi, protected by Corning Gorilla Glass.The device is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor clocked at 1.2GHz paired with 1GB of RAM and 8GB internal storage [expandable via microSD card upto 128GB]. The Lumia 535 Dual SIM also get a 15GB of free OneDrive cloud storage. The Microsoft Lumia 535 Dual SIM smartphone runs Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim update.

Camera features include 5-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash  and a 5-megapixel front facing camera for selfie fans.  Connectivity features include 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and A-GPS.

Microsoft Lumia 535 will be available in cyan, bright green, bright orange, white, dark grey, and black colour optionns. The device also comes with freebies which include 500MB worth of cellular data from vodafone for 2 months, Rs.6000 worth of shopping vouchers from Jabong, Rs. 600 worth of recharge via Paytm app, two month subscription to BoxTv worth Rs.720 and eBooks from Flipkart worth Rs.1500.

The Lumia 535 Dual Sim has been priced at Rs. 9,199, and will be available in from Friday, November 28.

Lumia 730 captures World's largest selfie of 1151 People In Bangladesh

There was an attempt in Bangladesh to capture the world's largest selfie using the Lumia 730. The event was held at the Bashundhara City Shopping Mall on November 22.

Earlier this year Ellen DeGeneres' used a Samsung smartphone to capture the popular selfie at the oscar but could only manage a dozen.

Lumia 730 also known as the selfie phone was used to capture the world's largest selfie of 1,151 people. The selfie was captured by the 5MP front-facing camera of Lumia 730 which has a wide angle for selfie photography.

The image was posted on Microsoft Lumia Bangladesh Facebook page.

This event  is a very clever and successful propaganda for Microsoft. Microsoft is said to be waiting for an official confirmation from Guinness to enter the book of records.

If you can squeeze in 1152 individuals, do not forget to apply for the Guinness Book of Records.