See what you're missing with the new Nokia Lumia 925

The new Nokia Lumia 925 is the world's most innovative smartphone, encompassing an industry-leading camera, stunning aluminium design and superb HD screen all in beautifully thin package.

The Lumia 925 is the phone that's designed to help you capture life's best moments, no matter where you are. Using a six piece lens in front of the award-winning 8.7MP camera, whether it's getting the picture of your friends late at night or the moment your mate scores a winning goal, the Lumia 925's camera will allow you to capture the moment in perfect clarity.

Smarter than smart

This innovation is brought about through the all-new Nokia Smart Camera feature, which takes a burst of images and then uses a simple UI to let you decide which effects or changes you want to make. This means you can alter a face if someone shut their eyes at the crucial moment, or create an action shot that combines lots of images at once to create a really cool effect.

What if you've spent ages composing that really great holiday shot, only to have it ruined by someone walking in front of you? With Smart Camera you can simply and easily edit out any unwanted items, meaning no more random people in your favourite vacation snaps, allowing you to make any photo look the way you want.

And what's more, you can set this mode to activate automatically so there's no need to worry that you'll miss the moment when you whip your camera out of a pocket or bag.

On top of this, Nokia has brought spectacular sharpness to low-light photos and videos, thanks to the upgraded camera. Even in low light you can take the best photos of any smartphone on the market, so you don't have to worry about waiting for a flash when you want to get the perfect snap in darker conditions.

The best a smartphone can offer

Of course, there's so much more to the Nokia Lumia 925 than a stunning camera. The design is one that encapsulates Nokia's decades of design and research into what makes the best smartphone, and the glorious fusion of aluminium and polycarbonate has created a phone that you'll find it hard to put down.
The Lumia 925 also offers a fantastic 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ screen, which makes games and movies look stunning thanks to the HD resolution on offer. It uses Nokia's advanced ClearBlack technology to improve the quality of the display too, meaning everything you want to do on the phone will look as crisp and sharp as can be.

Nokia's rich Windows Phone heritage shines throughout the Lumia 925, bringing intelligent and useful features like HERE Maps with LiveSight. The former is the only smartphone application to offer a truly offline mapping experience, giving you an intuitive and simple mapping experience that can turn your phone into a fully-fledged sat-nav device too.

On top of that, Nokia's rich LiveSight technology comes to life via the HERE City Lens app
so you hold your phone up to see restaurants, cafes, shops and more overlaid onto the surfaces of the building's in your phone's camera display as virtual signs - and from there you're a tap away from contact info, opening hours and even reviews of the places, making discovering life's hidden treasures as natural as looking around.

And all of this is built on top of Microsoft's advanced mobile platform, Windows Phone 8. Combining constantly updating Live Tiles and the best of Microsoft on the go, there's very little you'll want for in the Nokia Lumia 925. Whether it's collaborated documents that live update as changes are made or an integrated chat client that makes all messaging slick and easy from wherever you are, you'll always be in contact and able to share the important moments that mateer.

The all-new Nokia Lumia 925: showing you more than your eyes can see.

Full-size HTC Windows 8 tablet reportedly scrapped due to low demand

HTC’s plans for a roughly 12-inch screen Windows RT tablet have reportedly been scrapped after being considered too much of a commercial risk.

Following a poor response to the first wave of Windows RT tablets, HTC has decided not to release a rival to Windows 8 tablets like the Windows RT-based Surface.

Bloomberg talked to an unnamed source “familiar with the matter”, who claimed that the tablet has been binned “because it cost too much and demand for RT machines has been weak.”

However, the same source also claims that a 7-inch Windows RT tablet is still on the cards.

If this smaller tablet arrives later this year, it will be among the first ‘small’ Windows 8 tablets, alongside the 8.1-inch Acer W3 – due for an official unveiling at the Computex show in Taiwan next week.

HTC Tablets
To date HTC has produced only one tablet that was released in the UK. 2011’s Android-based HTC Flyer was a 7-inch screen tablet that met with little public interest and poor sales.

The company’s second attempt will reportedly land in September or October, which is around the expected launch of the iPad 5 and iPad mini 2.

Windows RT
To date, the ‘official’ Windows RT tablet, the Surface RT, is estimated to have sold around 900,000 units, having launched in October 2012.

However, that the full Windows 8 Surface Pro has shifted 400,000 in under a month demonstrates how little demand there is for Windows RT tablets – validating HTC’s concerns.

Windows RT has been roundly criticised for being both severely limited and confusing. The OS looks just like full Windows 8, but does not let you freely install non-Marketplace Windows apps.

The State of HTC
The release of the HTC One Android phone has been interpreted by many as a return to form for HTC, whose position as a top Android phone maker has waned in recent years.

However, this is not clearly reflected in the company’s share price, which is roughly a quarter of what it was during the company’s all-time high point of April 2011.

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini gets hands-on vid, is it better than the S3 mini?

Three UK has posted a hands-on video of the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini, officially announced just yesterday by Samsung.

In the video Brendan Arndt, Device Portfolio Manager for Three UK, describes the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini as a device that brings the best features of the Samsung Galaxy S4 in a smaller package.

“Some of you have told me you don’t want to carry around a 5-inch phone because it’s simply too big” Brendan Arndt tells us in the video.


Watch the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini video here:

Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Specs

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen and is powered by a 1.7GHz dual-core processor with 1.5GB of RAM. The 8GB of internal storage can be bumped up by a further 64GB via microSD. It runs Google’s latest Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, and features the new TouchWiz UI functionalities including S Translator and S Health.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 mini features Sound and Shoot, Story Album, S Travel, Panorama Shot and other new photographic options showcased in the Samsung Galaxy S4 but comes with an 8 megapixel rear facing camera as opposed the S4’s 13 megapixel offering.

It is slightly taller than the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini, the phone it’s set to replace, but it smaller and lighter in all other aspects.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini will launch in White Frost and Black Mist colours but there no official release data has been announced.

Analysis: We weren’t particularly impressed with the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini but we will have to wait and see how the Galaxy S4 mini fares when we get our hands on it. It looks a little like a “tick the boxes” upgrade from its predecessor – 4G, slightly better screen resolution, slightly upgraded camera, CPU and battery.  It is a clear step up and the Galaxy S4 mini is a decent contender in the mid-range phone category but much will depend on its price. The S3 mini suffered not because of performance but because it was too pricey when compared to other similarly specced phones. We hope Samsung don’t trade on the Galaxy S4 name's desirability to put a premium price on the S4 mini.

HTC might update existing HTC One with stock Android

Hot on the heels of revealing the HTC One Google Edition, HTC has confirmed that it's looking into the possibility granting existing HTC One owners the ability to strip away the Sense UI and go pure Android.

An HTC representative has confirmed to The Verge that they are "examining the best way to support early adopters of the One."

The company had something similar to say to Pocket-lint, revealing that they were "taking a look at what, if anything, makes sense for early adopters of the One who want a stock Android experience."

Of course, this is far from confirmation that a switch to pure Android will be an option at some point for HTC One owners, but mentioning the very possibility is a big first step.

Precise details of how this might be facilitated weren't forthcoming, but as the HTC One's Sense UI is built on top of a reasonably current version of the Android OS, we'd have to imagine that it wouldn't be a major undertaking for HTC to flip the off switch.

The HTC One Google Edition will launch on June 26 at a price of $599 (£395) through the Google Play Store. It'll be the same stylish HTC One that we know and love, but with the likes of BlinkFeed and HTC Zoe peeled away in favour of a Google Nexus 4-like stock Android experience.

With a 1.7GHz quad-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 4.7-inch 1080p display, it should be one of the most capable Android devices around. It'll certainly be a match for the recently revealed Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition, which does a similar thing with Samsung's flagship smartphone.

Google Play Music All Access coming to iOS devices in 'couple of weeks'

Google's recently-launched Play Music All Access service will land on Apple's iOS devices very soon, a top company executive has revealed.


Sundar Pichai, Google's head of Chrome and Android, says the application will be arriving on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad "in a couple of weeks."

He told an audience at the D11 conference that "the teams are working like crazy" to complete work on the app in time for the summer launch

The All Access app for web and Android devices arrived at Google I/O earlier this month.

It combines Google Play's current MP3 store and cloud storage locker with a subscription streaming service, offering all tunes within the same library.

The app, which also has a powerful radio feature is available for $9.99 a month, but for those who sign up for the 30-day trial before June 30, the rate will be just $7.99 a month.

Sadly, if Google does release the iOS app within a couple of weeks, it's unlikely to benefit users in the UK, as the service is US-only at present.

The service is aimed at Spotify and other music streaming services and also has an eye on Apple's rumoured iRadio application.