Year on year, the numbers are even more dismal, with overall volumes stopping 22-percent. In the same period, net sales dropped 34-percent.

Nokia blames “lower operator and distributor demand for Lumia as well as our efforts to prepare the distribution channel for the upcoming sales start of new devices” for the drop in North America, while sales in China were down because of “competitive pressures” trampling on Symbian interest.

There’s frustration ahead for existing Lumia owners, however, with the news earlier this year that their hardware would not be compatible with the next version of Windows Phone. Instead, they’ll get Windows Phone 7.8, a UI refresh, but few of the underlying software improvements. How that might impact the warm, fuzzy feelings toward the Finnish firm by early-adopters remains to be seen.

All hopes are now on Nokia’s new Windows Phone 8 line-up, which currently consists of the Lumia 920 flagship and the Lumia 820 mainstream handset. Nokia is also focusing on wireless charging as a differentiator, though the company has been criticized for the relatively high prices of its charging accessories.

If you use the Nokia Lumia 900, 800, or 710, you’re in luck. These devices will have access to City Lens starting today. All you’ve got to do is follow the following directions to grab it quite quickly! You’ll be using your device’s camera to see a QR-code first and foremost – from there you’ll get the download and you’ll be on your way! Note that you do need an internet connection to grab this download, so make sure data or wifi are on!

1. Press the Search button on your Nokia Lumia and then tap Vision
2. Scan the barcode
3. Tap on the link when it appears on the screen
4. Install the application from the Windows Phone Marketplace

You could also, of course, just go straight to the Windows Phone Marketplace, but that’s not nearly as fun a process! Have a peek at our hands-on with City Lens through the eyes of the Nokia Lumia 920 here, and note that the final version for the 920 and the 820 will vary just a bit from the version you’re seeing for your 900, 800, or 710 today.

With Windows Phone 8 as it appears on the 920 and 820 you’ll find some features that only appear on Windows Phone 8 devices and above. With this version of City Lens, you’ll be able to pin to start any category tile. You’ll also be able to add your own favorite searches, and you’ll be able to use City Lens in both portrait and landscape modes. Check our timeline below for more City Lens action!

[via Nokia]

That takes a track or artist as its seed, and – in what Nokia calls “CREATE” – musters up a playlist of similar music. The generation engine uses a library of millions of songs, and there’s no advertising interspersed, as you’d get from a free Spotify or Pandora account.

Offline playback is supported – synchronizing playlists to your Lumia for when you’re without a data connection, such as when on a plane – and there’s Gig Finder functionality to flag up nearby live performances. Playlists can be pinned as a homescreen tile.

Owners of the Nokia Lumia 900 and Lumia 710 in the US can download Nokia Music from the Marketplace from today. Of course, we’re also waiting on Nokia’s new Windows Phone 8 range, expected to be revealed at an NYC event on Wednesday; check out our full rumor-roundup for all the details we know so far.

The tweet you see above comes from Nokia’s executive VP of sales and marketing, Chris Weber. This definitely isn’t the first time Nokia has taken pot shots at Samsung, or Android phone makers in general for that matter, as Nokia CEO Stephen Elop seems quite fond of doing just that. The only problem is that Android is far more popular than Windows Phone, so there’s a lot of catching up to do if Nokia wants to secure true bragging rights.

That isn’t to say that Nokia is crap and Samsung is the best ever. Nokia has something to be proud of in the Lumia 900, and with Microsoft offering developers plenty incentives with Windows 8, this team-up – which Nokia reiterated its commitment to yesterday – could actually go somewhere. Nokia is obviously confident in this next generation Lumia, and if Microsoft can deliver a worthwhile operating system in Windows Phone 8, then Nokia has every reason to be confident in the pairing.

Is Nokia about to become a rising star in the smartphone world? That’s hard to say. The company has fallen on hard times as of late, but with the Lumia line, we see it beginning to hit some of the right notes. Still, the immense success of Samsung devices like the Galaxy S III is going to be really hard to top, so if Nokia wants to truly top Samsung, it’ll have to work hard. Stay tuned, because this definitely isn’t the last time we’ll hear Nokia give a word of warning to Samsung.

“Our agreement with Microsoft includes platform support payments from Microsoft to us as well as software royalty payments from us to Microsoft. In the second quarter 2012, we received a quarterly platform support payment of USD 250 million (approximately EUR 196 million). Under the terms of the agreement governing the platform support payments, the amount of each quarterly platform support payment is USD 250 million. We have a competitive software royalty structure, which includes annual minimum software royalty commitments. Minimum software royalty commitments are paid quarterly. Over the life of the agreement, both the platform support payments and the minimum software royalty commitments are expected to measure in the billions of US dollars. The total amount of the platform support payments is expected to slightly exceed the total amount of the minimum software royalty commitments. In accordance with the contract terms, the platform support payments and annual minimum software royalty commitment payments continue for a corresponding period of time” Nokia

Nokia and Microsoft have always been coy on exactly how much is charged of each OEM to use Windows Phone devices, but the takeaway here is that right now it’s not costing Nokia anything to put the platform on its handsets. In fact, Microsoft is in effect subsidizing Nokia’s losses.

As for the immediate future, Windows Phone 8 won’t arrive soon enough to turn around Q3 2012. Nokia is predicting a similar batch of numbers to what it announced today, with Q3 expected to be roughly on a par with Q2′s performance give or take 4-percent.

What could make a difference is if Lumia Windows Phone sales continue to rise at the same pace. Nokia announced shipments of 2m handsets in Q1 2012, and 4m in Q2, so the platform is certainly going in the right direction; unfortunately for the company’s bottom line, that success was offset significantly by losses in all divisions – including NAVTEQ and other services – and the continued dwindling of interest in Symbian phones.

However, the fact that current Lumia handsets won’t get an upgrade to Windows Phone 8 may well scupper the rise in interest, if the mass market figures out that it’s buying into what amounts to a dead-end range. AT&T recently halved the price of the Lumia 900 to $49.99 on contract, though Nokia insists that doing so is standard market practice given where the device is in its lifespan.

Symbian continues to slide, meanwhile, blamed for much of Nokia’s issues. Symbian’s difficulties in penetrating the North American market to begin with meant it was the only region not particularly impacted by the OS’ decline. “All regions showed a significant year-on-year decline in the second quarter 2012 except for North America,” Nokia reported, “where the sharp decline in sales of Symbian devices was more than offset by sales of our Lumia devices.”

Meanwhile, year-on-year average smartphone selling price increased, thanks to Windows Phones being generally more expensive than their Symbian counterparts. ASP was €186 ($229) in Q2.

However, all is not good in Nokia’s gross margin: a “significant” year-on-year and sequential decline was down to “approximately €220 million of allowances related to excess component inventory, future purchase commitments and an inventory revaluation related to our Lumia, Symbian and MeeGo devices” the company says.

AT&T recently halved the price of the Lumia 900 in the US, now offering the smartphone for $49.99 on a new, two-year agreement. However, the handset will not be upgraded to Windows Phone 8, instead only getting the Windows Phone 7.8 halfway-house update.

Microsoft officially announced Windows Phone 8 last month, but at the same time confirmed that owners of existing devices wouldn’t get an upgrade to the new platform. Instead, they’d get a halfway house measure – Windows Phone 7.8 - with the same UI but none of the underlying advantages or, indeed, the commitment to future upgrades beyond that point.

That leaves the Lumia 900 as something of an evolutionary dead-end, a fact which may well have encouraged AT&T to halve the price of the smartphone. The Finnish company is unsurprisingly working on new WP8 Lumia devices, but they’re not expected until later in 2012.

Still, if you’re looking for a Windows Phone today and you’re unwilling to wait, the Lumia 900 is probably your best option. Check out our full review here, and then head over to see what you’ve got to come in our Windows Phone 7.8 preview.

Otherwise, this is the same phone we know and – with a few reservations – love. Up front is a 4.3-inch WVGA display, with a 1.4GHz single-core processor inside and an 8-megapixel cameron the back with 720p HD video recording. It’ll also come loaded with a number of exclusive apps, including Nokia Music and Nokia Drive, and the new camera functionality released as part of the Camera Extras pack.

Later this year, meanwhile, Microsoft will release Windows Phone 7.8 for the Lumia 900, bringing the refreshed Metro homescreen and some other aesthetic tweaks to the handset. What it won’t get is the true WP8 upgrade, like all other current-gen Windows Phones.

The pink (aka magenta) AT&T Nokia Lumia 900 will go on sale in the carrier’s stores from July 15. It’ll also be sold online.

Nokia is playing the full details as close to its chest as Bruce Wayne keeps his secret identity on the down-low, but this could be pure catnip to any Batman fan. The Lumia range gets an exclusive The Dark Knight Rises app, which comes with cast info, movie showtimes, trailers and more, as well as wallpapers and ringtones.

There’s also a location-based game, powered by Foursquare, which allows players to take the role of Batman or Bane and build up territory by checking into places, all with updates pushed to a Live Tile on the Windows Phone homescreen. It’s not clear whether those checkins will have any connection with the 3D Gotham map.

We don’t know when the 3D map will be released, but with The Dark Knight Rises set to hit theaters on July 20 that seems a reasonable time for Nokia to push it out.

Update: Now we’ve got some screenshots of the interface: looks like this is a desktop 3D mapping system rather than a phone app. Check out full-size shots in the gallery below.

The smart group feature allows you to take multiple shots of a group picture and then pick and choose the best faces for the final composite shot in case someone blinked, yawned, or didn’t smile. The action shot takes a burst of images for you to select the best from a list. The panorama feature guides you to take multiple shots that are then stitched together, while the self-timer lets the camera countdown from 10 seconds before taking a shot.

Although you download the Camera Extras bundle as an app, it actually is not a separate app. It will integrate the four new features directly in your Camera app so that features are there when you tap on the Settings menu. The bundle is available now for Lumia 900 owners in the US and China, with a global release set for July.

[via WinSuperSite]

The unlocked version of the Lumia 900 was released in Germany last week but was absent on T-Mobile. After customers queried the carrier, an employee responded by saying that the company won’t be offering the handset because it won’t receive an update to Apollo. T-Mobile believes that customers would be frustrated if a newly purchased handset would be left out on a future update.

The representative also confirmed that Apollo is due to be released in the fourth quarter of this year. A forum post wouldn’t normally be taken as concrete confirmation, but the::unwired believes that due to the strict nature of the German telecom industry, such information wouldn’t be posted unless it was thoroughly checked, confirmed, and authorized.

This latest piece of information comes after Microsoft developer Nuno Silva claimed that all current Windows Phone handsets would receive an update to Apollo later in the year. An anonymous Microsoft insider quickly denied the information, saying that phones would not be receiving the upgrade to “the next major version” of the OS.

UPDATE: the::unwired has been contacted by T-Mobile Germany with a response to the matter, saying that the forum post “isn’t an official statement from Deutsche Telekom” and that the company has “no information where the statement above came from.”

The app is exclusive to Lumia devices, and will net you four months worth of Voddler Plus, normally costing €7.90 per month. In addition to that, you’ll get two “Lumia tickets”, allowing you to create and coordinate a Movie Night with a friend. If you don’t want to pony up for the Plus service after that, you can always continue viewing the ad-supported movies for free.

Voddler is restricted to a few select European countries, though, including Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Spain. The company says that more market are on the way for 2012 though, so keep an eye out if this sounds like your kind of thing. The app should be sitting in the Windows Marketplace right now, waiting for those lucky enough to live in the selected countries.

[via Engadget]

Why the Lumia 900 and Windows Phone? The university relies heavily on Microsoft’s ecosystem right now, so David Middleton, Executive Director of the Center for Mobile Research and Innovation at Seton Hall, believes that Nokia’s smartphone makes the most sense. Most notably, the phone integrates with Office and has some key social features such as Social Hub. The university also wanted hardware that could take some abuse from students, and apparently the Lumia 900’s unibody polycarbonate is up to the task.

On top of the phone, new students will be provided with a SHUMobile app, which will provide access to campus maps in addition to news. Freshmen will be able to connect with existing students and roommates using the app at Freshmen orientation. The LTE network on campus isn’t up and running just yet, but AT&T is working hard to make sure it’ll be ready soon. When it is, students will get pre-paid access to AT&T and the LTE network during the first semester for free.

[via Nokia Conversations]

Besides fixing the screen hue problem, the update also improves the sensitivity of the Lumia 900′s proximity sensor. There are also other minor adjustments and enhancements, for which Nokia did not go into specifics. The update, however, is only for the Nokia Lumia 900 on AT&T’s network in the US.

Nokia recommends installing the update as soon as you can. To get the update, you’ll have to connect to a PC or Mac and use the Zune Desktop or Windows Phone 7 Connector software to download and install the update. For more details on the Lumia 900, be sure to check out our full review of the device.

[via Nokia]

Here’s a nice little bonus: even if you don’t want the Batman edition of the Lumia 900, the regular edition will come with a free pair of cinema tickets for The Dark Knight Rises when the film opens on July 20th. Not only that, but customers will be entered into a competition that would see them potentially scoring VIP tickets to the movie premiere in London.

The phone, meanwhile, will come with an exclusive Dark Knight Rises app, offering additional content such as wallpapers and ringtones, plus a “Claim Gotham City” challenge that sees you checking in at designated Foursquare locations to score points and unlock additional goodies.

Phones4u will be offering the limited edition of the phone for free on £31 a month contracts, or you can pick it up SIM free for £599.95. The phone will be available online and in stores, although with only 900 available, you’ll have to be quick.

Currently Phones4u has an exclusive on the Lumia 900 in the UK, and Pocket-Lint reports that the phone retailer will also stock The Dark Knight Rises edition of the phone. The Lumia 800 version came with custom wallpapers and Dark Knight tile on the homescreen. It hasn’t been confirmed if those extras will make it to the Lumia 900, but we would expect so.

Nokia hasn’t confirmed how many editions of the handset will be made, but it sounds like there won’t be too many. Everyone will have a chance to get their hands on one, but you’ll probably have to act quickly if you’re desperate. Otherwise the phone will be identical to the regular Lumia 900: a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED WVGA screen, 1.4Ghz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, 16GB of storage, eight megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, and HSPA+ up to 42Mbit/s.

 [Hint: check the file names to see the image resolution, flash status and other settings details; only three images have been cropped, the rest are as-is from the 808 itself. Photos from the Lumia 900 are all at 8-megapixel resolution]

In a sense, the 808 PureView is two different camera-phones. On the one hand, there’s the raw resolution of the sensor itself: 41-megapixels on paper, but, because Nokia opted to deliver true 4:3 and 16:9 without cropping the former for the latter, as other cameras usually do, actually delivering 38-megapixel 4:3 shots and 34-megapixel 16:9. There’s no zooming in this mode, the PureView team not allowing any interpolation anywhere near the phone.

Arguably the way Nokia expects the 808 PureView to be used, however, is in the dedicated PureView mode. There’s a full-auto option, which leaves the camera to its own devices and outputs roughly 5-megapixel frames, or the choice of manually setting it to deliver either 2-megapixel, 5-megapixel or 8-megapixel PureView images. At 5-megapixels, there are roughly seven pixels for each final pixel in the frame, meaning Nokia can use the best image data from each, and drop out any unexpected glitches (without a loss in end-picture quality), in a process it refers to as oversampling to create “superpixels.”

Nokia told us that it considered using a huge 5-megapixel sensor that would match the 41-megapixel chip in the 808 PureView for physical size, but it ran into aliasing issues. It would also lack the oversampling support, along with the ability to use those extra pixels for the 808 PureView’s other trick: a lossless digital zoom.

Anyone who knows about digital photography has learned to shy away from digital zooms, normally. They work by in effect cropping out and blowing up a section of the image, with a resulting loss of quality and generally an increase in noise. PureView, however, has pixels to spare in its 2- to 8-megapixel settings, and so it can use those extras to grab a full-resolution subset of the overall frame that’s both lossless and zoomed-in.

Nokia 808 PureView zoom comparison:

Lossless zooming and oversampling is a trade-off: the closer you dive into the image, the fewer spare pixels there are for oversampling. The higher resolution picture you’re trying to take, reduces the amount you can zoom, too: so, you can zoom the furthest into the frame when in 2-megapixel mode, a little less in 5-megapixel mode, and less again at 8-megapixels. As with interpolation being banned, so is any form of lossy-zooming, hence there being no option for it at maximum 38/34-megapixels settings.

Of course, the useful thing about PureView is that the zooming needn’t be when you’re taking the image: you can come back to it later and do some post-zooming instead. Panning through an existing shot and cropping out a section of it into a new frame is straightforward, meaning you could feasibly find several good images out of one original picture.

And you won’t struggle to find good images, either. We’ve been consistently amazed by the output from the 808 PureView today, with the phone being capable of some astonishingly good shots both at maximum resolution and at the lower resolutions too. Colors are rich and accurate; noise is incredibly low.

It’s fast, too: lower-res captures are pretty much instantaneous, and you can keep bashing away at 5-megapixel frames one after the other thanks to the dedicated imaging processor Nokia has used. Even 38-megapixel shots are surprisingly quick; there’s a little lag as the frame is saved, but the image itself is captured as soon as you press the button, so there’s none of the “when can I move the phone” uncertainty we’ve seen from laggy rivals.

Nokia asked us not to share samples of the 808 PureView’s video functionality yet, though it’ll shoot up to 1080p Full HD footage (with 4x lossless zoom), or alternatively 720p (with 6x lossless zoom) or 360p (with 12x lossless zoom). Video also gets a clever slide-zoom control, which means you can trigger a zoom from the touchscreen while filming that’s only actually completed when you take your fingers away: that means no hunting and overshooting as is often the way in cellphone video. Finally, there’s the all-important Xenon flash, twice as powerful as the Xenon in the old Nokia N8.

Sharing options are mixed. Nokia Belle now has Facebook and Twitter support pretty much baked-in, with the PureView team rebuilding the gallery app to add a quick “Share to Facebook” button directly to the image-view screen. A sharing menu, Android-style, can be used to upload to Flickr or other third-party services, assuming there’s an app for it in the download store.

The 808 PureView probably isn’t the phone for Instagrammers, though – if you’re going to slap retro filters on your shots, then you’re unlikely to need the Nokia’s superlative image quality – which offsets its relative paucity of “feature” camera apps. That’s something that could well change in the meantime, however; Nokia has already committed to opening up access to the PureView technology to third-party app developers, which means we could see more software that takes advantage of the pixel-packing sensor. Still, the skeptics among us still suspect we won’t see PureView-centric apps reach any sort of tipping point until the first Windows Phone based Lumia PureView models reach the market.

Nokia Lumia 900 sample images:

Exactly what the timescale for that to happen is unclear, with Nokia only saying it’s a case of “when” not “if” in the future. PureView is a brand, not a specific technology – three elements of a high-performance sensor, matching high-quality optics and proprietary Nokia processing, coming together in a single device – and so the eventual Lumia PureView devices are likely to offer a bigger compromise between bulk and photographic abilities. Again, Nokia isn’t giving details, but a lower-resolution sensor and ensuing reduction in lens-bulge is pretty much certain.

We’ve come away from our early playtime with the Nokia 808 PureView just as excited about the technology as we were when the company first sprung it on us at Mobile World Congress several months ago. It’s certainly unlike anything else in the phone-camera market, which has generally chased megapixels and only recently shown any sign of putting thought into the lenses and data-crunching those sensors are paired with. If ever a phone could encourage people to reconsider Symbian, the 808 PureView is probably it, too. We’ll save our full opinions for the SlashGear review, but until then enjoy our live photo galleries!

The engineers behind this short film, Mike Myers and Chris Ruble, spoke up with Nokia about why they decided to take a hammer and nails to their beloved Lumia. They let Nokia know that it was quite simple, really: they saw someone else do it first! What they saw was the Sonim Mobile Phone which is also notorious for getting smashed by insane bits of destructive material without sustaining damage. Have a peek at the Lumia 900 video first and see if it’s stressful enough for you to start with:

Next have a peek at their inspiration, a mobile phone from the Sonim brand of “unbreakable” devices. See if you can find the broken example in our archives as a stress test of your own! Have a peek here at how Sonim and Nokia are now battling it out for who has the best smartphone that doubles as a hammer:

Finally have a peek at our Nokia 900 archive. Reviews and hands-on galore! No more hammering though, sadly enough, you’ll have to buy your own if you want to see any more of that!

Currently Nokia is said to have around €4.9 billion (~$6.2 billion) in cash reserves, with analysts predicting that the company will lose €2 billion (~$2.54 billion) over the next several quarters. At that rate, Nokia would be out of cash reserve by the end of the year. One analsyt believes even short-term debts could be affected: “In our opinion, the company’s ability to repay even its shorter-term 2014 bond could be an issue.”

The company recognizes that cash flow is important, saying in a statement: “Nokia is implementing a decisive action plan to position our company for future growth and success. The main focus of these actions is on lowering the company’s costs, improving cash flow and maintaining a strong financial position.”

Nokia is hoping that its Windows Phone partnership will pay off in the United States. So far sales indciators have pointed at a mostly successful launch for the Lumia 900, although the response for the Lumia 800 in Europe has been somewhat tepid. The company was also recently knocked off the global phone sales spot by Samsung.

[via Reuters]

Previously, Siri was pulling the information down from Wolfram Alpha, which had determined that the Lumia 900 was the best smartphone by taking compiling average customer reviews. Apple does have control over Siri, but not the third parties that it pulls information from, including Wolfram Alpha and Google. It looks like that the specific question that triggered the search results has been tweaked though.

Nokia doesn’t seem to be amused, with a spokeperson saying: “Apple position Siri as the intelligent system that’s there to help, but clearly if they don’t like the answer, they override the software.” Still, Apple probably wasn’t too keen on letting Siri shine a light on a rival phone and operating system, so can you really blame them?

[via Sydney Morning Herald]

The irony is awesome, but of course the response is based on a quantified interpretation of the question. Siri computes the question as figuring out the “best mobile phones” and by default sorts that list by “customer review average.” At the present moment, the Lumia 900 happens to have a 5-star average customer rating. The exact location of this data remains largely unknown, but it does pull from Best Buy’s website as a background source.

And of course, since the Lumia 900 hasn’t been a commercial blockbuster, there are not as many customers to review it, meaning it’s much easier for that phone to get a 5-star average than something as incredibly well-selling as the iPhone 4S. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see the juxtaposition of Siri telling users that something other than the phone they’re currently using is the “best mobile phone.”

[via VentureBeat]

You’ll be able to pick the phone up in contract via Phones4u through O2, Vodafone, or Orange, with tariffs ranging from £20.50 to £46. If you want the phone for free, you’ll have to sign on to a £36 a month tariff, which seems a little pricey to us considering the HTC One X and Galaxy S III prices right now. You can drop down and get less minutes/texts, but you’ll be paying more upfront for the phone too.

The specs, in case you haven’t memorized them by now, include a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display with a WVGA resolution, 1.4Ghz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, eight megapixel camera, all wrapped up in a unibody polycarbonate shell running Windows Phone 7.5. The UK version features HSPA+ connectivity for speeds of up to 42Mbit/s, while the US variant has LTE onboard for AT&T’s network. Make sure to check out our review!

Once you fire up the app, you’ll see local restaurants, landmarks, hotels, and shops overlayed on top the live camera image, with the markers and information shifting in and out of view along with your movements. When you tap on an item, you’ll be taken to the relevant information which includes a description and reviews.

Nokia has also included a built in sharing function, so if you see something that takes your fancy you’ll be able to beam it over to friends using email or SMS. Want to play around with City Lens? Head over to the Nokia Beta Labs for the download link. Nokia will keep a track of feedback and update the app accordingly based on user suggestions and reviews.

[via Nokia Conversations]

Agrenti highlighted the numerous developer events that Nokia holds throughout the world, with 600 planned from the beginning of this year through to July. About 100 of those are for the United States, with some held by Nokia, and others being a joint venture between Microsoft and Nokia.

When asked how developers were being brought to the platform, Agrenti once again pointed back to the developer events, but also mentioned that the Lumia 900 has seen a strong response in the United States, thanks in part to the media campaign undertaken by AT&T and Nokia. However, when asked if Microsoft was really paying developers to build apps for the platform and if Nokia was involved, the question was deftly dodged.

Nokia has been struggling to keep a hold on the smartphone market thanks to Apple and Samsung, with the latter company recently overtaking Nokia in worldwide smartphone shipments. The Finnish smartphone manufacturer hopes its gambit with Windows Phone will pay off, and the push behind the Lumia 900 in the United States definitely indicates that the company is taking the situation seriously.

[via WMPoweruser]

Phones4u are offering the music accessories in part to apologize for the delay. The Lumia 900 has seen mild success in the United States so far, leading into an availability shortage which is having a knock-on effect, disrupting the UK launch. Phones4u say that they will be the first European retailer to offer the Lumia 900, however. Carphone Warehouse is expected to stock the handset at a later date, and UK carriers have yet to announce their own availability.

Those specs again in case you don’t have them memorized: 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack WVGA display, 1.4Ghz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, eight megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and 720p video recording. The UK model will offer HSPA+ connectivity instead of LTE, but will still come in the same gorgeous unibody polycarbonate chassis.

A Nokia spokesperson told V3 that “The overwhelming demand for the Lumia 900 in the US with AT&T has, unfortunately, had a small knock-on effect on product availability in the UK.” They went on to say that Phones4u would be stocking the phone from around May 14th onwards, with Carphone Warehouse also expected to sell the handset. No word on what carriers will be offering the phone.

The UK version of the Lumia 900 will almost be identical to the US variant, but will lack LTE connectivity, instead using HSPA+ to get on the information superhighway. Specs include a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack WVGA display, 1.4Ghz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, eight megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and 720p video recording, all wrapped up in a unibody polycarbonate shell.

If you’re thinking of picking up the Lumia 900 in the UK, make sure to check out our full review of the US version.

[via Engadget]

AT&T is said to have a 45-day exclusive on the Lumia 900, after which Nokia is free to shop the device to other carriers who would want it. According to WMPowerUser, upon asking his local T-Mobile rep if they would be carrying the Windows Phone, he was met with an affirmative. A store employee said that the “Lumia 900 will be coming to T-Mobile this summer.”

Granted, you should probably take this with your recommended daily allowance of salt, as store employees aren’t the most reliable source of information. But it wouldn’t be an unprecedented move: T-Mobile already offers the Nokia Lumia 710 on its network as an entry-level device. A previous rumor also suggested that Lumia 900 variants making their way to other carriers would feature a 12 megapixel camera as an added bonus.

Again, this might turn out to be a red herring, but Nokia need all the carriers they can get. While the Lumia 900 launch on AT&T has seemingly been strong, Nokia and Microsoft need as much coverage as they can possibly get to achieve success in a fiercely competitive market.

Your first option is to download Zune software for your computer and update your device on your own – once you’ve got the software, you’ve only to connect your Lumia 900 to your computer and Zune will pop up with a fix for you right away. To get Zune for your computer, head to one of the following links:

• Click here to get Zune for your PC
• Click here to get Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac

You also have the option of physically getting up and heading to your local AT&T store to switch it out for a brand new unit. You can do this from now until the 21st of April. For those of you following along with this issue from the start, you know that AT&T and Nokia agreed to put the Lumia 900 on sale with a $100 credit on the phone, effectively making it free (in a sense.) This $100 credit offer will remain in effect through Midnight PST on the 21st of April as well.

Don’t forget to take a peek at our full Nokia Lumia 900 review and check the timeline below to get all the most recent Lumia 900 news and updates!

Featured: We continue our coverage of Instagram and analyzing the site that became a billion-dollar megastar in the social world in a matter of months. Time time, we look at Four alternatives to Instagram. What is it that makes Instagram so amazingly appealing? Can anyone else do what it does? If the answer is yes, would Facebook really have paid $1 billion for it? Nevertheless, it’s not wholly unique.

Lumia, Military iPhones, & Retina Shortage: So in wrapping up the other big tech stories of today, IHS reveals Lumia 900′s iPhone roots. Moving to another mobile platform, AT&T has begun unlocking iPhones for military personnel. And wrapping it up with more iNews, the new iPad is experiencing shipping backlogs due to a Retina Display shortage. Well that’s about it for today, folks. Be sure to keep it tuned right here for the latest news and reviews.

As the iPhone, the iPad, and every other software-running Apple product’s sales and profit margin can attest, it’s a great day when you can get your product’s whole team together to keep the price of the device low before selling it. IHS noted that they also tore down a Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, and Android device with very similar components, and found the bill of materials to be $263, slightly higher than that of the Lumia 900. Its retail price, on the other hand, is $100 higher than the Lumia 900 placing it in a bit of an awkward position according to this study.

This combination may be Nokia’s effort to turn around what they’ve reported today in their earnings call which was less than stellar. For more information on that, have a look at Chris Davies’ article Bad Luck Nokia; your next billion is saying no thanks. Also note that the Lumia is as of this morning free on contract with AT&T.

As IHS noted on the subject,

“With the Lumia 900, Nokia, Microsoft and Qualcomm have taken a page from Apple Inc.’s playbook by closely tying together the hardware and software to produce a full-featured smartphone that is based on relatively inexpensive electronic components.” – Andrew Rassweiler, IHS

Rassweiler is the senior principal analysts of teardown services at IHS, a person certainly in a good place to continue to analyze such a situation with the following:

“For the Lumia 900, Nokia and Microsoft worked in close partnership with Qualcomm to develop and optimize the software stack in order to take full advantage of the hardware. But while Apple capitalizes on its low hardware costs to attain industry-leading margins, Nokia is using this approach to offer an inexpensive phone intended to compete on the basis of price.” – Rassweiler

Now we’ve got to see how they do in this realm with not only a relatively low off-contract price, but a 2-year contract price on AT&T here in the USA of Free. Will the Lumia break Nokia’s recent months of harsh luck? Perhaps they’ll not exactly have Apple’s charm exactly, at least not yet, but we’ll see!

[via IHS]

Nokia’s mobile phone division – which makes basic dumbphones – has always been the volume side of the company’s business, versus the “smart devices” team pushing out smartphones. In Q1 2012, Nokia apparently sold 71m mobile phones and 12m smart devices; of that 12m, around 2m were Lumia Windows Phones, the remainder running Symbian of one version or another.

The company blamed “competitive industry dynamics … particularly in India, the Middle East and Africa and China” for the slump in sales, though that shouldn’t have come as too great a surprise. Nokia warned that the so-called developing markets it had counted on for steady turnover was declining faster than expected back in January.

“Changing market conditions are putting increased pressure on Symbian” Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said at the time, highlighting that in “certain markets, there has been an acceleration of the anticipated trend towards lower-priced smartphones with specifications that are different from Symbian’s traditional strengths.”

The painful lesson is that while the “Next Billion” may be one of Nokia’s primary targets, owning a Nokia device no longer appears to be an aspiration for that audience. That’s a big rug pulled out from under the company’s collective feet: smartphone gross margins continue to tumble, down from 19.9-percent in the previous quarter to 16-percent in this one. In fact, what appears to be aggressive discounting so as to drive Windows Phone sales has pushed the average selling price of each handset to just €220 ($289) apiece, considerably lower than the €270 list price of the Lumia 710 (that, for the period in question, was the cheapest Windows Phone Nokia offered).

Sometimes playing underdog works in Nokia’s favor. The company’s response to the AT&T Lumia 900 data bug – crediting customers $100 as well as in effect dropping the price of the handset to free until April 21 – was admirably swift. However it also gives Nokia an excuse for slashing its prices to drive adoption: further short-term price cuts to the Lumia 900 seemed inevitable, especially as AT&T reacted to third-party retailers further discounting the phone. Now, rather than facing criticism that it has been forced to make the phone cheaper because of mediocre sales, Nokia could instead portray keeping the Lumia 900 at free-on-contract as a generous continuation of its prompt apology.

Good vibes don’t keep stockholders satisfied, however, and Nokia’s share price is down around 15-percent after its bad news this morning. The short-term outlook seems equally grim; Nokia’s position in the phone ranking charts is only likely to slump before there’s any sign of a turnaround. Nokia hasn’t failed with its Lumia line-up, but it needs to accelerate into 2012 if it’s to balance out the dwindling appeal of its cheaper devices.

“Our disappointing Devices & Services first quarter 2012 financial results and outlook for the second quarter 2012 illustrates that our Devices & Services business continues to be in the midst of transition,” CEO Stephen Elop said in a statement today. “Within our Smart Devices business unit, we have established early momentum with Lumia, and we are increasing our investments in Lumia to achieve market success. Our operator and distributor partners are providing solid support for Windows Phone as a third ecosystem, as evidenced most recently by the launch of the Lumia 900 by AT&T in the United States.”

Overall, devices and services net sales are expected in the region of €4.2bn ($5.52bn), with smartphones – not limited to Windows Phones – comprising €1.7bn ($2.2bn) of that, at 12 million units. Average selling price for a Lumia Windows Phone was €220 ($289), and Nokia says it has “ seen sequential growth in Lumia device activations every month since starting sales of Lumia devices in November 2011.”

Still, the company isn’t leaving anything to chance. Nokia is apparently pumping more money into Lumia, so as to broaden the number of markets in which its Windows Phones are available, while tweaking pricing lower for its dumbphones for the “Next Billion” segment; it will also accelerate new dumbphones in Q2 2012.

“We are continuing to increase the clock speed of the company,” Elop insists. “The change is tangible, and we are proud of the way Nokia employees are quickly responding to the needs of consumers and partners.” Full Q1 2012 results will be revealed on April 19.

AT&T had already impressed with its $99.99 price tag for the Lumia, undercutting Android-powered rival flagships and pitting the Windows Phone 7 device directly against the iPhone 4. Although neither the carrier nor Nokia has revealed sales figures, the 900 has already grabbed the top sales spots with at least one big-name online retailer.

However, a connectivity bug was reported soon after the handset’s release, with the Windows Phone dropping its data connection unexpectedly. “In short, a memory management issue was discovered that could, in some cases, lead to loss of data connectivity” Nokia now says. “This issue is purely in the phone software, and is not related to either phone hardware or the network itself.”

Existing owners will be able to update their phone’s software via the Zune desktop PC app – with the upgrade expected on or around Monday, April 16 – or simply swap their current handset for a new, already updated Lumia in-store.

“At $99.99 at AT&T, we think the Lumia 900 is already a fantastic deal” Nokia argues. “And now, it’s unbeatable.” More on the phone in our full review.

On Monday, the black Lumia 900 was at position 119 in the broader “Cell Phones & Accessories” category, with the cyan model following behind at 214. Unlike the “Cell Phones with Service” category, which solely includes new phones on agreements, this category throws in far cheaper accessories such as cases, chargers and cables, and is considerably tougher for a phone to make an impact on.

As of today, however, the black Lumia 900 has moved up to 30th in the list, with its cyan counterpart at 77. The third most popular device, Motorola’s DROID RAZR MAXX, is at 198, meanwhile.

Neither AT&T nor Nokia have announced any official sales figures so far, though the carrier is believed to have spent in the region of $150m for its Lumia 900 promotional campaign. Analysts predicted underwhelming demand but it looks as though that may not necessarily be the case.

More on the AT&T Nokia Lumia 900 in our full review.

In fact, the retailer already has the exclusive on Nokia’s white Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, making it pretty much the place to go if you want a pale version of the Finn’s phones. Pre-order customers will also get a free Nokia Play 360° wireless speaker.

As in the US, the UK version of the Lumia 900 will have an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus, an LED flash and 720p HD video recording, along with a front-facing webcam and 1.4GHz single-core processor. However, since there’s no commercial LTE network to make use of the US model’s 4G, it will make do with DC-HSDPA instead.

Although Windows Phone is still far behind its Android and iOS rivals in terms of market share, the Lumia 900 is a solid device and the OS is straightforward to use. More details in our full Lumia 900 review.

Featured: We delve deep into Facebook’s massive acquisition today in a column entitled Facebook’s Instagram buy is a $1bn mobile landgrab. Elsewhere in our featured article repertoire today, we have a Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 hands-on and unboxing. And finally, are you one of the countless people who are mesmerized by Google’s augmented reality glasses? Then check this out – From cyborgs to Project Glass: the augmented reality story.

Xbox Netflix, Gaming Legend, & NYC: News for streaming video fans who own an Xbox 360 – Netflix Xbox 360 update adds zoom options and Facebook integration. Unfortunately, not all gaming news is good news, and today we reported that Commodore founder and computer legend Jack Tramiel passed away. Things have certainly come a long way since Tramiel’s day. Heck, we don’t even need phone booths anymore. In fact, New York City is coming up with a creative way to bring those public booths to a new era.

Although AT&T picked the odd day of Easter Sunday for the official launch date, we are already starting to see bits and pieces of this new ad campaign with the Lumia 900 lighting up the streets of NYC this weekend, and surely there will be more to come. Not to mention AT&T’s hints that it would be their biggest launch ever.

With 4G LTE and an awesome $99 price tag the Lumia 900 has the best chance to make it big for Windows Phone. The question still remains – will this sell over the iPhone 4 now that its price has been dropped? See our head-to-head comparison below. If you haven’t checked out our full review we’d highly suggest you do so right here because the Lumia 900 is definetaly a great smartphone.

[via Venture Beat]

That could well be down to pricing, given AT&T has been more ambitious than usual with this new Windows Phone. The official list price – with two-year agreement – is $99.99, though online the Lumia 900 can readily be found for $49.99.

Third place is brought up by the Android-based Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX, meanwhile. The gap in sales isn’t specified, but it’s worth noting that in the broader “Cell Phones & Accessories” category the RAZR MAXX is at 278 while the black and cyan Lumia are at 119 and 214 respectively.

However, there have been reports of some teething pains for new Lumia 900 owners, with issues connecting to 4G LTE. AT&T is supposedly aware of the issue and a fix is in the pipeline.

Your money – along with the commitment to a voice and 4G data plan – gets you a 4.3-inch display, 8-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, and Nokia’s slinky polycarbonate casing. It also leaves you with WVGA resolution and relatively mediocre 720p HD video recording.

The price pits the Lumia 900 against one of AT&T’s best-sellers, Apple’s iPhone 4, also $99.99 since the arrival of its iPhone 4S successor. That’s a strong device to challenge; check out our full head-to-head comparison for the pros and cons of each smartphone.

Of course, since it’s Easter Sunday, the store nearest you may not be open. You can find your nearest Microsoft Store – and check its opening hours – here, while the AT&T store-finder is here. Alternatively, you can stay home and order online here.

Over 5,000 hours of work apparently went into the video effects, with a team of CGI specialists slaving solidly for three weeks to produce enough content for the nine screens Nokia commandeered. A temporary server brought in to sync all that video was wired up with eight miles of cable spread over four square blocks, Nokia says.

As for the music, Minaj performed a live remix of Starships by DJ and producer Doorly, on a specially constructed stage. Nokia hadn’t actually told the crowd who was performing, keeping full details a secret and only promising a suitably eye-catching spectacle.

The Nokia Lumia 900 itself will hit AT&T shelves tomorrow, April 8, priced at $99.99 with a new, two-year agreement. For all the details as to whether the Windows Phone holds up to the light show, check out our full Lumia 900 review.